Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Goldberg Variations BWV 988
Yunchan Lim (piano)
rec. live, 25 April 2025, Perelman Stage, Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City
Reviewed as lossless download
Decca 4871517 [77]
The young Korean pianist Yunchan Lim has attracted much attention in his relatively short career since becoming the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn Competition in 2022, at the age of 18. He has made several highly acclaimed recordings since then, but this is the first time I’ve heard him. He is not averse to taking on the big pianist challenges, having already recorded Rach 3 (review), Beethoven’s Emperor (review), Chopin’s Études (review), Liszt’s Transcendental Études (at the Cliburn – review), and now the Goldbergs. Three of these recordings, including this one, have received Recording of the Month accolades on this site; Ralph Moore’s summary of the Goldbergs was that “if perfection exists in a recording of this greatest of Baroque solo instrument works, it is here”.
So it was with some considerable anticipation that I downloaded this, but I remembered the even greater anticipation I’d had for Víkingur Ólafsson’s Goldbergs, and the almost shattering disappointment when I failed to enjoy them (review). I then heard Ólafsson play the Goldbergs in concert, and gained a totally different impression of his concept for the work. Lim’s recording is a concert recording, so I had that in mind when I began listening.
And what I got was … almost nothing: a sense of perfection without much feeling. While I had been disappointed by Ólafsson’s, it had been because it had been so overwhelming in places, just a bit too intense – an Icelandic blizzard was how I depicted it – but with Lim, I just felt underwhelmed. Sure he played all the notes in all the right places, and with dazzling speed when necessary, but that could be said of hundreds of pianists currently doing the rounds, I’m sure. I should mention at this point that my reference recording is Beatrice Rana’s gloriously poetic reading on Warner Classics, which won our Recording of the Year in 2017 (review).
In his review of Lim’s performance, Ralph Moore did make a correlation with the first Glenn Gould recording (minus all the extraneous noises), and I could see that. However, as I’ve never been a Gouldophile, that wasn’t going to be make me feel better about Lim. The opening variations are hard-edged (in the manner of Gould) with little ornamentation, and what there was seemed bolted on, rather than organically growing with them. Clearly I was missing something: Ralph described Lim’s Variation 7 as fun, as though played on a toy piano, whereas I found it joyless, rushed and annoying. Variation 25 (the “Black Pearl”) is taken quite slowly, more than a minute longer than Rana’s, yet hers has more poetry and feeling. I’m going to stop here, because any further negative commentary isn’t really helpful to anyone; I’m sure you have certainly got my drift by now.
That’s not to say there was nothing I liked – that would be ridiculous. Variations 11 and 13 stood out; I even preferred the former to Rana’s, and the latter was beautifully poetic. The sound quality is, as Ralph Moore pointed out, very fine for a live recording, as is the audience’s absence from audibility. No booklet was supplied with my download, but from what Ralph said, I missed nothing.
I know I’m going to be in a very, very small minority here, but this didn’t engage me at all. MWI does like to publish more than one review of a recording to provide a range of opinions, but I’m not sure where the chasm between Ralph’s “one of the best ever” and mine leaves you the readers. Perhaps this is too soon in Lim’s career, but Beatrice Rana was only two years older when she made hers. I have already deleted his from my hard drive, as I have zero interest in hearing it again.
David Barker
Previous review: Ralph Moore (Recording of the Month)
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I have much the same opinion of Lim’s Liszt. As you infer, the piano world is replete with players of machine-like virtuosity, but where’s the music? I’m acquainted with several young pianists with a deep love of what they do, but can’t compete with the prestidigitations of those apparently favoured by the competition judges and thrill-seeking audiences. I’m also familiar with those who had the fine-motor skills to excel in this field, but then chose to do something else – they simply played at the very highest level because they could. Of course life is full of such instances in other pursuits, but it seems particularly cruel in music where the message often becomes secondary to the mechanics.
I heard Yunchan Lim play the Goldberg Variations in the Konzerthaus in Vienna last year. Based on that concert I tend towards David Barker’s view. Lim seemed very tense in the first half of the recital. He sounded decidedly wooden, although all the notes were there of course. The opening aria was taken excessively slow as if he wanted to wring every ounce of ‘genius’ from it. Little or no phrasing in the variations, whatever rubato and nuances he inserted, were ‘bolted on’ and didn’t organically emerge from the music, as Barker perceptively notices. He then relaxed and seemed to begin to enjoy the music making, so tho second half of the recital sounded more like music. Overall though I was not moved at all by the recital, as I was on an earlier occasion in the same venue with Aaron Pilsan’s Bach playing (The Well Tempered Clavier Book 1), also a young pianist. I share the reviewers’ admiration for Beatrice Rana in this repertoire., or, in a different more austere vein, Evgeni Koroliov.
The diversity of responses is interesting; I should, however, point out that Des is talking about Lim’s Liszt and Hendrik about a different concert he heard, not this recording – although obviously there will be some correlation. It is also odd that we all seem to agree on enjoying Rana’s Goldbergs, for example, while differing so markedly about Lim’s – but the same discrepancies may be found even within reviews from other sources: some find it too virtuosic, showy and mechanical, others too 19C Romantic, some too “modern” in sensibility, some say tempi are too fast, others opine that the variations “lack inwardness”, then they are “idiosyncratic” – and so on, as if no one can quite agree either what the Goldbergs “should” sound like or indeed what Lim has done with them here. A “Broadway World” review describes the performance as “stunning” and “deeply moving”, hearing it as a profound emotional and philosophical journey, whereas the “Classical Review” and “Guardian” reviews find it mechanical, rigid, over-symphonic, lacking structural overview (I’m not sure how those last two chime) – all of which for me points to what a profoundly personal response Bach’s music elicits and that we should perhaps hardly expect to encounter much consonance of reaction – and even welcome that variety. Those who remain unimpressed by supposedly soulless modern pianists do have other options – including a new recording featuring this work arranged for violin, French horn, bass clarinet, and marimba…