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Two Titans, Two Titanic Jobs New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
03/06/2025 -
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Opus 18
Sir William Walton: Symphony No. 1
Yunchan Lim (Pianist)
London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano (Chief Conductor)
Y. Lim (© Ralph Lauer/The Cliburn)
“I made up my mind that I will live my life only for the sake of music, and I decided that I will give up everything for music... I want my music to become deeper, and if that desire reaches the audience, I’m satisfied.”
Yunchan Lim
Two 20th Century Titans were on the program for the second London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) last night. And one of the Titans was probably unknown to much of the audience.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is a titanic job for any pianist even if the main theme is dreary. William Walton, though? Most people know his circus‑like brilliantly loony Façade, thanks to the verbally loony lyrics by Dame Edith Sitwell. But it seems unlikely that anybody here had heard his noisy, blazoning First Symphony.
(I never heard it in New York, but did get a rare chance when the LSO came to Hong Kong with André Previn conducting.)
Most of the audience came for the Russian work, and for good reason. Soloist Yunchan Lim was the youngest ever competitor to win the Van Cliburn competition for an even more Herculean work, the Third Piano Concerto. But the Second was taxing enough, and the still‑young Korean artist swung through like he was playing Frère Jacques.
Mr. Lim is undoubtedly–and for his age, appropriately–a romantic. He was never afraid to pause momentarily before a great moment. As in his Liszt encore, he almost disguised the music with deep piano breaths, or pounding climaxes.
Yet that was irrelevant. With the help of Antonio Pappano and the always glorious LSO, Mr. Lim was, in a non‑technical word, sensational. From those first ten‑measure solos becoming more and more sonorous through the majestic closing, Mr. Lim and the LSO gave a faultless lesson in emotion and the most deft piano playing.
Granted, I’m always loathe to hear the “Full Moon and Empty Arms” theme. But was elated that Mr. Lim went through it without even a patina of schmaltz, if anything, underplaying the theme. For good reason as well. Compared to the passion and underlying tension of the work as a whole, one simple melody hardly needs to stand out.
Standing out instead was Mr. Lim. No arm‑flailing, no idiosyncratic trademarks, his performance showed the maturity of a much more experienced player. And (to repeat), it could only be called sensational.
A. Pappano (© Chris Lee )
The Walton First Symphony gave us first (if not foremost) the standout conducting of the LSO’s new Chief Conductor, Antonio Pappano. Without a baton, without excess showmanship, he leaped about, and, in the Walton, cued in all the consorts and First Chair players with meticulous expertise.
Dare I say that, with the Maestro as an example, the baton might be a distraction? As if playing the piano with one left hand and a single finger from the right. Mr. Pappano had ten digits to use, as well as his body.
And he did need it for the Walton. The First Symphony is no hesitating student composition. From the start, the work throbs with emotion, trumpets crackling, horns trilling, strings shuddering. If this were a drama, it would keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
Actually, it was a drama, leading to (what the composer called) a “malicious” scherzo. Several measures were exact replicas of the staccato themes from West Side Story, but who cared?
I was under-whelmed by the slow “melancholy” movement. “Maestoso”–grandly–wasn’t the right description for the finale. Yes, the string fugue were clean and “stately”, but the rest was Walton at his noisiest, his blazing‑est, a non‑stop orchestral giant fresco that could freeze and combust anybody with two ears.
This first was hardly perfect (Walton’s Second less external), but it shattered Carnegie Hall, and made us long for more and more William Walton over the next years.
Harry Rolnick
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