Yesse Kim: Duo Recital

Throughout the past two full days of PianoArts competition, I saw contestants repeatedly liken their programs to full-course meals; one piece would be an appetizer, another an entree, and particularly cheeky contestants would speak of chocolate cake or ice cream when describing their final piece. In that gastronomical spirit, Yesse Kim's opening piece--one of Claude Debussy's piano etudes--was like a Mexican jumping bean. Debussy picked a simple theme and played with it a dozen different ways, never staying in one place for more than a few moments. Kim took this sprightly idea and ran with it; a hop, skip and a jump across the keyboard and the piece was over almost before it started.

Paired with violinist Jennifer Startt for Brahms's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, Kim appeared quite comfortable taking the lead here. I didn't find her pushy, but she was definitely taking charge of the Brahms in a way I hadn't seen before. It seems like there's a temptation to submerge your sound in a duo, to be more subdued and focus less on flash and more on the basics of the piece. Kim appeared to carry out this idea; hers and Startt's was a very solid, meat-and-potatoes kind of collaboration.

Closing out Kim's program was a piece that would become very familiar to me over the next few hours, Robert Schumann's Concerto in A Minor, first movement: Allegro affettuoso. Kim talked abut how Schumann wrote that first movement as a fantasy, and demonstrated for the audience how the name Clara, Schumann's eventual wife, was inserted into the piece. I have to say, she threw in some really cute descriptions of Robert and Clara Schumann, as well as how those descriptions manifested in the piece (which apparently was all about Clara).

Combining with resident MSO pianist Wilanna Kalkhof, Kim put together a strong but touching rendition of the piece. She and Kalkhof seemed to communicate pretty well, needing only little nods and glances every now and again to stay in sync. This was true even during the parts of the piece where the two pianos get in an argument--it's not the easiest thing to orchestrate disorder convincingly! The piece almost seemed to work best in that argumentative format, as Kim played off of her "orchestra" quite well.