Braving the incessant drizzle that seemed a dreary premonition of what’s to come in the UK in less than a month, I dodged all the Saturday Piccadilly promenaders and stepped into St. James’s Church for Karin Miura’s lunchtime recital.
Nestled amongst Hatchard’s, Fortnum and Mason and other landmark British establishments along Piccadilly, St. James’s Church stands out quite remarkably. The interior is spacious with ample amount of sunlight let in through lovely stained glass windows, providing nice acoustics and setting for concerts.
Karin’s concert yesterday was presented by Talent Unlimited Trust.
Karin’s programme was unique and extremely effective. She started off with a late Nocturne by Chopin, the B major op. 62 no. 1, which was then followed by Scriabin’s Second Sonata, who in his early compositional stage was a natural inheritor of Chopin’s romantic idiom. From the first note Karin showed herself to have a keen ear for atmosphere and colour. Her performance of the Nocturne was full of subtle colours as the keys constantly shifted kaleidoscopically. Yet she always maintained a solid, grounded tone in her sound.
This sensitivity suited the Scriabin well, but for me it was her performance of the virtuosic Presto second movement that really stood out. Absolutely precise as it was, it was the way she still maintained the phrasing of the melodies even among the flurry of notes that really captivated her audience. I was also marvelling at the way her hands extended and contracted over the keys as she kept as close to the keyboard as possible to remain technical assured.
But it was her performance of the last two movements of Messiaen’s gigantic suite “Vingt Regards de l’enfant-Jésus” where Karin really came into her own. Her sensitivity to atmosphere suited Messiaen’s music perfectly, and the acoustics of the church together with the religiousness of the setting did add a spiritual quality to the performance.
What she also demonstrated in her Messiaen performance was her very strong sense of the structure of the music. Despite the sprawling scale of the twentieth “Regard”, as well as its–dare I say–demonic technical demands, which again never seemed to bother her, Karin allowed the music to unfold and build up, never allowing her emotions to get in the way of the arduous build-up towards the climax, and in that way really excited her audience. I was getting so close to the edge of my seat that I was in danger of falling off! It was a tremendous way to end a programme with a great narrative drive.
The full recital can be viewed here on YouTube for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSMw6ViTRNc
Blog featured photo credits to the website of St James’s, Piccadilly.
“Literally Left-Handed” is a blog created, managed and written by Jeremy Chan.
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