Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3
Yunchan Lim (piano); Forth Worth Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
DeccaSTNS30217(digital) 41:40mins
At just north of 40 minutes, Decca’s release of Yunchan Lim’s prize-winning performance of ‘Rach 3’ from the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition has raised some eyebrows. Shouldn’t something have been added to the album they sniff? Yet apart from confirming the perspicacity of Oscar Wilde’s observation about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing, they miss the point. Lim’s was a stupendous achievement – not just for an 18 year-old – and deserves its stand-alone presentation. Thanks to his surfeit of technical wizardry and determination to take nothing for granted musically, he deservedly joins the select company of elevated interpreters mustering Martha Argerich, Horowitz and the composer himself.
But Lim is never daunted by the accumulated weight of performing tradition; rather, he’s in command of a distinctive vision that has at its disposal a boundless palette of colours that can pivot in an instant from glittering iridescence to impossibly deep soulfulness. Rarely have the shards of counterpoint – sometimes playful, conversational, or like a notion that flits into the consciousness before darting straight out again – been so thoroughly addressed; and in the Intermezzo, grandeur and intimacy go hand in hand.
For the first movement cadenza he opts for the compact version favoured by Horowitz.
Small(er) is beautiful however, vindicated by a focused absorption that becomes irresistible as the woodwinds steal in. Energising testosterone fuels the Finale, but profound introspection counterbalances the headstrong ebullience. A performance for high days and holidays perhaps, but an indisputable ‘must- hear’ nonetheless. Paul Riley
