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20 years together
Philadelphia concertmaster at Great Gorge
Sunday, October 8, 2006
By Paul M. Somers
Chamber Music at Great Gorge: David Kim (violin), Gail Niwa (piano). Stravinsky: Suite italienne from “Pulcinella;” Saint-Saëns: Sonata in D minor, op. 75; Tchaikovsky: Dumka - Russian Rustic Scene, op. 59, Serenade Melancolique, op. 26; Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy. St. Francis de Sales, Vernon.
There is simply nothing which will leave an audience, already predisposed by a fine recital, more willing to applaud and cheer until they have raw hands and sore throats than Pablo de Sarasate’s outrageous Carmen Fantasy. David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his longtime pianist Gail Niwa, director of Chamber Music at Great Gorge, certainly proved that once again. When the duo finished, the audience gave them a standing ovation which was mentally in preparation before the piece was over.
What led to this — other than the Sarasate itself — was a program of great balance and variety.
The tight ensemble of the pair, so vividly on display in the Saint-Saëns D minor sonata, was a product of the history the two players have together. This concert celebrated the duo’s 20 year partnership. As told by the two of them during the concert, both Kim and Peter Winograd were playing in the Tchaikovsky Competition back in the 1980s, and Ms. Niwa was asked to accompany them. It was something as “simple” as that that threw them together. Niwa still makes music with Winograd as well, as witnessed in the final concert of last season.
Ridge Light’s soloists and ensemble presented excerpts from Friml’s Vagabond But this partnership with Kim has obviously proven to be special. The virtuosity of the Saint-Saëns showed the two at their most equal. If there was one passage that demonstrated the essence of their shared music, it was the astonishing unison and octaves passage at warp speed near the end of the sonata. Of course there was a standing ovation to close the first half!
The concert began with the violin and piano version of some of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella music. It is much more “modernist” than the orchestral version. The playing was transparent and precise. Stravinsky as a humorist was allowed full display.
The final Sarasate blowout was set up by preceding it with two brooding Tchaikovsky pieces, one of them even most appropriately labeled melancolique. Played with a deep sense of romantic beauty and rising to effective climaxes, they were still the antithesis of Sarasate’s barn-burner. So the Carmen Fantasy was all the more effective because it blasted away droopy music.
But the applause was for more than even the virtuosity; it was also to help celebrate Kim’s and Niwa’s quite evidently most productive 20 years together. may they share another 20!