Daniel Lee Shows Precocious Command of Cello
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic
Thursday, April 12, 2001
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/12/DD112111.DTL

There are gifted young musicians, who play their instruments with insight and technical skill. And then there are phenomena like Daniel Lee.

This extraordinary young cellist introduced himself to the Bay Area in Herbst Theatre on Tuesday night, in a revelatory recital presented by San Francisco Performances as a gift to subscribers. Talk about Christmas in April.

Here is an artist bursting with youthful bravado and energy, yet one who shows the kind of maturity and focus that many musicians struggle for years to achieve. His command of the instrument is staggering, from an extravagantly rich, burnished bottom range to top notes that sing out with remarkable clarity and precision.

His bowing is fluent and commanding, by turns impassioned and delicate. And he seems to approach everything he plays with the kind of omnivorous intelligence that takes in the entire work at a gulp, making thematic and rhythmic connections across the full span of a movement.

On Tuesday, he was well matched by Hyo-Sun Lim, a brilliant young pianist whose light, expressive keyboard touch was the perfect counterpoint to Lee's more vigorously forthright playing.

The single most stunning segment of the program came right at the beginning,

with Prokofiev's wonderful late Cello Sonata in C. The assiduousness with which Lee set off the deep, swaggering first theme in the opening movement against the high, sweetly intoned second theme, the deftly pointed piano chords with which Lim launched the second movement and the thoughtful, slightly tentative momentum that they both imparted to the finale were only a few of the marvels on display.

The rest of the evening, though, was nearly as impressive. Both performers brought a dark, coiled rhythmic intensity to "Le grand Tango," Astor Piazzolla's infectious if overextended string of dances.

In Pablo Casals' arrangement of Faure's "Apres un reve," Lee's singing tone and limpid phrasing reached new heights. Only the profundities of Brahms' great F-Major Sonata, occasionally glanced over in an otherwise fearless performance, revealed the spots where Lee may still improve. The encore was David Popper's silly "Dance of the Elves."

E-mail Joshua Kosman at jkosman@sfchronicle.com.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle