Themes of art song, poetry and spirituality run throughout the second album by Korean-American violinist Danbi Um, performed with Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen. Poème Mystique centers Richard Strauss’s intimate Violin Sonata, written in the year he met his future wife, and Ernest Bloch’s Second Violin Sonata, the title work of the album. By turns ecstatic, spiritual, and fantasy-like, in his violin sonata, Bloch incorporates motifs from his Jewish-themed works, the Gregorian Credo, mass Kyrie, and traditional Amen. The program includes two transcriptions of art songs: Gabriel Fauré’s mélodie “Après un rêve” and Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”
Danbi Um and Juho Pohjonen are guests on Live from WFMT on March 3.
