Daejeon · 28 May 2026 · Stuttgart Philharmonic · Korean Debut
Review · Korean Debut
Why Did the Stuttgart Philharmonic Choose Edwin E.S. Kim for Its Korean Debut?
For the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra's first-ever tour of Korea, internationally acclaimed violinist Edwin E.S. Kim took center stage in Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61.
Known for his collaborations with major orchestras across Europe and Asia, Kim delivered a performance marked by exceptional artistry, depth, and musical insight. His refined interpretation and seamless collaboration with the Stuttgart Philharmonic earned enthusiastic applause and became one of the highlights of the orchestra's historic Korean debut.
"Edwin E.S. Kim is a musician who truly understands the essence of music. He brought remarkable depth, maturity, and authenticity to Beethoven's concerto."
Every performance begins long before the curtain rises and continues long after the applause fades. ECN follows the artists, ideas, and institutions shaping today’s classical music scene — in Korea and beyond.
— Ji Sun Lee, Editor
The Interview
“Edwin E.S. Kim is a musician who truly understands the essence of music. Beethoven's concerto demands far more than beauty of sound.”
Adrian Prabava · Conductor, Stuttgart Philharmonic
She grew up between Daegu and Cologne, and it shows in how she plays — European line, Korean attack. Before a season that takes her across both continents, she talks about repertoire, nerves, and why she keeps returning to the concertos that first frightened her.
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One of Germany's most distinguished orchestras brought an all-Beethoven programme to Daejeon for its first concert in Korea — the Coriolan Overture, the Violin Concerto and the Fourth Symphony. Founded in 1924, the Stuttgart Philharmonic chose repertoire that leaves an orchestra nowhere to hide, and a soloist who played Op. 61 as an argument rather than a display. "He is a musician who understands the essence of music," said conductor Adrian Prabava afterwards.
Fifteen curtain calls in Litomyšl, a No. 1 classical chart album in Das Leben, and a concert series named after a virtue no soloist is supposed to want. The Camerata SOL director talks about programming as an argument.
By Marta van Doorn, Europe Correspondent, 08 July 2026
Two seasons in, the young Finnish maestro is neither courting the orchestra's past nor breaking with it. He is doing something quieter, and much harder to name.
Commissioned in Austria, premiered in Korea, and written for a soloist who asked the composer to remove the cadenza. A look at the score ahead of its first performance.
Three new halls, a generation of soloists who trained in Europe and came home, and audiences who show up on a Tuesday. What Seoul figured out that most European cities have not.
"People hear the tempo and assume indulgence," he says. "It isn't indulgence. It's that I think the piece is telling the truth, and the truth takes time."
Why the Stuttgart Philharmonic Chose Edwin E.S. Kim for Its Korean Debut
An all-Beethoven programme, a century-old German sound, and a violinist who plays the Concerto as a question rather than a display.
★★★★★By Eurasia Classic News · Daejeon · 28 May · 7 min read
Adrian Prabava and Edwin E.S. Kim during Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 — the Stuttgart Philharmonic's first concert in Korea.Photograph · Eurasia Classic News
Daejeon — The Stuttgart Philharmonic arrived carrying a century of German orchestral habit, and chose to spend the entire evening on one composer. An all-Beethoven programme is not a modest gesture. It is an orchestra saying: judge us on the repertoire we cannot hide behind.
Founded in 1924, the orchestra opened with the Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 — a piece that gives an ensemble nowhere to warm up. The strings answered with a sound that was dense rather than glossy, and the drama arrived without being pushed. Within four minutes the hall knew what kind of playing it was going to hear.
The Concerto, played as a question
Then came the reason most of the audience was there. Edwin E.S. Kim walked out for Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, and immediately declined the easier version of the piece. There is a way to play this concerto that treats the long first movement as a display case. Kim treated it as an argument he was still working through.
The opening was patient to the point of risk. He let phrases breathe past the point where a more anxious soloist would have moved on, and the orchestra — this is the interesting part — went with him rather than covering for him. The Larghetto was where the reading justified itself: a stillness that felt less like restraint than like listening. The finale, when it came, had energy without hurry.
Kim in the Larghetto: the reading's centre of gravity, and the point at which the hall stopped moving.Prabava conducts the concerto looking mostly at the soloist — an accompaniment, not a negotiation.
It is worth saying why this matters beyond one good evening. Kim has spent two decades building the kind of career that does not announce itself: soloist appearances with the Prague Philharmonic, the Prague Radio Symphony, the Regensburg Philharmonic, the Göttingen Symphony, the Korean Symphony and the KBS Symphony. He has been a regular guest at the Smetana Litomyšl Festival, and his performances with Leoš Svárovský once drew fifteen curtain calls. From 2012 to 2019 he directed the Lech Classic Music Festival in Austria; he now leads Camerata SOL.
His projects have been stranger and more useful than most: a complete Four Seasons setting Vivaldi against Piazzolla and Richter, the full cycle of Mozart's violin concertos, and the series he calls The Aesthetics of Humility. His recordings — Sehnsucht, Das Leben, Mein Wiener Herz — read as a working notebook rather than a portfolio. Das Leben went to No. 1 on the classical chart on release.
"Kim is an artist of extraordinary technical mastery, but more importantly, he is a musician who understands the essence of music. Beethoven's Violin Concerto demands far more than beauty of sound."
Adrian Prabava, conductor
The Fourth, and what the orchestra is for
After the interval, Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 — the symphony that gets called the quiet one, wedged between the Eroica and the Fifth. It suited them. The warmth in the strings, the woodwind colouring that stayed inside the ensemble rather than stepping out of it, the way the whole thing cohered without being drilled: this is what a hundred years of playing together buys you.
Prabava afterwards called the orchestra's first Korean visit a meaningful one, and said he hoped to return. That is the expected line. What was less expected was the evening's actual achievement: not a display of German pedigree, and not a soloist's showcase, but a conversation between the two that neither side tried to win.
대전 — 슈투트가르트 필하모닉은 100년의 독일 관현악 전통을 안고 도착했고, 저녁 전체를 단 한 명의 작곡가에게 쓰기로 했다. 베토벤만으로 채운 프로그램은 겸손한 선택이 아니다. 숨을 곳 없는 레퍼토리로 평가받겠다는 선언에 가깝다.
1924년 창단한 이 악단은 「코리올란 서곡 Op.62」으로 문을 열었다. 몸을 풀 여유를 주지 않는 곡이다. 현악은 매끈하기보다 밀도 있는 소리로 답했고, 드라마는 억지로 밀어붙이지 않아도 도착했다. 4분 만에 객석은 오늘 어떤 연주를 듣게 될지 알았다.
과시가 아니라, 물음으로 연주된 협주곡
그리고 대부분의 관객이 기다린 순간이 왔다. 김응수가 베토벤 「바이올린 협주곡 D장조 Op.61」을 위해 무대에 올랐고, 곧바로 이 곡의 쉬운 버전을 거절했다. 이 협주곡의 긴 1악장을 진열장처럼 다루는 방법이 있다. 김응수는 그것을 아직 풀어가는 중인 논증처럼 다뤘다.
도입부는 위태로울 만큼 느긋했다. 더 조급한 독주자라면 이미 넘어갔을 지점을 지나서까지 프레이즈가 숨 쉬도록 두었고, 흥미로운 것은 오케스트라가 그를 덮어주는 대신 함께 따라갔다는 점이다. 해석이 스스로를 증명한 곳은 2악장 라르게토였다. 절제라기보다 경청에 가까운 정적. 뒤이은 3악장은 서두르지 않으면서도 생동했다.
라르게토의 김응수. 이 해석의 무게중심이자, 객석의 움직임이 멎은 지점.프라바바는 협주곡 내내 주로 독주자를 본다. 협상이 아니라 반주다.
이것이 좋은 저녁 하나를 넘어 왜 중요한지 말할 필요가 있다. 김응수는 스스로를 내세우지 않는 종류의 경력을 20년간 쌓아왔다. 프라하 필하모닉, 프라하 방송교향악단, 레겐스부르크 필하모닉, 괴팅겐 심포니, 코리안 심포니, KBS교향악단과의 협연. 체코 스메타나 리토미슐 페스티벌의 단골 초청 연주자이며, 지휘자 레오시 스바로프스키와의 협연에서는 15차례 커튼콜을 받았다. 2012년부터 2019년까지 오스트리아 레히 클래식 뮤직 페스티벌 예술감독을 맡았고, 현재는 카메라타 솔의 예술감독이다.
그의 기획은 대체로 남들보다 낯설고, 그만큼 쓸모 있었다. 비발디를 피아졸라·리히터와 맞세운 「사계 전곡」, 모차르트 바이올린 협주곡 전곡 연주, 그리고 「겹의 미학」 시리즈. 음반 「Sehnsucht」, 「Das Leben」, 「Mein Wiener Herz」는 포트폴리오라기보다 작업 노트처럼 읽힌다. 「Das Leben」은 발매와 동시에 클래식 차트 1위에 올랐다.
"김응수는 뛰어난 기술을 가진 연주자이지만, 무엇보다 음악의 본질을 이해하는 예술가입니다. 베토벤 바이올린 협주곡은 아름답게 연주하는 것만으로는 충분하지 않은 작품입니다."
아드리안 프라바바, 지휘자
4번 교향곡, 그리고 오케스트라가 존재하는 이유
휴식 후에는 베토벤 「교향곡 제4번 B♭장조 Op.60」. 영웅과 운명 사이에 낀, 조용한 교향곡이라 불리는 그 곡이다. 악단에 잘 맞았다. 현악의 따뜻함, 앙상블 밖으로 나서지 않으면서 색을 입히는 목관, 훈련된 티 없이 저절로 맞물리는 전체. 100년을 함께 연주해온 시간이 사는 것이 바로 이것이다.
연주 후 프라바바는 첫 한국 방문이 뜻깊었다며 다시 오고 싶다고 말했다. 예상 가능한 말이다. 예상 밖이었던 것은 이 저녁이 실제로 이룬 것이다. 독일 혈통의 과시도, 독주자의 쇼케이스도 아닌, 어느 쪽도 이기려 들지 않은 둘 사이의 대화였다.
One continent's tradition, another's players — and the concert hall where the two finally have to agree.
About
Classical music does not stop at a border.
Eurasia Classic News covers the concert life that runs between Europe and Korea — the orchestras that tour, the soloists who trained in one place and came home to another, and the halls that are learning to hold both.
We write from the hall, not from a press release, and we publish in English and Korean.
클래식은 국경에서 멈추지 않는다.
유라시아 클래식 뉴스는 유럽과 한국 사이를 오가는 연주 현장을 다룹니다. 투어에 나서는 오케스트라, 한 곳에서 배우고 다른 곳으로 돌아온 독주자, 그리고 그 둘을 함께 품는 법을 배워가는 공연장들.
우리는 보도자료가 아니라 객석에서 쓰고, 영어와 한국어로 발행합니다.
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Stuttgart Philharmonic in rehearsal · Daejeon
Adrian Prabava on the podium · Daejeon
Full stage, empty hall · the morning rehearsal
Strings and brass · Beethoven, Symphony No. 4
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