Eun Sun Kim conducts Liadov, Bartók, and Rachmaninoff with Inon Barnatan, piano

Eun Sun Kim, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano

LIADOV The Enchanted Lake
BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3

South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her BSO debut with a trio of pieces exploring innovation within tradition. Star pianist Inon Barnatan returns to Symphony Hall to take on one of Bartók’s final works, the Third Piano Concerto, a love letter to his wife and his home country. While living in poverty in New York having fled the onslaught of the Nazis into Hungary, Bartók’s creativity had stalled out, and his body was failing from a long illness. The concerto — not quite finished when he passed — is a more gentle and accessibly poetic work than his previous concerti, a summation of where Bartók’s style left him at the end of his life.