Listening to the 2016 Queen Elisabeth Competition online, I chanced upon a terrific account of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata in progress, without knowing who was playing. It turned out to be Su Yeon Kim, whose 2021 Warsaw Chopin Competition performances equally impressed me. Earlier in 2021 she won first prize in Montreal’s Concours Musical. Apparently Kim thrives in competition situations. More importantly, as her Steinway & Sons solo debut reveals, she thrives in Mozart.

How clever of Kim to start things off with a bracing performance of the composer’s delightful Eine kleine Gigue, where she accentuates the rhythmic displacements to perfection. Her B minor Adagio is closer to Horowitz’s elegance (DG, 11/89) and wistful fluidity than Arrau’s patented ‘proximity to death’ vantage point (Philips, 8/84). On the other hand, Kim’s wide dynamic contrasts and forceful accents underline the underrated G minor Allegro’s emotional unrest, while the Variations on Gluck’s aria ‘Unser dummer Pöbel meint’ benefits from the pianist’s forthright attitude and assiduous tempo relationships.

The outer movements of the D major Sonata, K311, stand out for Kim’s expert finger legato and a sense of air between phrases that’s easier to hear than to explain. If anything, her reading of the F major Sonata, K332, better reveals the music underneath the surface glitter. Many pianists, for instance, treat the Assai allegro finale as an exercise in ‘anything you can play I can play faster’. Not Kim, who makes virtuoso points through careful articulation, placement of accents, dynamic gradations and not short-changing the dramatically placed rests. Kim also plays three selections from the K269 Contredanses as well as you’d expect, but don’t expect her to turn trifles into truffles, so to speak! A highly enjoyable and recommendable release.