Yunchan Lim’s Chopin isn’t as good as his Liszt or Rach

In 2022 the South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim became, at 18, the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn competition, displaying a virtuosity that stunned the judges. You could see conductor Marin Alsop’s astonishment as he bounded through the finale of Rach 3, combining accuracy and swirling fantasy at daredevil speed. It’s been viewed nearly 15 million times on YouTube. In truth, though, he’d have had to screw up badly not to win, because he’d already dispatched Liszt’s fiendish Transcendental Études with perfect articulation and mercurial wit; in places he out-dazzled even the current master of this repertoire, Daniil Trifonov.

Decca snapped him up and here’s his first studio album: both sets of Chopin’s Études. Again, Lim’s dexterity almost defies comparison. The most difficult étude is reckoned to be Op. 25 in G-sharp minor, whose finger-twisting thirds are hated by pianists because they expose the tiniest unevenness. Here they descend in perfect shining cascades; Lim’s dynamics reveal phenomenal muscle control.