The December 2021 issue of Gramophone reviews Jonah Kim and Robert Koenig’s Approaching Autumn recording:
“Jonah Kim has taken Approaching Autumn, the title of Mark Abel’s new work for cello and piano, as the title of this recital album as a whole. I hadn’t necessarily thought of the Grieg and Kodály sonatas as being especially autumnal but Kim somehow makes the appellation seem apt. First, there’s the cellist’s tone, which has the cosy warmth of a well-loved cashmere sweater. And then there’s his penchant for broad tempos that allow him room for his sound to envelop you. Kim can be incisive and dramatic, mind you, as he is in the opening movement of Kodály’s epic Solo Sonata, and he’s capable of some ferocious playing, as at 4’38” in the slow movement, where he takes the composer’s feroce marking to heart… Abel’s piece is rather curious in that its ‘easy-listening’, pop-inflected surface proves increasingly illusory. The melodic writing is conversational – volubly so – and communicates an unsettling sense of anxiety. There are cadences of Janáček-like brusqueness (at 1’30”) and moments of naive nostalgia (3’33”) that lead to an unexpectedly dark ending. Kim and Koenig somehow capture the very elusiveness that gives the music its substance.”
—Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramophone
See the full review on Gramophone.co.uk and in the December 2021 issue.