Strings key to an assured Piano Sunday performance

It was a Piano Sunday, but not as we know them. Perth Concert Hall’s popular afternoon piano recitals took on a different slant this weekend, when String Sunday might have been a more appropriate title. String or piano, call it what you will, because when the Scottish Ensemble are involved the title is immaterial.

It might have been predominantly strings but the piano involvement – thus keeping in line with the concerts’ theme – was of a quality as high as that of Jonathan Morton’s ensemble – and that’s saying something.

The form of Sunday’s concert was a metamorphosis from string quintet to double string orchestra, with an early Mozart piano concerto the delicious meat in the string-only sandwich.

The K 414 concerto doesn’t need a prodigious display of keyboard heroics, but it does need a pianist with a sensitive and thoughtful interpretation. Step forward Korean pianist Minkyu Kim. It was a performance that was deeply-felt and it was the combination of absorbed intensity from Kim and the Ensemble’s well-tempered accompaniment that made a fairly simple concerto far more than the sum of its parts.

I should say the Ensemble and friends, as it was a side-by-side performance with string players of the Royal Scottish Conservatoire. I don’t think the Mozart would’ve taxed them too much but his music, complex or not, still requires a fair amount of musical nous. That, and with the magic of Morton and co rubbing off on them, meant for an assured and competent performance.