Re: Listening to Yunchan Lim

On 7/18/2024 8:36 PM, PPeso wrote:

Undoubtedly the most hyped new kid on the pianistic bloc, on balance quite deservedly so.

A little lagniappe to my own post. I just watched the recent Verbier recital on Medici.tv. Talking about Eusebius and Florestan... After a couple of Mendelssohn's songs without words the first part is an introspective, intimate, inward-looking, nuanced reading of Tchaikovsky's Seasons. Beautifully done, without the footprint of salon music unfortunately associated with this piece the few times it is actually performed (Pletnev is the exception and by far my top recommendation). Boy, that did not prepare me for the second part of the concert, Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition. There are two basic approaches to this piece: one can go with Richter and follow the original quite closely, without messing around too much with its black-and-white idiosyncrasies; or one can go with Horowitz and transcribe it as a virtuoso showcase in technicolor. Now, Lim goes Horowitz on steroids and transcribes the transcription adding tons of CGI special effects and sweating profusely in the process. This may be one of the most narcissistically extroverted readings of the Kartinki, as if Pogorelich and Lang Lang had met by night on the Bald Mountain and decided to go wild with Mussorgsky. As a pianistic feat this is mesmerizing and outstanding. As an interpretation I hated it thoroughly. The encore is Chopin's nocturne Op.9 No.2, which returns to the dimmed atmosphere of the two Mendelssohn's lieder that open the recital.