3rd "Piano Letter" program features Kim Jeong-won, Li-Wei Qin

By Yun Suh-young Pianist Kim Jeong-won with Chinese-Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin will team up for the third event of the "Letters by Piano" series, part of the Sejong Chamber Series, on Sept. 9. The performance will be held at the Sejong Chamber Hall at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. Kim is this year's artist in residence for the Sejong Center and Sejong Chamber Series 2017, a program which involves four performances of chamber music with piano. The annual Chamber Series invites the artist in residence to perform classical chamber music four times a year with guest artists. In 2015, cellist Yang Sung-won was artist in residence, while conductor Lim Hun-jeong was appointed to the position last year. This year's previous Piano Letter events in April and July featured Kim accompanied by violinist Kim Da-mi, cellist Shim Joon-ho and bass Sonn Hye-soo. The September program is organized with an autumn theme, featuring works by Chopin and Schubert, such as Chopin's Mazurka in A minor, op. 17 No. 4, Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, op. 65 and Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821. In the second half of the program, the two artists will perform Chopin's Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor as a duo. The piece is known for sophisticated cello techniques. Cellist Li-Wei Qin, who will be performing with Kim, is an Australian cellist of Chinese descent who made his name known through winning the silver prize at the 1998 International Tchaikovsky Competition. He is reputed for having a rich musical tone and balanced intonation and techniques which will match harmoniously with Kim's warm and delicate tones. In the last program of the Piano Letter series slated for December, Kim will perform with famous Korean pianists Son Yeol-eum and Sunwoo Yekwon on Dec. 23. For more information, visit sejongpac.or.kr or call 02-399-1000. Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simon Young's clear-eyed view of Bruckner's Fifth Refined and sensitive: The Takacs Quartet delivered a characteristic performance. Refined and sensitive: The Takacs Quartet delivered a characteristic performance. Photo: Keith Saunders Beethoven and Bruckner. Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Simone Young. Imogen Cooper. Opera House. August 18.★★★★ Takacs Quartet. Musica Viva. City Recital Hall. August 19★★★★ Bruckner's Fifth Symphony is arguably the most monumental and least comfortable of his symphonies. Its 75 minute quest is full of imposing moments and glorious orchestral sound but also uncompromising contrasts and stern silences. The slow introduction of the SSO's performance under Simone Young had steady tread without portentous tension, its ideas presented with clear definition, un-nuanced by overt expressiveness. Like many of Bruckner's symphonies, the slow movement alternates two ideas. First, a solemn oboe melody, holding its own implacably against complicating cross rhythm, and then a section for strings where human warmth finally appears. The finale works its way through fugues like devotional exercises and it is only when a magnificent brass chorale blazes out in the last bars that one realises the whole symphony is devoted to building an edifice on which to place that moment. In the first half, Imogen Cooper played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat with authoritative musicality, the ideas shaped not by whim but by straightforward clarity and musical insight. Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox. She played the extended cadenza Beethoven wrote 14 years after the concerto was written, drawing the youthful lightness of the piece into the more involved development of his subsequent style. The Takacs Quartet's Saturday afternoon for Musica Viva, featured a new work, the String Quartet No.6 Child's Play by Carl Vine, Musica Viva's artistic director. As with his recent Trombone Concerto, Five Hallucinations, the five movements offer didactic reflection, in this case on the clarity of the child's view. The first movement, Play, had amiable liveliness, while Concentration represented the child's furrowed brow as the masterpiece is constructed. A nagging idea in Friendship brought to mind those children who express their affection by unpremeditated tickling attacks. Sleep was touchingly punctuated by heavy breathing near me in the audience, but the finale, Running, was heard with enthusiastic attentiveness. It took a little while for the intonation to settle in the first movement of Haydn's String Quartet in D major, Opus 76, No.5 but the second movement, Largo cantabile e mesto, where Arcadian serenity is accompanied by remarkable harmonic adventurousness was quintessential Takacs playing, full of engaged musical refinement and sensitivity. In Dvorak's String Quartet No.14 in A-flat major, Opus 105 the players combined a mood of golden sunniness with momentary nagging thoughts in inner parts to create an optimistic tone of psychological sophistication and complexity.