They keep coming, these supremely gifted young players. Is there a place for them all in the contracting classical cosmos?
Violinist Benjamin Beilman, 22, made a strong case for himself as a rare talent in a Sunday afternoon Astral Artists Trinity Center recital in Poulenc, Brahms, Messiaen, and Schubert. It was a program packed with stylistic diversity, and with sheer notes. Schubert's Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C major (D. 934) has so much etudelike repetition the violinist begins to seem like a sous chef slicing and dicing his way through the task. And yet Beilman made music from it. His initial entrance was a whisper with an inaudible start. A sweeter sound would not have been possible at the entrance of the slow variation section. Even in moments when Schubert's message is more blunt than his norm - the jubilant finish, for instance - Beilman and his fine pianist, Amy Yang, found creative ways to phrase and color notes.
