David Geffen Hall is very nearly sold out for the New York Philharmonic’s performances this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So jump, if you can, at the vanishing chance to hear Yunchan Lim play Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor.
In the spirit of the season, let’s give thanks for this 20-year-old pianist from South Korea. On Wednesday at Geffen Hall, Lim played in the spotlight as if he’d been doing it for decades, with such imperturbable calm and eloquence that it was hard to believe that two and a half years ago he was essentially unknown.
It was June 2022 when he burst onto the international scene as the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition with a rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto that became a YouTube sensation. The two blockbuster Rachmaninoff concertos have been early calling cards for Lim, but this year has included a lot of Chopin, including an astonishing traversal of all 24 études at Carnegie Hall and on a new recording.
Chopin, with his restrained refinement, is an even more natural fit for Lim than Romantic warhorses like Rachmaninoff. Lim’s playing never feels seething or sweaty; he seems like he has all the time in the world, without ever giving a sense of showboating or indulgence.
In the first movement of the concerto on Wednesday, he was dreamily flexible in his phrasing without ever losing the music’s pulse. The slow central Larghetto was achingly poised, its 10 minutes framed by two perfect notes, both A flats: the first deep and softly buttery, the last a pinprick of starlight.
This movement is an opera aria without voices and, like a great bel canto singer, Lim understands that coloratura ornaments mustn’t distract from, but actually emphasize, the long, sustained central line of the music. In the finale, he exuded graciousness, attentive to details of touch, as in a passage whose texture moved swiftly from silvery to steely without ever losing smoothness.
When he plays slow music with such wise, patient elegance, Lim seems like he’d be perfect for Mozart concertos. But the finale on Wednesday was a reminder that, while he has utter ease in fast passagework, Lim doesn’t (or doesn’t yet) play with wit.
He’s alert and lucid, and Chopin’s daunting technical challenges never seem to faze him, but he doesn’t give a feeling of relish or surprise in these Allegros. His home turf is quiet, poetic delicacy — as in his encore, a serenely focused rendition of Chopin’s “Reminiscence” Nocturne — so of his two upcoming performances at Carnegie, I’m more looking forward to his interpretation of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations in April than yet another go at Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto in March.
Chopin’s concertos are hardly symphonic showcases. They are, more or less, piano solos in which an orchestra joins in. But on Wednesday, the ensemble and the conductor Kazuki Yamada, making an impressive, affable Philharmonic debut, played with sensitivity and even atmospheric hush in their accompaniment. And the associate principal bassoon, Julian Gonzalez, who is only slightly older than Lim, provided memorably tender, mellow tone in his important solos.
Yamada is the music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the British ensemble that has taken early chances on several conductors who then rose to stardom, including Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons and Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla.
On Wednesday, Dai Fujikura’s brief, bustling tone poem “Entwine” (2020-21) sounded sleek yet substantial under Yamada’s baton, and he managed Rachmaninoff’s sprawling Second Symphony with engaging moderation.
Among the Philharmonic’s burdens is that the best orchestras in the world are constantly touring to New York, and just as constantly offering points of comparison that don’t always flatter the hometown band. That includes the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, which played Rachmaninoff’s Second on Friday at Carnegie.
The Concertgebouw’s performance offered the more glamorous sound of the two: Transitions were negotiated with more seductive suspense, and the brasses had more complex depths to their blend. But as conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, the symphony was also more mannered.
Yamada and the Philharmonic offered clearer, more straightforward Rachmaninoff, not fevered but flowing and light on its feet. (Skipping the repeat of the long exposition section in the first movement didn’t hurt.)
The orchestra was nicely buoyant in the second movement, and in the third, the big solo from the principal clarinet, Anthony McGill, had his usual sweet modesty. I wasn’t left wishing that this 60-minute symphony were longer, but neither was I gasping for the kind of relief that’s needed after an overgorged Thanksgiving feast.
The post Review: Yunchan Lim, a Piano Star at 20, Casts Light on Chopin appeared first on New York Times.