James Kim and Jinhee Park

Juilliard's 188th Sonatenabend at Paul Hall

 

Last night it was impossible not to attend the Juilliard’s 188th Sonatenabend. After Poulenc’s sonata for clarinet and piano, a vaudeville of cello sonatas commenced, with one immaculate performance following another: Beethoven’s cello variations on Mozart, Prokofiev’s sonata in C major and Schuman’s crazy “Pieces in Folk Style.” The unexpected finale was the Chopin Polonaise Brillante for cello and piano which was played by the prodigiously talented young cellist James Jeonghwan Kim and the equally brilliant pianist Jinhee Park. As usual with those two, their performance was followed by a stunned silence before the audience went wild, screaming, stamping, whistling and howling. The performers themselves seemed quite pleased to have driven the crowd mad, so we all went home happy.

Watch James Jeonghwan Kim play Rostropovich's Humoresque Op. 5, with Ji Won Ahn (piano):

Mark Rothko

www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/12835/dark-palett

Dark Palette, Mark Rothko at Pace Gallery

 

I have often wondered what it would be like to be surrounded by Rothkos. In theory, I could have had the experience at the Four Seasons Restaurant and now it is too late, Pace Gallery's exhibition of Rothko’s Dark Palette works gave me all that and more. What it is like is, like walking into a Lenticular world, in permanent motion, where everything is not as it seems. Any gesture, mental or physical, towards or away from an object produces a shift in reality, so you end up standing still and staring because that is all you can do without falling over. Eventually hypnosis takes control and you succumb to Rothko’s determination to take you into the mind’s eye, and thus to the troubled soul and it is anyone’s guess as to how to emerge from this state.