Yeol Eum Son Takes on “Hammerklavier”

Pianist Yeol Eum Son (from her home page)

To appropriate shamelessly the words of Jane Austin, “It is a truth universally acknowledged” that every season at least one piano recitalist will take on Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 106 (“Hammerklavier”) sonata in B-flat major. Last night that pianist was Yeol Eum Son, visiting Herbst Theatre for the latest Chamber Music San Francisco Program of this year’s season. Things did not bode well with her frenetic charge into the opening phrase of the first movement, and things did not get better as she progressed. Indeed, in her determination to make sure that all of the notes were in the right place, too many of those notes never quite found their place in phrasing.

The first half of the program amounted to a nineteenth-century “follow-up” to late Beethoven. The final selection was one of Franz Liszt’s transcriptions, taking on the aria “Am stillen Herd” from Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Those familiar with the opera probably recognized the theme; but, as is often the case with Liszt, that “core” was overwhelmed by a plethora of excessive tropes. More modest (and, thus, somewhat more engaging) was the coupling of a mazurka by Pauline Viardot with an early “Romance” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 5. Son began the program with two lesser known composers from the late nineteenth century. She began with Franz Bendel’s 1875 Opus 141, an improvisation on what it is probably the most familiar theme in music history, the “Wiegenlied” (cradle song) by Johannes Brahms. This was followed by a mazurka by the prolific Pauline Viardot (prolific because the catalog number was VWV 3012). The program concluded with two encores, neither of which was announced.

Taken as a whole, the program was a major undertaking. However, as was particularly affirmed by the Beethoven selection, there was little to offer by way of compelling expressiveness. I am afraid I came away with the impression that Son was playing for competition judges, rather than an audience of attentive music lovers.