Mozart and Beethoven - Violin Sonatas

The Guardian 60

Lim/Lim

(Warner)

With violin playing so crisp you could dip it in sour cream and onion and hand it round at a party, this is an assured debut from Ji Young Lim. And yet even as the notes spring from her bow, one’s attention is drawn equally to her namesake pianist, Dong Hyek Lim.

This is chamber music rather than a solo showcase, and the pair are uncommonly well attuned in their programme of three Mozart sonatas, Nos 18, 21 and 26, and Beethoven’s No 1. Ji Young Lim’s playing is assured and sparky, but supple in the smoother passages; and yet at times one wants her to bring more of a sense of melody to accompanying figures in the way her pianist partner always does. Together they take a slightly more expansive approach to Beethoven’s Sonata No 1 in D, the broad lines of the second movement leading into a snappy and emphatic finale.