Hee-Young Lim: Playing her way into a magical place

A fast run, a low moan, a flighty double-stop, a flurry of activity

And so, even though she has fewer opportunities than the pianist Miss Milstein, to make her voice heard she wrests each note and each vaunted phrase from the pianist and sings in the composer’s heartfelt voice and she turns these sparse moments into a tsunami of sound and feelings and emotions. Suddenly I am aware not only of Rachmaninov’s situation and Prokofiev’s pain, but out of this music – the raging storm which engulfs the protagonist in the case of Rachmaninov’s sonata and the weight of abandonment of Prokofiev’s – I hear in the energy welling up from some primordial source, that bursts into a flurry of activity, be it a fast run, a low moan or a flighty double-stop…

Playing her way into a magical place

I hear the music of a generation as it was always meant to be heard complete with the struggle of art over ideology, but more than anything else, I hear and feel the struggle of life over death. It is all in the sound of triumph of this music and in the playing of this young musician who seems certainly headed for a rarefied realm.

Hee-Young Lim: Russian Cello Sonatas
Rachmaninov – Cello Sonata in G minor op 19; Vocalise op 34, no. 14 and Prokofiev – Cello Sonata in C op 119 Hee-Young Lim: c; Nathalie Milstein: pf
Released – 2020
Label – Sony Classical (S80497C)
Runtime – 1:08:48

Russian Cello Sonatas – Rachmaninov & Prokofiev by Hee-Young Lim with Nathalia Milstein is available on the following platforms: iTunes, amazon, Idagio, and Spotify

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5