Violinist Patrick Yim and pianist Kiu Tung-Poon, seem to have quite diverse careers. Poon, a Chinese artist who has studied in America and performed widely here, is currently based and teaching in Hong Kong. Yim, who comes from Hawaii, teaches at the University of Notre Dame. Nevertheless, the two have apparently formed a working duo which has recorded a CD for Naxos, including one of the works they played at the Olive Library, in Olivebridge NY, on August 30^th. The Piano Plus series, curated by composer George Tsontakis, usually presents three concerts in the spring, but offered four. Tsontakis learned that the Yim-Poon Duo would be passing nearby and snagged them. The last-minute arrangements resulted in a smaller audience than usual, but we were enthusiastic.

Mozart’s Sonata in E Minor, K. 304 is a particularly beautiful example of Mozart’s ‘Violin Sonatas.’ These days most violinists play these Mozart works as if they are the star. But Mozart wrote them for piano with the accompaniment of violin. This one is advanced enough so that one couldn’t play the piano part alone (some of the earlier ones have less for the violin to do), but these musicians properly balanced the music so that the piano remained prominent, the violin less so when it was “accompanying.” Their tempo for the second, last, movement felt slower than I’m used to, but Mozart marked it “Tempo di Menuetto” and that was what it sounded like―a rather sad minuet, but a minuet nonetheless. This intelligent interpretation showed that these musicians’ approach is far from casual. Chen Yi is a Chinese-American composer who fuses the her two cultures in her music, of which we had a nice little sampling. “Memory,” for solo violin pays an effective tribute to a lost friend with gestures which sometimes sound American, sometimes Chinese. “Guessing,” for solo piano, sounds more folklike, rather Bartókian. Poon played with sometimes startling dynamics. “Three Bagatelles from China West,” for both instruments, does have obvious Chinese elements the rhythms in the second piece reminded me of Copland. Music by George Tsontakis rarely appears on the programs he promotes, unfortunately. Audiences seem to enjoy his work as much as I do. The Yim-Poon Duo included Tsontakis’s “Three Sighs, Three Variations” on its Naxos CD and played the set for us. Tsontakis introduced the music by saying that it came from his student days. Evidently, he still thinks enough of it to keep it in circulation. The music doesn’t sound very technically demanding but coordination is an obvious challenge, very well met here. I found the first piece, and some of the others, reminiscent of Webern’s compression and angularity, but not obviously imitative. These intriguing tidbits carried weight beyond their 12-minute duration for the whole set.

If you want to win my heart, include Dvořák on your concert. Everyone knows him, but we still hear relatively little of his music. The Sonatina in G Major, Op. 100, is delightful. The Duo avoided completely from schmalzing it up, and their very well balanced, lovely restraint contributed to its effect. For an encore we remained in the romantic era with Fritz Kreisler’s “Liebesleid,” interpreted, as in the Mozart, with unusual but appropriate emphasis on balancing the instrumental lines.

Leslie Gerber, who lives in Woodstock, New York, has been reviewing professionally since 1966, for such venues as Performance Today, Fanfare, and Amazon.com. He also publishes the Parnassus Records label.