Washington Classical Review

Cellist James Baik performed at the Kennedy Center Tuesday night, presented by Young Concert Artists. Photo: YCA

Young Concert Artists presented its first concert of the season Tuesday evening. Cellist James Baik, first prize winner of the 2023 Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and a member of the Galvin Cello Quartet since last year, performed a recital of challenging repertoire in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, accompanied by Korean-born pianist Bogang Hwang at the keyboard.

To play the music of Luigi Boccherini, who was both a cellist and composer, one should have a singing legato on the cello’s highest string and facility with double-stops. Baik showed both skills in two of the three movements of the composer’s Cello Sonata in G Major. Especially lyrical in the Largo movement, he paced the Allegro militaire a little too  excitably to give it a crisply defined sense of a march.

In this piece Baik generally reduced his application of vibrato in a way appropriate to Boccherini’s era. Hwang, who also reportedly plays the harpsichord, scaled the dynamic potential of the modern Steinway to reflect the sort of instrument in use in the 18th century as well. Like many in their youthful generation, both musicians have grown up with the early music movement as just one of many approaches to music in their arsenal.

The softer side of Baik’s sound proved his greatest strength and was put to distinctive use in Debussy’s concise Cello Sonata. The first movement, a rhythmically free Prologue, flowed effortlessly, and the frequent shifts of tempo and style played to Baik’s attentiveness to placing every detail with care. The young cellist sometimes erred on the side of being too self-indulgent with these excesses, as in the closing section of the movement, where a mannered quality set in.

The middle movement, a spirited serenade, felt more playful, and more than once Baik relished the slide of portamento connection between notes, adding a further vocal dimension to the interpretation. A floating upward line, ethereal on Baik’s highest string, rose several times out of the third movement, one of the gestures toward thematic unity that run through the sonata.

Pianist Bogang Hwang performed with James Baik Tuesday night. Photo: YCA

Britten’s Cello Sonata offered another suitable vehicle for a self-possessed player like Baik, with five movements of strongly contrasting quality as a canvas. Throughout the piece, Baik tended to punch up the emotional temperature rather than allowing the music to unfold at its own pace, and slightly exaggerating tempos, as in the second movement, taken a notch above Allegretto.

Hwang, a more collaborative musician in general, showed a calmer hand when the piano dominated the texture and was more sensitive. His pizzicato attacks, the hallmark of the movement, also felt more forceful than melodic. The slow third movement, too, felt extreme, not only Lento but almost static. The fourth movement, a bold march, sizzled with energy in its fanfare-like motifs. Although the last movement raced along in general, both musicians made sure to emphasize the DSCH four-note motif that Britten included as a tribute to Shostakovich.

Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata No. 2 proved a thrilling conclusion to the 70-minute program, especially compact with the fast tempos pushed to the breaking point. Although this showed off Baik’s technical assurance, it also highlighted the dexterity of his accompanist’s fingers in the much more challenging piano part, especially in the outer movements. Hwang, given the lead by Mendelssohn in the Scherzo movement, brought some steady calm that kept things on track.

Baik spoke of the third movement as being religious in nature, but both musicians did little to bring out that quality, neither in the harp-like chords in the piano nor the shaping of the melodic line. The fourth movement could hardly have gone faster, however, creating a strong impression of the sheer technical force of both musicians.

The duo presented a single encore for the audience’s nightcap, a heart-on-sleeve rendition of Rachmaninoff’s song “Zdes’ khorosho” (How fair is this spot), which underscored the vocal dimension of Baik’s ingratiating cello tone.

Young Concert Artists presents accordionist Radu Ratoi and violinist Lun Li in music by Rameau, Bach, Liszt, Stravinsky, and others 7 p.m. November 18. kennedy-center.org