On the above link, the video of Yunchan Lim and his winning performance of Rachmaninov’s PC3 (June 17) plays at a very low volume. I’ll keep an ear out for something better.
Winner of the 2022 Cliburn, Yunchan Lim, also played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 in the Finals, Marin Alsop conducting the Fort Worth Symphony; June 14.
Earlier today I witnessed this 18-year-old’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, to take first prize in the Van Cliburn Competition yesterday and I am speechless. This is not only the greatest performance of this work I have ever heard (and I heard Van Cliburn himself play it in London in 1958 after he won the first Tchaikovsky Competition) but it surely must be the reincarnation of the account Rachmaninoff gave in New York with Mahler conducting in 1910. It is all the more incredible that Yunchan Lim is 18 years old; it is not a question of superlative technique but of musical understanding and recreative integrity. I emailed the link to a number of international pianists who have all played this work many times – one wrote back to say he was in tears of joy at the end; another replied that he believed some people were put on earth to honour a higher authority and on this performance he placed Yunchan Lim in that select category.
A third said it must have been one of the greatest performances of Marin Alsop’s conducting career. Yunchan Lim is going nowhere – he’s already there.
Without detracting in any way from the musicality and brilliance of Yunchan Lim – the real thing among players today of frequent shallowness and excess whatever their generation – a word needs to be put in for the silver medallist, Anna Geniushene. A totally different kind of artist but one of breathtaking fantasy and recreative imagination, with a fabulous, unforgettable touch in the classics. Her semifinal Beethoven Op 33 Bagatelles, an extraordinary journey, defied all belief.
Anna’s semifinal appearance, including the Opus 33 Bagatelles, added:
http://www.colinscolumn.com/the-cliburn-2022-anna-geniushenes-semifinal-recital-june-12-beethoven-verdi-liszt-prokofiev/