Piano News

By Carsten Dürrer

Piano News Quarterly

03/2019

Interpretation 6/6

Sound quality 6/6

Repertoire value 5/6

Höreindruck

The Korean Pianist Hie-Yon Choi won awards for her Beethoven Sonata Cycle in her home country. No wonder, she studied with Klaus Hellwig in Berlin, with Hans Leygraf in Salzburg and with György Sebök in Indiana. Thus she, so to speak, grew up with the classic and romantic repertoires. Now she presents here a recording with four better known Sonatas by Beethoven. And already from the beginning of Op. 31 No. 3 you realize: Choi is more than just at home with the linguistic ductus of this music. She understands this music, reconstruct it and by doing so she can form lots of details to a big entirety. – the biggest challenge for Sonatas. She can subtly untangle Beethoven’s linear work, the deliberate confusion in elaboration of theme for the listener, fill them with life, let them become comprehensible. At the same time her way of playing is connected with magnificent sense of sound, never exaggerate the tempos, (marvelous pacing in Op. 90, the 2nd mvt.!) the dynamic, even the hard accents and eruptions sound mellifluous, without losing their meanings. In op. 81a she traces the pain of statement so convincingly that one could understand the emotions which is transformed in this music. And also, the Op. 109 which is hardly leading to comprehensible flow, she succeeds excellent! What a shame that this CD is released only at Decca Korea.