Pianistic perfection ……………. And much more besides.Not even from Cherkassky on this very stage have we heard a Liebestraum of such freedom and refined purity of sound.
Myra Hess would have been astonished at the finesse and ravishing sense of balance in ‘Jesu Joy’.With or without Matthay this young man has a thousand gradations of sound in each finger and the intelligence and sensitivity to be able to read beyond the notes written on the page and into the very soul of the composer.

His Liszt and Rachmaninov may be of a superstar but his Beethoven Bach and Brahms are of a great interpretative artist.Daring to declare Byrd to be the greatest English composer four centuries from his death was taking his life into his hands on the Wigmore stage.His performance of simplicity and subtlety combined with glistening ornaments played in an unobtrusive but extraordinarily meaningful way convinced us that he was probably right!Have Bach’s 15 Sinfonia’s ever sounded so full of beauty and simplicity as he seemed to barely touch the keys?No showmanship or external interference with the music that just poured so naturally from his fingers and drew the audience in to the heart of the music rather than being projected to greedy but lazy ears.Knotty twine as Delius was wont to describe Bach but knots tied by the angels in a celestial paradise.It was in Beethoven too,where he truly understood the composers irascible character that erupted so unexpectedly from the golden streams of notes that flowed from his hands in the Bagatelles.The chameleonic quicksilver changes of character were superbly realised with a pianistic perfection that was revelatory and to say the very least ,extraordinary.The rage and dynamic energy he brought to the final A flat Bagatelle was quite overwhelming.’Rage over a lost penny’ we know but this,though,was a ‘rage over a million dollar note!’It led immediately to the great opening chord of the variations op 15 – a real call to arms.It put a stop to all those trifles and surprising Beethovenian frivolities as we got to the heart of the recital with a monumental performance of the Eroica Variations that I have described in detail below from his performance in Poland last summer.Not quite the characterisation of Curzon but the dynamism and drive of Serkin or Brendel with the beauty of sound of Gilels or Volodos.In a word at 18 he is already a complete artist of great stature.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/08/16/yunchan-lim-in-poland-the-refined-beauty-and-maturity-of-a-great-artist/