Hai-Kyung Suh - The Fantasy of Schubert (2024)

Hai-Kyung Suh, a world-renowned romantic pianist, has lived a difficult, thorny life. The imprint of her experience would be expected to drive her to profoundly express the sentiments of Schubert's music, which sublimates sadness and tragedy into music.

What does it take to express what is in the art of Schubert? Schubert famously remarked that "Beautiful music is born of tragedy and sadness." Without friends or intimate companions, he turned, as other romantic artists did, to nature for inspiration and comfort, making the forest his friend and the stream his companion. Only an artist who has experienced that solitary pain can penetrate Schubert's essence.

Hai-Kyung Suh, a world-renowned romantic pianist, has lived a difficult, thorny life. The imprint of her experience would be expected to drive her to profoundly express the sentiments of Schubert's music, which sublimates sadness and tragedy into music. The first Korean pianist to win the top prize at the Busoni international piano competition in 1980, Hai-Kyung Suh has performed with such esteemed conductors as Charles Dutoit, Riccardo Muti and Ivan Fischer and, in 1985, became the first woman to receive the William Petschek award from the Juilliard School. She was also awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Korean government and was the first female to perform all five of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos as well as all four of Tchaikovsky's in Russia recorded and released under the Deutsche Grammophon label.

A formidable stage presence, her playing was likened by a Tokyo critic to "erupting romantic lava" while her technique was described by a Berlin critic as "hair-raising virtuosity". She has repeatedly received favorable reviews for magnificent technique, bold passion and delicacy.

She burst upon the world stage in her 20's projecting supreme strength in her huge warm sound, guided by electrifying technique. Later, in her forties, as a professor at KyungHee University in Seoul, she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, a deathly challenge. She has overcome these obstacles to enter a golden age becoming an apex interpreter of Schubert, especially his songs, channeling his longing and his supplication to the divine. The highlight of this album is "Opus 1" an arrangement of one of his songs by Liszt. He composed it at eighteen, overwhelmed by Goethe's "Der Erlkönig."

Like the father in "Der Erlkönig" seeking to escape the fairy king, her waking hours are spent wrestling with the piano. An artist who has never ceased her efforts to expand her sublime artistry and to grow as an interpreter of the greatest keyboard works, she is consumed by her insatiable desire for the piano. Overcoming cancer, five months after completing radiotherapy she returned to the stage with a characteristic flourish by performing Rachmaninoff's second and third concertos in one concert. That sort of thing is what led to her being called the "Empress of the Keyboard". She continues to exuberantly grapple with the keyboard for seven hours each day perfecting her dynamic range and her emotional delicacy to explore the secrets inscribed by superb composers. What is most impressive about this album is that more than any other it contains the soul of Schubert intact.