Rave reviews from New York Times and Financial Times for James Gaffigan’s New York Philharmonic concerts with Yuchan Lim
Conductor James Gaffigan leads the New York Philharmonic with pianist Yunchan Lim (Photo Credit: Chris Lee)
After a weekend of spectacular performances with the New York Philharmonic, the critics agree that rave reviews are in order for conductor James Gafffigan and pianist Yunchan Lim.
The New York Times wrote:
“He plays like a dream,” we say about musicians we like, meaning simply that they’re very good.
But when I say that Yunchan Lim, the 19-year-old pianist who made a galvanizing debut with the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall on Wednesday, played like a dream, I mean something more literal.
I mean that there was, in his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the juxtaposition of precise clarity and expansive reverie; the vivid scenes and bursts of wit; the sense of contrasting yet organically developing moods; the endless and persuasive bendings of time — the qualities that tend to characterize nighttime wanderings of the mind.
This dreamy concert was among Lim’s first major professional performances outside his native South Korea, though he is already world-famous for this concerto. His blazing account of it secured his victory last June as the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition’s youngest-ever winner, and the video of that appearance has been viewed millions of times on YouTube.
That is, of course, hardly a guarantee of quality; there are many overhyped artists who go viral. But Lim’s preternaturally poised and poetic, tautly exciting Rachmaninoff deserved the clicks.
He was not scheduled to join the Philharmonic this season; this weekend was supposed to bring Shostakovich’s mighty “Leningrad” Symphony. But when the conductor Tugan Sokhiev canceled in December — pretty much the last minute in the glacially planned world of classical music — a new program was brought in with Lim and, on the podium, James Gaffigan.
Next season, Lim will do solo Chopin on Carnegie Hall’s main stage, but catching him now was a coup for the Philharmonic. On Wednesday, he played the Rachmaninoff concerto, one of the most difficult and popular in the repertoire, with clean, confident technique; silkily smooth tone; and rare relish in passages of sprightly humor. (Who knew this piece was so funny?)
Lim’s playing had a quietly, calmly penetrating lucidity that made his sound especially simpatico with the winds, as in his subtle interplay in the first movement with the oboe and, in the finale, with the flute.
But he was unafraid of power. In his hands, the great, pounding first-movement cadenza was granitic, though never sludgy. And at the highest reaches of the piano, he had pinging intensity. By the end of the piece, his upper body was jackknifing toward the keys at flourishes, with his left foot stomping.
Especially given the acoustics of the renovated Geffen Hall — which don’t immediately place soloists in sonic boldface, rather integrating them into the ensemble — this was very much a duet with a Philharmonic that played under Gaffigan with transparency, warmth and restraint.
Some of the best moments were the quietest ones: In the third movement, the passage in which the piano plays as the strings lightly tap with their bows gave the effect of a snow globe, air full of swirling ice crystals. All in all, this was the kind of performance that made me want to hear how it develops over the course of a weekend, as these players and Lim get even more comfortable with each other.
Oh, and the concert had a first half, too: an instrumental arrangement of Valentin Silvestrov’s tender choral “Prayer for Ukraine” and a rare, excellent rendition of Prokofiev’s Third Symphony, from the late 1920s.
For New York opera lovers, there was some poignancy to hearing this symphony, since Prokofiev drew its musical material from his memorably extreme “The Fiery Angel,” the Metropolitan Opera premiere of which was canceled (and not rescheduled) during the pandemic. Gaffigan — throughout the concert, drawing out playing that was controlled and urgent but also delicate and natural — emphasized the eerily seductive beauties of this grand, colorful, astringent score, with all its subdued sourness and shivery anxiety.
The Prokofiev alone would have made Wednesday’s program a highlight of the Philharmonic’s season, but it’s understandable if many in the audience will think immediately of Lim when they recall this concert. If certain of his phrases in the Rachmaninoff could have relaxed just a shade more, his encores — yes, plural — were pure eloquent serenity.
The second, a Lyadov prelude, was lovely. But the first, Liszt’s arrangement for piano of “Pace non trovo,” one of his songs to Petrarch texts, was more than that: wistful yet fresh, altogether elegant.
He played it like a dream.
Read the full review here.
The Financial Times wrote:
Classical music has no shortage of young stars. South Korean Yunchan Lim made waves last year when he won the Van Cliburn Piano Competition at age 18, the youngest winner in the history of the competition. As his rather exuberant programme bio for this concert pointed out, his performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3 at the competition went viral on the internet and is now the most-viewed recording of the work on YouTube.
Happily, Lim has plenty to offer beyond internet hype, and his debut with the New York Philharmonic showed that he is an artist capable of considerably more than the usual technical fireworks. Not that the pyrotechnics weren’t there — he attacked Rachmaninov’s imposing chords with ferocity and clarity, and took the octaves in the coda finale with reckless abandon.
Too often, this concerto can seem like nothing more than a vehicle to show off how fast and how loud a pianist can play. But Lim was at his best in the quieter moments of the piece, voicing Rachmaninov’s long melodies with elegant restraint. He took the piece at a deliberate, almost trance-like pace, with judicious rubati that made the piece sound fresh. At times his tempo and phrasing choices seemed too deliberate — his encore, a Chopin nocturne, veered towards the eccentric — but there’s no doubt he has thought through every one of his musical choices. Young stars may be common, but interesting artists like Lim are much rarer.
He was well supported by conductor James Gaffigan, who provided warm, sensitive accompaniment that could surge into moments of lush symphonic beauty as needed. An orchestral arrangement of Valentin Silvestrov’s Prayer for Ukraine was appropriately poignant, with hushed strings and whispered woodwinds, but it was Prokofiev’s rarely played Third Symphony that allowed the orchestra to shine.
It’s one of Prokofiev’s more extreme works, opening with tolling bells and discordant chords. Much of the music comes from his opera The Fiery Angel, which was never performed in his lifetime, and it has a strange, ghostly atmosphere. It takes a conductor as astute as Gaffigan to make sense of the work, and he brought a sinuousness to the score to counteract the violent brass and percussion episodes that permeate the work. It remains one of Prokofiev’s less accessible works, with meandering stretches of harmonic modulation, but the demonic finale provided a visceral thrill.
Read the full review here.