San Francisco's
JungHae Kim is a long established figure in the West Coast early music scene, which consists of a small but very dedicated cadre of specialists whose particular strengths are in "thinking outside the box" when it comes to historical practice -- think of
Warren Stewart's
Magnificat,
Bimbetta,
Chanticleer, and
Kim's own group
Ensemble Mirable. The Virginalists is
JungHae Kim's long-delayed first solo outing issued on her own label, and it is certainly worth the wait. She plays a
Kevin Fryer copy of a 1624 Ruckers harpsichord that has a beautiful, fat tone and is in very good tune, and though the location of the recording is not given, the inset photograph reveals that it was inside a small chapel. The recording is excellent; the size of the hall does not swallow up the harpsichord's fragile timbre, yet the recording isn't engineered excessively loud, either. You will feel as though
Kim is playing right in front of you.