Nikolai Kapustin - Yeol Eum Son plays Kapustin

Information

Composer: Nikolai Kapustin

• Eight Concert Études, Op. 40
• Variations, Op. 41
• Moon Rainbow, Op. 161
• Sonatina, Op. 100
• Piano Sonata No. 2 in E major, Op. 54

Yeol Eum Son, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Onyx Classics

https://onyxclassics.com/release/kapustin/

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Review

Yeol Eum Son (b1986) is a South Korean pianist who first came to public attention when she won the Silver Medal at the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition and awards for both the best chamber performance and best performance of the commissioned work. For the second round, she included Kapustin’s Variations, Op 41, probably the first person to have played any of the Russian’s music at this competition.

You have to be a certain kind of pianist to play this remarkable music and Yeol Eum Son is one of them. First, you need a phenomenal finger technique, then lightning reflexes, rock-solid rhythmic control and, I imagine, supernatural sight-reading skills. This is not music for the amateur with a few idle moments to spare at the weekend. Try the dizzying Eight Concert Études from 1984, where Oscar Peterson meets Poulenc meets Earl Wild meets Gershwin and Ravel. Kapustin’s assimilation of these influences into a convincing and unique voice makes for an exhilarating, foot-tapping listen.

The Variations (also from 1984) are no less reliant on jazz and torrents of rapid semiquavers that demand the cleanest and clearest of articulation and phrasing (which they duly receive). Moon Rainbow (6'50"), said to be Kapustin’s last opus (161), is the least virtuoso work here but the brief Sonatina (from 2000) and, especially, the Sonata No 2 (from 1989) fizz with life-affirming vitality, the latter’s first movement taking in Erroll Garner and boogie-woogie, the perpetuum mobile finale Art Tatum’s pounding left-hand stride piano with a brain-frying time signature of C 7/8 C 5/8. Yeol Eum Son negotiates everything thrown at her with athletic finesse.

And I would have ended my review there, warmly recommending this recording – which I do – had I not already got on my shelf Marc-André Hamelin playing the Eight Concert Études and Variations, and Steven Osborne playing the Sonata No 2. Both are also Kapustin-dedicated releases (on Hyperion) which, in the last resort, have the edge on the remarkable Yeol Eum Son because of the nonchalant derring-do and lightness of touch they bring to their task. This notwithstanding, Nikolai Kapustin died in July last year and Yeol Eum Son dedicates the recording to him ‘as a heartfelt farewell and deepest thanks for all the great music he left us’. It is a worthy tribute.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 10

https://www.allmusic.com/album/kapustin-mw0003549774

https://www.amazon.com/Kapustin-Yeol-Eum-Son/dp/B095D4QHRP

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Nikolai Kapustin (22 November 1937 – 2 July 2020) was a Russian composer and pianist. Kapustin studied piano with Avrelian Rubakh (pupil of Felix Blumenfeld who also taught Simon Barere and Vladimir Horowitz) and subsequently with Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory. Kapustin was steeped in both the traditions of classical virtuoso pianism and improvisational jazz. He fused these influences in his compositions, using jazz idioms in formal classical structures. Among his works are 20 piano sonatas, 6 piano concerti, sets of piano variations, études and concert studies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kapustin
https://www.nikolai-kapustin.info/

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Yeol Eum Son (손열음; born May 2, 1986, in Wonju) is a South Korean classical pianist. She studied with pianist Kim Dae-jin before attending the Korea National University of Arts at the age of 16. In 2006, she began studying with Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik und Theatre in Hannover, Germany, where she currently resides. Her awards include Silver Medals at both the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition and the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition. Son is particularly esteemed as an expert interpreter of the Classical era composers, and regularly performs as soloist with prominent orchestras and conductors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeol_Eum_Son

http://www.yeoleumson.com/

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