[K-CLASSIC] "It was like a car test" Park Jae-Hong's Hammer Kleiber : Review

It's been a long time since I got excited after watching a concert program.
Park Jae-hong's piano recital.
He is also the winner of the Busoni Competition.

The second part of the concert was filled with Beethoven's 29th Piano Sonata.
Park Jae-hong's concert was held on April 1 at the ibk Chamber Hall of the Seoul Arts Center.
The title of the concert is "2022 Steinway Winner Concert in Korea Park Jae-hong Piano Recital".

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 is well known to us as 'Hammer Kleiber.'
Hammer Kleiber is a German translation of the word 'piano porte', meaning piano.
In fact, Beethoven wasn't the only one who added the word 'hammer clavier' to a sonata.
Nevertheless, Beethoven's Hammer Kleiber is distinguished from other sonatas.
It is a vastly expanded scale.
And Pianists are required to perform nearly 50 minutes.
It's hard work close to torture.

Beethoven spoke before he died.
"It will take 50 years for the piece to play properly."
However, Franz Liszt, dubbed the "strongest pianist" in classical music history, played for the first time in 15 years.
He shortened Beethoven's prophecy by 35 years.

Pianist Park Jae-hong's Rehearsal

I think the performance of this song is like a 'Piano's test drive'.
Car manufacturers offer reporters, bloggers and YouTubers a test drive opportunity when new vehicle models are released.

They test the vehicle's performance to the limit, including zero-back (time from 0 to 100 km), maximum speed, and cornering, on the race circuit.
In that sense, the Hammerklever Sonata is like playing the piano on a car circuit.
However, the real difficulty of this sonata performance lies in the slow Adagio of the third movement rather than in skill.

Wilhelm Kemp, a renowned pianist of the 20th century, called the movement "the most magnificent monologue composed by Beethoven."
It's a fact.
This is because even if you play a little wrong, it can be the "world's most boring monologue."

So far, many piano masters have challenged this 3'rd movements.
Some played solitude, some played full sadness.
Some people played regrets.
Some pianists expressed this movement in prayer.

In this regard, Park Jae-hong's interpretation was fresh and special.
Adagio Sostenuto in the third movement.
It was as beautiful as the scenery of extreme long shots caught by the camera.
Sometimes it's lonely, sad, and there's a flood of regrets.
Then, eventually, a wonderful performance with a ray of hope.
Above all, it was good that Park Jae-hong did not play this movement like the masters of a generation ago.
a young interpretation that is not old
It would be unreasonable to expect what senior masters realized from Park Jae-hong in his 20s.

I want to listen to Hammer Kleiber played by Park Jae-hong 10 years later and 20 years later.
It will be as pleasant as comparing Glenn Gould's unconventional and shocking 1955 Goldenberg Variations to 1981 recordings recorded a year before his death.
In the first part, He played Schumann "Arabesque C major" and "Piano Sonata No. 1"
The fourth movement, in which Schumann's two extreme egos, Prorestan and Oisebius, alternately appear, is the best.

Park Jae-hong is a performer who can express the sound of explosions caused by heavy body and snow falling at dawn like paint on the artist's palette.
He has both colorful volumes and tones.
It has its own sound that is clearly distinguished.
He plays any song deliciously with this sound.
When I listen to his performance for half an hour, I get addicted to his sound.
This is a scary thing.

While playing, he often raises his head and heads into the air, and it feels like his representative performance has become his own.
After playing Hammer clavier, the 23-year-old pianist also looked a bit tired, with his hair drenched in sweat.
Nevertheless, the audience invited Park Jae-hong to the stage several times.
He presented three encores.

There was a slight exhaustion in the encore, and it was good too.