<\/p>\n
\n The 21-year-old South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim plays like an old soul. On a new album, he puts his own stamp on lesser-known music by Tchaikovsky.
\n <\/p>\n
Bonsook Koo<\/p>\n
<\/b>
\n hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n <\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Bonsook Koo<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div><\/div>\n Sometimes it takes a first-rate artist to breathe life into a second-rate piece of music.<\/p>\n Let’s be honest, the set of piano miniatures called The Seasons<\/em> is not top-shelf Tchaikovsky<\/a>. Especially if you compare it to Swan Lake<\/em>, the ballet he was finishing in late 1875 when he was approached by the editor of a St. Petersburg music periodical. The composer was offered handsome payment to write a series of piano postcards depicting each month of the year, in chronological order. The publisher added his own descriptive subtitles for each piece.<\/p>\n Only a few pianists have recorded the complete cycle, offering competent performances of these serviceable little pieces. But something unequalled is happening in a new live recording of The Seasons<\/em> by the young sensation Yunchan Lim<\/a>. At age 18, the South Korean was the youngest ever to capture the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022. It was another Russian’s music \u2014 Rachmaninov<\/a>‘s thunderous Third Piano Concerto \u2014 that clinched<\/a> Lim’s victory. Tchaikovsky’s salon-like, mid-tempo Seasons<\/em> couldn’t be more different.<\/p>\n