On Saturday, 24 August, the Korean radio orchestra KBS Symphony Orchestra with its musical director - Finnish conductor and violinist Pietari Inkinen - came to Brno's Špilberk Festival with an exclusively romantic repertoire. The invitation was also accepted by South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim, a graduate of the prestigious Julliard School.
This was not the first visit to Brno by the Korean ensemble, which gave a concert here in 2018 and, besides its love of music, is also linked to the Moravian capital, or rather directly to the Brno Philharmonic, by the year in which it was founded (1956). This interesting fact was mentioned by Korean Ambassador Youngki Hong and Philharmonic Director Marie Kučerová in their speech before the concert in the courtyard of Brno’s castle.
The evening began with the concert overture Carnival by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), composed at the turn of 1891 and 1892. Originally, the composition was part of a cycle of three programmatic overtures that Dvořák wished to perform together in the manner of Smetana's My Fatherland. The composer eventually abandoned the idea and made the individual parts independent of one another. The exuberant, cheerful Carnival, with its cantilena middle section, is written as a sonata. Pietari Inkinen chose a pleasantly brisk but unhurried tempo, giving the listener enough space to hear the individual sections of the orchestra and make out the overlapping theme. The orchestra's tempo transitions were also clear and clean. The first violin, oboe, clarinet and English horn solos can be described as sensitive, intonationally precise and soft in tone. My only criticism would be about the mixing desk, with the strings excessively overdubbed by the brass and percussion section. In the most technically demanding parts, the strings played in perfect unison, homogeneous and rhythmically tight, yet due to the sound (dynamic) imbalance exacerbated by the sound system, their playing was somewhat drowned out.
After a brief intermission, during which some members of the orchestra left and the others re-tuned their instruments, the audience welcomed soloist Bomsori Kim to the stage to great applause. She had prepared one of the standard romantic violin repertoire pieces for the evening: Bruch's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in G minor. The original version of the piece was premièred on 24 April 1866, when violinist Otto von Königlow took on the solo part conducted by the composer himself, Max Bruch (1838-1920). The composer reworked this piece into its present form with the help of world-famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who helped him revise certain parts of the score. The first movement of Vorspiel. Allegro moderato begins with an underlying violin theme, the motif of which then varies. At first, Bomsori Kim's delivery seemed distant, with not much right-hand pressure on the bow and a rather lightly-sung melody. She soon showed her customary drive and energy, however. In the two-handed passages, scale runs and arpeggios, Bomsori demonstrated the world-class quality of her playing through her insight, ease and incredibly precise intonation (even in the big leaps), which she maintained throughout the performance of the three-movement concerto. Minor intonational or rhythmic inaccuracies in syncopation and dotted rhythm could be noted between the wind and string sections. However, these were minor trivialities that did nothing to disrupt the rest of the song.
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) composed his four-movement Symphony No.2 in D major at a time of Russian oppression towards the manifestations and tendencies of Finnish culture at the beginning of the 20th century. As with Max Bruch, the première of Sibelius's symphony, held on 8 March 1902, was performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society and conducted by the composer himself. During the festival concert, the audience were able to enjoy this work as staged by his compatriot Inkinen, who dominated the orchestra's sense of colour - primarily in the lower string and brass sections. The veiled introduction, using a split bow to give the effect of ripples, with the winds adding the theme, was complemented in timbre and character by a precise unified pizzicato - again performed most impressively by the KBS Symphony Orchestra.
The musicians played the solo parts tastefully throughout the symphony, also in a style that suited the individual movements, and above all with great technical precision. Sibelius demonstrates this dark, depressive mood in both opposites - long, interminable passages, but also predatory, fast movements that alternate in places on the cut-break principle. In addition to the elaborate phrasing and dynamics, it’s certainly worth noting the moments in which the double bassists applied more force and pressure with the bow, achieving a more raw, harder, almost percussive sound. When the sharp, bright trumpets joined the double bass parts played like this, it was a majestic and very rich conclusion to Sibelius' second symphony. Last but not least, we should appreciate the grace and respect shown by conductor Pietari Inkinen in his approach to the work, conducting the entire - almost fifty-minute - piece by heart.
The romantic repertoire performed by the Korean Symphony Orchestra and violinist Bomsori Kim took on an airy, light, deliberate quality, while the performances of the overseas musicians retained a world-class fundamental sophistication in terms of harmony, technique, and expression. No wonder, then, that the visiting musicians received a standing ovation and the audience cheered the encore - Slavonic Dance No. 8, Op. 46, by Antonín Dvořák, as the culmination of a concert of music from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Programme
Antonín Dvořák - Carnival, concert overture, Op. 92
Max Bruch - Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26
Jean Sibelius - Symphony No.2 in D major, Op. 43
Bomsori Kim - violin
KBS Symphony Orchestra
Pietari Inkinen - conductor
Saturday, 24 August 2024 at 8 p.m., Špilberk Castle courtyard
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