By Lyn Bronson

Distinguished pianist Yefim Bronfman was in town for two days to play a recital for the Carmel Music Society at Sunset Center on Tuesday evening. Needing a place to practice the day before the recital, he came to our home and during his five-hour practice session treated us to some of the most glorious and natural sounding piano playing we had ever heard. Everything sounded easy and unforced. Even the most climactic heaven-storming moments in the Schumann Fantasie, Prokofiev’s Second Sonata and Balakirev’s “Islamey” unfurled in powerful, yet effortless, splendor. We marveled at the beauty of his sound, the elegance of his shaping of musical lines, and the seemingly inevitable quality of his musical conceptions.

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