Summerfest 2, RSAMD, Glasgow

CD Reviews: Karol Szymanowski, The Complete Piano Works (Divine Art 21400)

* Pianist Magazine Recommended Recording

* BBC Music Megazine Benchmark Recording (Performance: Sound: )

* Gramophone Recommended Recording

* MusicWeb Recording of the Month

* All Music Guide Classical Editors' Best of the Year 2007

It's startling how music that no one knows gradually enters the repertory and becomes part of it — in the 1960s, the piano music of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski was considered quite exotic fare and very little of it was recorded. In the 1970s, pianists such as Martin Jones, Carol Rosenberger, Felicja Blumental, and others made a number of pioneering efforts on his behalf. By July 2007 pieces such as Four Etudes, Op. 4; Masques; and Metopes are practically mainstream and his "complete" piano music has been recorded at least three times before young Korean pianist Sinae Lee has ventured forth, on her own dime, in a three-year project to record them all herself. Undertaken between 2002 and 2005 in order to realize her doctorate in piano performance — what a doctoral thesis! — this is now released by the Divine Art Record Company for the public to enjoy. Lee's set is more "complete" than the others by virtue of three minutes; namely a never-before-recorded Prelude in C sharp minor from 1901. This is a startling find, as Szymanowski's relatively modest known output for piano has been established for some time and, while the existence of other, particularly early pieces, has been postulated, his work list has proven stubbornly intractable to expansion. Szymanowski's piano music covers his entire 35-year career as a composer and moves with, and at times, a little ahead of, the stream of musical developments current in his time. Lee moves right along with the composer — she is luxuriantly romantic in the early works, free flowing, and dynamic in the Scriabin-influenced middle works (check out what a wonderful job she does in "Calypso" from Metopes) and pithy, tart, and perfectly timed in the more acerbic, whimsical late works. While the "new" prelude is very attractive, you should get this set because it is such a terrific survey of Szymanowski's works overall, a highly significant cycle within twentieth century piano music. Lee's sensitive and probing performances of Szymanowski provide a marvelous, fulfilling, and informative way to spend four hours, and chances are the listener will not want to limit one's exposure to Karol Szymanowski: The Complete Piano Music to just that.

Dave Lewis (All Music Guide), Classical Editors' Best of the Year 2007

"Immersing oneself in Szymanowski’s piano music is an exhilarating and exhausting experience. And it takes a pianist of Sinae Lee’s uncanny expertise to clarify music which, in lesser hands, can easily make you feel as if imprisoned in a hothouse. But whether in early Chopin-inspired Romanticism, the second period’s fin-de-siècle opulence, or the extremes to which Szymanowski takes Scriabin’s later experiments, Lee is formidably equipped. Rubinstein himself quailed before the Second Sonata’s Reger-like thickets of notes, but even here Lee’s command and lucidity are unfaltering. Elsewhere she is as true to the spirit as to the letter of very exotic and complex bar. She captures all of the early Prelude’s angst, where the shadows of both Scriabin and Wagner erase much sense of derivation, and she whips up an awe-inspiring virtuoso storm in the Brahmsian fugue concluding the Op.3 Variations. There is charm and affection, too, in the Christmas-tree sparkle of the First Sonata’s Minuet and a complete identification with the elusive, bittersweet world of the Mazurkas, with their teasing mix of sophistication and primitivism. The Op. 33 Etudes form a flashing lexicon of Szymanowski’s later style and, once again, their demands are met with unflagging brio and refinement.

For the record, Sinae Lee is a Korean-born but Glasgow-based pianist and her astonishing achievement is a rich compensation for the absence of Krystian Zimmerman’s long-awaited Szymanowski disc. At the same time, her finely recorded four-disc set complements highly distinguished recitals by Piotr Anderszewski and Marc-André Hamelin."

Bryce Morrison (Gramophone), Recommended Recording

“Sinae Lee certainly has the technical ability to master this repertory… she projects the music with a real sense of forward momentum and intensity… managing to bring welcome transparency of texture to the involved contrapuntal layering."

(Performance: , Sound: )

Erik Levi (BBC Music Magazine), Benchmark Recording

"I suspect that many professional pianists will be mightily impressed by these recordings. Sinae Lee’s release sets new standards for the performance of Szymanowski’s piano music, and her quest for accuracy has not in any way inhibited her playing’s wonderful sense of spontaneity. I am confident that any listeners responsive to late-Romantic music who buy this superb set will share my enthusiasm for it."

Raymond Clarke (MusicWeb), Recommended Recording

For a full review, click here.

“There is no excuse for hesitation… a truly rewarding experience. Jaw-droppingly good with a delivery that is staggering in its ability to bring out the nuances within the music. Wonderful and seemingly effortless control, immaculate phrasing and beautiful coloration, resulting in performances I’ve never heard equalled.”

Steve Arloff (MusicWeb)

For a full review, click here.

“Lee is the choice…her fingers are as clever as her brain… Sinae Lee’s is the complete version to have”

Marius Dawn (Pianist Magazine), Recommended Recording

"To hear the sound universe of Szymanowski in all its splendour, one needs the love and sensitivity of Korean pianist Sinae Lee, who offers this new performance in a brilliant recording on Divine Art. The result, quite simply is that everything here runs admirably right from the beginning and is quite simply extraordinary."

Michel Tibbaut (ResMusica)

For an original full review in French, click here.

For a translated English version, click here.

Paul Hindemith, Konzertmusik, Op.49 for Brass, Harps and Piano

"Paul Hindemith's Konzertstuecke for brass, harps and piano is a remarkable piece that combines a deep theoretical investment in contrapuntal complexity with aching moments of expressivity. With its play between neo-classicism and a romantic idiom, it was the pianist, Sinae Lee, who made the piece special. There was a grace and intensity to this, notably during the third movement, Sehr Ruhig, in which her willingness to hold back made all the difference."

Amy Parker (The Herald ,Glasgow)

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat Minor

"The young Korean pianist, Sinae Lee, currently a post-graduate student at the RSAMD, is one of a select but steadily increasing number of first-class soloists the academy is now producing. Poised and assured, she took the formidable technical difficulties of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in her stride. Perhaps there was not quite enough poetry, but there was undeniably plenty of dash and plenty of verve."

Stephen Strugnell (The Herald ,Glasgow)

Liszt Sonata in B Minor

Title: Young Korean student's tour de force

"Over the years I must have been through the gamut of emotions in the concert hall. But I cannot remember having been as shocked as I was yesterday by a wholly gripping account of Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata which left me absolutely drained. And it was played by a student.

Sinae Lee, a Korean postgraduate student at the RSAMD, is not yet in her mid-twenties. Frankly, I was flabbergasted at her performance. The Liszt sonata is (in my view) the greatest single piano work of the nineteenth century. Behind its acres of virtuoso piano writing, the monumental, single-movement, half-hour work is one of the most tightly organised musical structures ever conceived, wrought from a handful of tiny cells.

Convincing command and delivery of the huge work requires consummate intellectual and emotional maturity (and that's before even beginning to think about the ferocious technical demands). Sinae Lee had the lot. Every one of the organic cells was pristine in its clarity and function. No essential motive was lost or smudged. Whether in the music's majestic pages, its most poetic intimacies, or its turbulent dramas, this amazing girl had everything under control, and, just as importantly, in balance. Her power and projection of the music, from its tiniest detail to its grandest sweep, from the intellectual rigours of its staccato fugue to the emotional impact of its grandiose theme, were overwhelming."

Michael Tumelty (The Herald, Glasgow)