Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor Op. 30
Yunchan Lim (piano)
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
rec. live, 17 June 2022, Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth, USA
Decca 4871023 [42]

At 18 years old, Yunchan Lim became the youngest person ever to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition with this performance and being under contract with Decca, his two commercial releases of Chopin’s Études (review ~ review ~ review) and Liszt’s Transcendental Études (review) with them since and another with DG of Beethoven and Isang Yun (review ~ review) have all been very well received both on this site and by critics in general.

The curmudgeon in me bristles, however, when I see the performer’s name blazoned twice the size of the composer’s on the cover of this disc, then I notice that we are given only the one item – a mere forty-odd minutes of music. Heigh-ho; this is the age of celebratory star-power and commercialism and I must just roll over, especially as this slim cardboard package enshrines a performance of real stature by an extraordinary talent.

Rachmaninoff (which is now the more prevalent American English spelling of his name, apparently preferred by the composer himself when writing in English) wrote four piano concertos; the first was written when he was ony seventeen and thus, while interesting, is not the equal of the later works, and the more modernist, angular and fragmented Fourth remains the least performed and recorded. The Second is the most popular by far with the public and those who programme concerts, whereas the Third, while still quite frequently encountered, might be considered the connoisseur’s choice for its intricacy and technical challenges. Perhaps the most famous recording of it is Vladimir Horowitz’s live Golden Jubilee performance with Eugene Ormandy and the New York Philharmonic in 1978.  

Horowitz was 74 at the time he played this in Carnegie Hall – 56 years older than Lim here – and Byron Janis was 33 when he made another famous, vintage recording of the concerto for Mercury ‘Living Presence’ in Watford Town Hall. That makes for an interesting backdrop, but my first observation in comparing these three accounts concerns the recorded sound: both vintage accounts were well engineered but their comparative brittleness and clangorousness put them at a considerable disadvantage compared with the depth, breadth and richness of the live digital sound we hear on this new Decca Classics release. I should, however, remark that at times that effect of the listener having his or her head stuck under the piano hood militates against a naturalistic balance, and the occasional inconsiderate cough intrudes, too. There are no such rude interjections in Janis’ studio recording, of course, even if some hiss from the magnetic tape persists, nor did the microphones pick up so many such noises in Carnegie Hall, even if there is a little underling rumble. In many ways, the remastered RCA performance with Horowitz is more faithful in its reproduction of the acoustic and atmosphere of the concert hall, so the new recording does not have it all its own way.

There are a few flubbed notes in the first movement cadenza and fast runs, some slight lack of coordination in ensemble and the occasional congestion in the sound of Horowitz’s live performance, mostly due to the visceral abandon of his pianism and his propensity for risk-taking, but for the most part Ormandy covers any mis-timings and the sheer energy of Horowitz’ attack sweeps all before. Do Janis and Lim match him for excitement? In the two outer movements, Lim is quite close in timings to Horowitz but considerably swifter in the Adagio. Janis appears to rattle through the concerto five or six minutes faster than either; his manner is certainly fleet and airy but that timing is mostly accounted for by the cuts he takes, then considered quite normal (and for this information I am indebted to Chris Salocks’ posting on the Message Board). Lim has such a rounded, bell-like tone compared with Horowitz’s darker, more bass-heavy timbre and the headlong velocity of his playing matches that of Janis but for all their virtuosity, neither competes with Horowitz for thrills in the coda of the finale. Nonetheless, the roar which breaks out after the final notes of Lim’s performance tells you how much the audience appreciated his mastery of the crashing chords and rapid octaves. In many ways, Janis is a fleeter, more delicate artist than either Lim or Horowitz, hence the quicksilver fluency of his playing, but in some ways that technical ease and the comparative sterility of recording in a hall work against the generation of the kind of febrile elation we sense in the Carnegie and Bass Halls, so I would rank it a meritorious third in my hierarchy.

All three performances are wholly rewarding; Janis’ extra urgency does not matter insofar as that is integrated overall into his conception of the concerto, so it is proportionally consistent.

The NYP makes a more glamorous sound than either the LSO with Dorati or the Fort Worth Symphony under Alsop, but Dorati’s accompaniment is especially lyrical in the slow movement, and there is a kind of massive majesty about Horowitz’ playing of the Adagio which neither Lim nor Janis matches. Ormandy was always the best and most sensitive of accompanying conductors and does so well to keep up with Horowitz’s freedom of phrasing. In the end, without in any sense denigrating Lim’s exceptional musicianship, he and Alsop do not emulate the magic I hear between Ormandy and Horowitz.

Ralph Moore

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