New York Classical Review

Musicians from Asia have excelled in Western classical music for so long now that it comes as a surprise when one of them makes news by doing so. That’s what happened when the then 27-year-old Han Kim was appointed principal clarinetist of the Opéra national de Paris three years ago.

Paris has been famous for fine wind players and pedagogues since Mozart’s time, and a Korean player occupying one of the top spots in that world was a milestone indeed. Viewers of Kim’s YouTube channel already had an idea of the tonal range and imagination that put him there. But there’s no substitute for an in-person encounter, such as happened Sunday afternoon in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, with Kim giving his take on the clarinet standards with the capable pianist Salun Sam Hong.

It was an all-sonata program, with one striking Korean exception. Kim and Hong put their stamp on familiar works by Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Poulenc and Bernstein, but Kim’s extraordinary command of his instrument was most evident in a free, meditative solo, Song in the Dark I by Geonyong Lee.

The two players seemed to be feeling their way a bit in Saint-Saëns’s Sonata in  E-flat Major, Op. 167, getting a sense of the room and the relationship between Kim’s instrument and the wide-open 9-foot concert grand directly behind him. Pianist Hong often seemed to be hanging back in “accompanist” mode instead of engaging fully with the clarinet.

Still, the pair gave each movement its own character: soft and melodious in the opening Allegretto, spirited and graceful with rocketing clarinet scales in the Allegro animato, sepulchral in the Lento with echoes of Bach’s organ music and The Well-Tempered Clavier, and volatile in the Molto allegro finale with blistering clarinet runs and tuneful interludes.

Brahms chamber music without a crashing piano is like a beach without surf, and even his introspective late clarinet sonatas are no exception. By the development section in the first movement of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 120, no. 1, Hong was stepping up to his role as the clarinetist’s partner/antagonist, and he didn’t relinquish it for the rest of the concert.

In the opening Allegro appassionato, the late-in-life love affair with the clarinet that prompted this sonata was evident in Kim’s long lines that came in waves. Extraordinary breath support was key to the slow movement’s aching long phrases and ravishing pianissimos. The rondo finale was full of surprises, the piano flowing one minute and crashing the next, the clarinet skipping in repeated notes or stretching out a suave phrase, all of it delightfully unpredictable up to the exuberant coda.

The sonata arc, that fertile European invention that evolves through movements from knotty intellectual content to a brilliant finish, was characteristic of every piece on this program save one. After intermission, Kim came onstage alone to sound the recital’s “still point,” Song in the Dark I, and for about nine minutes one lived in another world.

The piece began with a lonely two-note cry, repeated pianissimo. Not knowing the Korean language, one could only imagine that the remarkable sighs, moans and whispers Kim coaxed from his instrument had their counterparts in murmured prayers and protests against fate. Beautiful big round notes with just a touch of vibrato alternated with choked-off utterances. Pauses to reflect became longer, and after the longest pause, Kim took down his instrument, gently signaling the end of the piece. The audience, mesmerized as much by his mastery as by the music, burst into applause.

Making a clean break, the two musicians returned to the stage and launched into a very fast take on the Allegro tristamente (“sadly”) first movement of Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata. The composer’s “sad” piece came off with a kind of biting humor in the players’ rapid give-and-take.

Gently driven by a rocking motion, the Romanza contrasted moments of languor with passion, and was notable for Kim’s many shades of pianissimo, from tender to ghostly. In the circus-like fast finale, the players were well matched, exclamation for exclamation and sharp turn for sharp turn, until it all ended in a merry tumble.

All of the sonatas so far had been late works of their composers. Bernstein’s, on the other hand, was his first published work, vibrating with ideas that would return to him in later pieces. It was hard not to hear West Side Story in the restless first movement’s more romantic moments, or the finale’s syncopated Latin dances, or the wistful two-note “Somewhere” motive just before the hot finish. Pianist and clarinetist propelled each other forward in this Young Lenny pleaser.

Ending a program on such a high, the performers could either go for a cool-down encore, or try to top it. Kim and Hong went the latter route with “Sholem-alekhem, rov Feidman!” by Béla Kovács, a klezmer-colored roller-coaster of a piece that moaned, cackled, screamed and danced the night away.