It may risk the charge of self-aggrandisement, but the title Wimbledon International Music Festival does exactly what it says. In the last couple of days it has featured a Pole, two Indians, two Germans and five Dutchmen.
Last night the Korean pianist Sunwook Kim, a previous Leeds Competition winner, began his recital with a muscular yet sensitively nuanced account of Bach’s English Suite No. 2 in A minor. This was Bach playing that was unashamedly pianistic but always stylish.
Beethoven’s penultimate sonata, Op. 110 in A flat, inspired some deeply expressive musicianship. If the fugal theme was sometimes knocked out with excessive vigour, the overarching trajectory was nevertheless persuasive.
Beethoven’s final sonata, Op. 111 in C minor, displayed a yet greater contrast between superbly controlled inward music and testosterone-fuelled declamatory passages. This kind of virility, and the clamorous tone that goes with it, are a matter of taste. Personally I found it easier to succumb to the exquisitely phrased slow movement and the ecstatic trills of the coda.
I don’t doubt we’ll be hearing a lot more of Sunwook Kim.
Festival continues to November 24 (wimbledonmusicfestival.co.uk, 0333 666 3366)
