Owen Flanagan

12-13-19

PWS

Prof Monte

To me, the most earth shattering performance this semester was that of

Eunghee Cho and Jayong Kim. This cello/piano duo was a really important

performance for me because it was a number of first hearings for a lot of pieces. It was

the first time I heard any of the works of Nadia Boulanger. Cho and Kim performed her

“3 Pieces for Cello and Piano”, the first two of which were haunting and lyrical, and the

last tense and frantic. I had only previously known Boulanger as a teacher of famous

composers, but had never before heard any of her own compositions performed.

Hearing Cho and Kim perform these pieces was a wonderful first experience for me.

The crown jewel of this concert for me though was their performance of Astor

Piazzolla’s “Le Gran Tango”. This performance was like liquid fire. Cho and Kim wielded

such a controlled intensity with this piece. They both harbored such amazing energy

throughout the performance and were masterful in how they shaped it within the room.

They played with such intensity and energy that they charged the atmosphere in the

room, and energized their listeners. As my friend Christian said to me after the

performance “I feel like I wanna put a brick through a car window”. Despite Cho and

Kim’s intense energy in their performance, they also displayed a professional level of

forethought and cooperation as they played. “Le Gran Tango” is a dance, and you

could hear them “dancing” through their playing. Cho and Kim displayed their prowess

in listening to each other’s dynamic, feeling, and expressions. They showed how well
they could measure their playing to their partner so that when Cho played one part,

Kim reinforced it’s accompaniment with the appropriate level of energy and dynamic.

Cho and Kim’s performance was a masterclass in the art of energy manipulation,

which is at the heart of any good performance. The difference between playing and

performing is that it’s not about the quality of piece you choose or how accurately you

play it, its the energy you feed into the room when you perform it. A good performer

could play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with wrong notes on an out of tune instrument

and still make it resonate with the people in the audience. I have no doubt in my mind

that if asked, Cho and Kim could accomplish this.