The label Solo Musica offers young South Korean-born cellist YuJeong Lee as the featured artist on this album…[Krumpöck] conducts Prokofiev’s First Suite from Romeo and Juliet with such insight and imagination as to make you wish he had recorded the whole ballet.

He conducts Prokofiev here in a thoroughly convincing way, boldly italicizing details and drawing splendid playing from his orchestra. His phrasing of the love theme in Romeo and Juliet…soars with such beauty and passion as to bring goose bumps, and the ensuing Death of Tybalt brims with energy and drive, with all sorts of meaningful detail emerging. The fifteen percussion-laden chords that ring out following the frenetic music representing the duel between Romeo and Tybalt are laced with ominous portent in their oddly hollow but threatening strokes, and the brassy funereal music that ensues comes across with a deliciously crushing sort of anti-bombast and militarism. The other numbers show the same sort of spirited character, again with so much detail vividly emerging as to infuse the music with more color and character than one is accustomed to hearing.

From the notices I have read it would be accurate to conclude that Krumpöck the pianist is a rare talent, but Krumpöck the conductor may even be better, and certainly if I can judge solely from his work here, he may well become one of the world’s finest maestros.

YuJeong Lee is also a talent to watch…she turns in an excellent performance of the Sinfonia Concertante, ranked by many as the most difficult work in the cello concerto repertory.

Lee meets the concerto’s technical challenges with room to spare, and her tone is accurate and her phrasing of the many beautiful themes sensitive. Krumpöck turns in fine work here as well, and his orchestra once again performs with spirit and accuracy. The sound reproduction is vivid in both works and the album’s notes informative. Cello mavens will want this disc to hear the talented Ms. Lee in what appears to be her debut album as a soloist. Those interested in what promises to be an exciting, relatively new face on the conducting scene will want to acquire this disc as well. Highly recommended! © 2012 Classical Net Read complete review