Barbican Hall, London
There was poise and passion in the Korean violinist’s Bartók, with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony adding bite and touches of humour
In a classical music world where virtuosity comes as standard, only a handful of soloists find themselves regularly described as a “phenomenon”. Korean violinist Inmo Yang is among them – and he’s still on the rise, more than a decade after his first major competition win and three years since making his UK debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Sakari Oramo. Reunited here with the same musicians for Bartók’s early Violin Concerto No 1, Yang was all poise and passion, delivering the long, winding paragraph for the soloist that opens the work with characteristically supple elegance. His tone was tender – almost retro, in fact, in its natty sweetness – even in the more energetic portions of the second movement.
This was a performance drawn throughout in a lyrical cursive: lovely, but monochromatically earnest. Any hint of humour, bite, darkness came purely from the orchestra, as Oramo released taut flurries of brass, bright pinpricks of harp and deliciously unbuttoned rustic string playing. The result? That this most dependable of British orchestras – so easily taken for granted – stole the limelight to become the concerto’s charismatic stars.