Yunchan Lim’s semi-final performance of the complete Liszt Transcendental Études at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition created quite a stir and met with near-universal acclaim when Steinway & Sons released it in 2023. Now Decca’s highly anticipated first release with Lim features nothing less than Chopin’s Études.

Not surprisingly, these works hold no difficulties for Lim, whose supple and effortless technique shines through each and every étude. Musically speaking, however, his Chopin proves more interventionist and capricious than his Liszt. Inner voices abound, together with attention-getting accents, altered dynamics and sudden shifts of balance between the hands. To be sure, Lim is nowhere near so over-the-top as Georges Cziffra’s madcap recordings. He’s far less glib than Valentina Lisitsa, and avoids Alessandro Deljavan’s overloaded details. But he’s no straight shooter in the tradition of Maurizio Pollini, John Browning, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Murray Perahia or Juana Zayas. If I had to summarise Lim’s approach in a discographical context, I’d describe his Chopin Études as a more scintillating and impetuous synthesis of the ‘old school’-minded cycles from Shura Cherkassky and Abbey Simon.

Lim’s A minor Étude, Op 10 No 2, for example, evokes Wilhelm Backhaus’s light and brisk shellac rendition, along with newfound countermelodies emerging from the left-hand accompaniment. Continuing with Op 10, if you added 78rpm surface scratch to Lim’s sweeping ‘Black Key’ G flat major No 5, C major No 7 and ‘Revolutionary’ C minor No 12, you’d swear that you were hearing alternative takes of Ignaz Friedman’s legendary recordings. Lim concludes his insouciant F major No 8 with a ‘reverse accent’ à la Vladimir Horowitz, with a marked diminuendo on the final four chords rather than the forte that Chopin requests. Perhaps Lim’s articulation of the A flat major No 10’s textural shifts is not the subtlest, yet in Op 25 No 1 (‘Aeolian Harp’), he manages to both soar and pack a punch. I’m not sure if the resonant ambience fuels my impression of Lim’s overpedalling the F minor No 2, although his diversity of touch in the F major No 3 is striking. Lim matches the young Ashkenazy’s uncanny speed in the ‘stride piano’ A minor, Op 25 No 4, but not the latter’s offhand ease and demonic undercurrents. The pianist tosses off the double-thirds and double-sixths Études with more finesse than most pianists execute single lines. While the C sharp minor No 7 has stretches of sustained introspection, an air of contrivance permeates Lim’s dynamic extremes. However, he is one of the few who plays the final bar of the ‘Butterfly’ Étude, Op 25 No 9, absolutely in tempo, as marked in the score (Lang Lang does this too). Finally, the power, authority and forthrightness distinguishing Lim’s Liszt permeate Op 25’s last three studies.

My few quibbles matter little in light of the sheer musicality characterising Lim’s remarkable pianism. Still, I wonder: will Lim’s subjective touches still sound like magical inspirations years from now, or will they come off as affectations whose novelty wears over repeated hearings?

Chopin Études, Opp 10 & 25

Yunchan Lim pf

Decca 487 0122

This review originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today