Ju-Young Baek delivered a magnificent, emotionally electric performance to a packed house at Smith Recital Hall last Thursday night. Her repertoire included everything from a classical blues piece to a rendition of that merry melody made famous by oh so many Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd chases, all composed by the big kahunas of classical music–Brahms, Ravel, Dvorak and Bach. Ju-Young Baek is a surprisingly young but established classical violinist whose impressive list of accomplishments almost took up two pages of the program.
She delighted us with a solo performance of “Chaconne” by Bach, caused by the absence of her pianist, and gave us a small, scrumptious taste of the rest of the night. Soon afterwards Nelson Padgett, her accompanist, arrived donned in less-than-professional attire. Apparently the storm had an effect on traffic. I was hoping that he could redeem his appearance through his piano playing, but that did not happen. Padgett did not care about his playing. He played like a machine, without the slightest sign of emotion. It seemed like Baek and Padgett were having a fight through their music; they simply did not have a groove going that every performer/accompanist duo should.
The rest of the pieces went off with Baek playing brilliantly. In each piece she played, she barely looked at the music because she had her eyes closed almost constantly. Her face was that of a sleeping dreamer, her emotions sporadically surfacing and reflecting her secret visions. Baek allowed herself to get truly lost in her music, and it showed. This enticing musician telling her wordless stories drew in the audience. Her performance stance and demeanor silently demanded respect and reverence; never before have I been so paranoid of sneezing. And Padgett was mediocre. Maybe that’s why he only got half a page of bio space in the program.
After Baek finished “Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Minor” by Johannes Brahms, “Sonate for Violin and Piano in G Major,” by Maurice Ravel, “Sonata Number 3 in E Major for Solo Violin Ballade,” by Eugene Ysaye, she played “Carmen Fantasie” by Franz Waxman. Her version of this song was one of the most amazing pieces of music I have ever heard: I could not take my mind off of her. This is a very well known piece used in cartoons for its dramatic, yet playful sound. In this piece, Baek and Padgett actually established some musical unity, and it was rewarded with a well deserved standing ovation.
Baek, in her mid-twenties, is a professional musician who was born to perform, and her performances captivate and paralyze. She rose to the level where it did not matter if she made a mistake, the audience simply did not care. From the bottom of my music major heart, I honestly cannot remember if she made any errors or not. She proved that performing music is not about making mistakes or playing correctly; it’s not like building a deck or laying a pipe. Music is about adding style and grace to what charlatans might call a mistake, thereby slightly altering the world’s surroundings for a few brief moments.