Yeol Eum Son’s technical mastery and large portfolio of color and nuance are familiar to collectors who’ve heard her Schumann and Kapustin solo releases, or who’ve sampled her live Van Cliburn Competition performances. So it comes as no surprise that high polish, symmetry, and carefully scaled dynamics characterize much of this gifted pianist’s Mozart.
You readily hear this in the F major K. 280 Allegro assai’s gradations of sonority and perfectly articulated embellishments. Note, too, the rhythmic spring in the G major K. 283 Presto, and the bristling clarity of the F major K. 332 Allegro assai’s cascading runs, with a stronger left-hand presence than usual. Even the sometimes slighted “easy” C major K. 545 benefits from Son’s attention to detail, such as in the calibrated balances between hands in the first movement’s second subject.
Her most memorable slow movements (K. 279, K. 533/494, K. 333) stand out for the pianist’s harmonic awareness and how her phrase shaping moves over the barlines. On the other hand, some of the sonata finales come off sounding square, underplayed, and just plain bland. Compare her relatively prissy and clipped C major K. 330 Allegretto and B-flat major K. 333 Allegretto grazioso readings to the variety of inflection of Maria João Pires’ DG recordings or the inventive vitality of our reference Roberto Prosseda and Robert Levin traversals. Indeed, Son’s earlier K. 330 Allegretto on the Onyx label boasted more life and spontaneity.
Son plays the A major K. 331 Rondo alla Turca safe, with cookie-cutter regularity and none of Murray Perhia’s sweep and gusto. And what’s the expressive purpose of Son’s calculated small pauses in the D major K. 576 Allegro? As in Mao Fujita’s recent Mozart cycle, Son plays the C minor K. 457 sonata’s three movements minus the introductory C minor Fantasy K. 475, although she did record the Fantasy as a stand-alone track on the aforementioned Onyx release. Both musically and sonically, Yeol Eum Son’s Mozart cycle has to contend with considerable catalog competition, yet her finest playing offers much to admire and savor.
