Is Yunchan Lim’s Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto the greatest ever?

January 29, 2023 10:53 AM

Yunchan Lim is South Korean pianist who June became the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn piano competition. Among the pieces that the 18 year old player were Liszt's Transcendental Etudes and Mozart's Piano Concerto #22. Most notable however, was his performance of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, which created something of a stir.

Lim's performance at Wigmore Hall on Jan 18 (this takes you to his version of Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring)

Yunchan Lim, Wigmore Hall, review: The South Korean pianist’s playing is so good you think you’re dreaming

A breakdown of Yunchan's above Liszt performance (Part 1, more, Part 3)


An Interview with Yunchan

posted by beisny (17 comments total)

Thanks for this. On a mostly tangential note, we saw (former Van Cliburn winner) Nobuyuki Tsujii play Rachmaninov's 2nd with the Seattle Symphony last night and he was incredible.
posted by Slothrup at 11:14 AM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

That "created something of a stir" link is fantastic. I love watching world-class experts break down what they're seeing in amazing performances like this, it really makes the whole thing a lot more accessible.
posted by mhoye at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, well done, I'm certain my bingo card for today didn't include half an hour of analysis of a piano concerto, but I was transfixed by Ben Laude's video and Yunchan's playing. Best of the web indeed.
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:50 AM on January 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

Thank you so much for this post! The something of a stir link is incredible.
posted by Osrinith at 12:09 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Hm. I thought it was a very nice performance but not the best I've ever heard. I found the orchestral solos to be unbalanced, which doesn't help. But focusing on the piano bits themselves, I thought the performer made some choices that worked against the flow of the music, at least for me. In particular, some very fast sections toward the end he played as an indistinct glissando that metaphorically kind of swallowed its words. I found the early phrasing a bit too staccatto as well. In general I think he absolutely masters the lower end of the keyboard but he's not unseating my favorite performance by a long shot.

Which is my favorite, you ask? Thanks, I'm glad you could tell how eager I was to tell you. It's Yuja Wang, with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. It's on spotify and a similar performance is on youtube. I think if you do a blind comparison you'll agree that her interpretation feels a little more organic, and her phrasing is better developed. She has appeared previously by the way.
posted by dbx at 12:56 PM on January 29, 2023 [8 favorites]

That "created something of a stir" link is fantastic. I love watching world-class experts break down what they're seeing in amazing performances like this, it really makes the whole thing a lot more accessible.

Seconded. I only had time right now to watch the first ten minutes of that video, but I highly recommend it. I'll have to listen fully at a later time.

One of the great things about the very best classical music pieces is that you can listen to, say, the Chorale Symphony or the St. Matthew Passion or Tristan und Isolde with very limited knowledge of the genre and still recognize you're hearing something special. But hearing experts break down exactly why a particular piece (or performance in this case) is so brilliant, whether due to the technical difficulty or innovation or mastery of the artistic form, is so rewarding. In my experience it adds a level of enjoyment and appreciation that you wouldn't be able to get by just listening "cold".

In the case of the Rach 3, the fact that you can listen to Rachmaninov himself playing it makes the piece and interpretations all the more interesting.

Thank you for this very interesting post!
posted by fortitude25 at 1:00 PM on January 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

Betteridge's Law would tell us no.

But that is a great performance—thanks for the post!
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 1:26 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's Yuja Wang, with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

Yuja is almost always fantastic. I didn't know about her filling in for Argerich, thanks for the link! Incidentally, Argerich's version of the Rach 3 is probably my favorite, as is her Bach Partita #2 (the version of that on Spotify is a studio recording, not this also great Verbier performance). If you're a Martha Stan, there is a documentary you can stream on Amazon made by her daugher by the way.
posted by beisny at 1:45 PM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this terrific post! I have tickets for Yuja Wang playing Rocky 3 in SF in March, so digging into these links will no doubt inspire a deeper understanding of the music for a more profound live experience.
posted by rekrap at 2:58 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

The YouTube comments on the Rachmaninoff are a delight to read. I never thought I'd type anything about comments like that.
posted by cccorlew at 4:45 PM on January 29, 2023

"...something of a stir" link is fantastic. This is what the videotubes is for. Really nice to have someone who knows the piece calling out the niftiness in the performance. Otherwise I'd have to know the piece myself to identify the nifty bits myself.

Best of the web, indeed. Do we say that anymore?

thanks
posted by lothar at 5:50 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks so much for putting this post together. This year’s Cliburn was the first one I haven’t followed for quite a while, so I’m happy to have these performances curated for me.

I’m always moved seeing live performances like this from artists who are so early in their careers. It’s worth remembering that these are totally unedited and there are no second takes! Sure, they make mistakes but you don’t CARE because they play with so much fire and energy that you get swept away with them in the moment!

I went straight for the Transcendental Etudes link. Lim plays these in a way that is so brash and even a bit brusque, but so utterly convincing as Liszt. Then you open the Mozart link and he is totally transformed into someone who pulls off crystalline precision and clarity.

I could just write about this all day.
posted by bkpiano at 6:26 PM on January 29, 2023

My teenage son, a pianist and classical music obsessive, keeps Spotify and YouTube playlists of many, many well-known (and even relatively obscure) pieces, and will gladly tell you which is the best Rach 3, the best Liszt etude, and so on.

I showed him this post, and he respectfully disagrees -- this Rach 3 is his current favorite. (Though he's excited to check out Yuja's performance that dbx linked!)

But he's also very much on Team Lim -- he called the Van Cliburns for Lim after round 1. He says if you really want to be wowed by Lim, check out this video, which is an analysis of the Transcendental Etudes piece (linked above) from the same Tonebase guy as in the "stir" link above. Enjoy!
posted by martin q blank at 6:41 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I knew I recognized this guy from the blue! He's the guy who got an amazing piano lesson from Seymour Bernstein in 2021.
posted by mhoye at 6:50 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yuja Wang, Daredevil Pianist, Takes on a Musical Everest [ungated] - "Known for dazzling virtuosity, Wang faces a new challenge in a three-and-a-half-hour Rachmaninoff marathon at Carnegie Hall."[1,2,3,4]
posted by kliuless at 10:21 PM on January 29, 2023

Thanks again for this post. As a result of watching the Tonebase reviews of Lim's performances of the Rach 3 and the Transcendental Etudes I have recovered from decades of bias against 19th century piano concertos (I considered them a bunch of egoistic banging). Again, the Youtube videos are fantastic; I can't remember the last time I laughed so much while also learning so much. Gracias!
posted by jokeefe at 5:20 PM on January 31, 2023

(Rach 3 is from 1909, btw. For non-bangy 19th century concertos, Clara Schumann’s is wonderful.)
posted by LooseFilter at 8:49 PM on January 31, 2023