Violinist opens chamber series with terrific performance

By Edward Reichel

Three years ago, Yoonshin Song was in Salt Lake City at the inaugural Stradivarius International Violin Competition, where she won first prize.

Wednesday, she returned to Utah for the first time since taking top honors at the competition to help open the Utah Symphony's chamber orchestra series at this year's Deer Valley Music Festival.

With associate conductor David Cho on the podium, the Korean born violinist played Sergei Prokofiev's Concerto No. 1 in D major, op. 19.

As she had at the competition in 2007, Song showed once again she is a wonderfully talented violinist. She has matured noticeably since then and her sound and technique go well beyond her years. With any luck Song should have a promising career ahead of her.

The First Violin Concerto is one of Prokofiev's most lyrical works. It's also rather unusual in its format, starting and ending as it does with a slow movement separated by a lightning fast scherzo.

That gives the soloist ample opportunity to display her expressive side. And the Korean-born violinist certainly made the most of it. She brought remarkable sensitivity to her readings of the outer movements. Her playing was tinged with finely crafted expressions and she gleaned a great deal from these movements. The music is very detailed, and Song brought nuance to her interpretation.

The rapid fire scherzo allowed Song to put her excellent technique on display, and she made short work of the intricacies of this movement.

Cho offered good support to the soloist and the orchestra gave the best performance of the evening with this work.

With 2010 the bicentennial year of Robert Schumann's birth, it was only fitting that the orchestra played one of his works at the concert. For the occasion Cho picked the First Symphony in B flat major ("Spring"), a work filled with enthusiasm and vigor.

Cho captured the near youthful spirits of the work (Schumann was actually already 31 when he wrote it). The opening and closing movements were ebullient and dynamic, but Cho also managed to bring lyricism to his account. Both movements were bright and sunny.

The scherzo was vibrant, and the slow movement, while it moved along at a good clip, was still nicely phrased and played. Cho managed to find subtleties in the Larghetto and conveyed them to the orchestra.

The concert opened with Maurice Ravel's dreamy "Pavane pour une infante défunte" ("Pavane for a Dead Princess").

This was the least successful of the three works on the program. The interpretation unfortunately was a bit static, even though the orchestra played with a warm sound and seamless fluidity.