Review of Four Seasons and the Red Priest

East meets West at the Theatre

The Korean violinist So-Ock Kim was the star of the Milton Keynes City Orchestra’s concert at the Theatre last Sunday.  This twenty-year-old, who is still a student in London, is another of conductor Hilary Davan Wetton’s high quality discoveries, something that local music lovers have come to appreciate. Kim’s playing of Vivaldi’s  The Four Seasons was passionate, insightful, technically assured and gripping from beginning to end – the second season, Summer, was sufficiently inspirational to elicit applause from the rapt audience and the audience’s foot stamping after the final season, Winter, was well deserved. Kim also played the seductive and demanding concerto in E major that Bach possibly wrote to play himself – it was a performance that showed the soloist’s clear understanding of this wonderful work.  It is to be hoped that Kim will return to Milton Keynes before long.

The orchestra also played two works that were less well-known but seemed to delight the appreciative audience – a polished performance of one of Corelli’s groundbreaking works from the 17th century and a work by the oldest of Bach’s composer sons, Carl, which gave clear intimations of the later music of Haydn and Mozart.

Reviewer:  Roy Tipping