Sonatenabend at the Juilliard School
You never know who's going to be playing at the weekly Juilliard sonata
recitals but I always hope to see the astounding cellist James Jeonghwan
Kim whose fan club I am. Last night, after Chelsea Starbuck Smith
polished off the Alfred Schnittke Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano
wearing crenellated witches britches and cowboy boots, Jim Kim (as he
likes to be known) appeared like the fulfillment of a dying wish and
committed all of us for life to his account of Shostakovich's four
movement Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor. I last heard this played
by Rostropovich 20 years ago during a blizzard in Chicago. Afterwards,
because of the weather, almost no one stayed for the Q and A so a few of
us got to chat with Rostropovich about rehearsing this piece in Moscow
with Shotakovich himself. I'd say Jim Kim played it just as well, but
then as Jorges, at the Flame Diner, said afterwards, "He is probably
already past his prime. One day they come in with a cello, the next day
with children and it is all over for them."
Watch James Jeonghwan Kim and Jin Hee Park play Schubert's
Arpeggione Sonata, D 821:
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