Soundpost: Letters to the Editor September 2021

NEW DISCOVERIES

I am astonished. Your recent issue’s main feature is about violinist Esther Yoo, a player not previously on my radar. After reading the article, I followed up by going to listening to Yoo (left), to see what her sound and style might be like. ‘What is all the fuss?’ I thought as I found Yoo’s recordings of the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky violin concertos among 500 others.

Every once in a while, there is a player whose sound just stops me in my tracks. Her Sibelius and Tchaikovsky recordings are stunning and exciting performances with just a hint of a previous age and style. The sound she produces is captivating, but she also has impeccable timing and that indefinable ability to make the listener listen. Over the years, so many young players have bounced on to the concert stage and few are as convincing as is Esther Yoo. In this pandemic she has also done so much for the world of music, much of it at arm’s length. What a discovery for me and what a player you have featured in The Strad. This magazine was supposed to run out of copy in the 1880s, but still has a firm place in luthiers’ and players’ hearts. Thank you. The life motto for this pandemic has been ‘Keep going!’

ROB BARNES

Langley, UK