Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.When South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim shot to public notice as the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, it was with Liszt’s Transcendental Studies and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3, quintessential showpieces.It seemed reasonable to expect that he would propose something on the same lines for his solo recitals this season. Instead, he has chosen Bach’s Goldberg Variations, here at Wigmore Hall and later this month at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington.Comprising an aria and 30 variations, the Goldberg Variations is a peak not only of Bach’s works for keyboard, but the entire baroque repertoire. It always constitutes a major challenge, albeit of a different kind depending on what sort of pianist is involved.For Bach expert Glenn Gould, the work represented an intellectual challenge of structure and part-writing. Angela Hewitt sees it in the spirit of baroque style and grace, András Schiff as a balance of science and expression, some as an opportunity to show off their technical agility.In Lim’s performance it was all these things and more, a virtuoso display of how much one pianist can pack into this single work. Just as Bartók gave us a Concerto for Orchestra with no soloist, so Lim’s Goldberg Variations was a full-blown Concerto for Piano with no orchestra.Inevitably, the kind of playing needed to fill Carnegie Hall is going to feel too big for the Wigmore. It was not so much about being too loud as projecting on a symphonic scale, fugal entries announcing themselves like trumpets, part-writing that coalesced into glorious, full-orchestra sonorities.The opening aria was judiciously paced with just enough speed to allow it to sing in long phrases. There was a buoyant lift to the baroque dance rhythms of Variation 7. Then, as the performance became increasingly daring, Variations 14 and 15 contrasted a headlong display of dexterous finger-work with the pain of minor-key melancholy.Everything was on offer, from lightning speed (Variation 20) to brilliantly chiselled articulation (Variation 23), switchback extremes of dynamics and depths of feeling that stretched the pulse to the limit (Variations 21 and 25), as the performance built in an arc towards an exultant close. Listening to a recording at home, one would very likely prefer the equilibrium of a pianist such as Murray Perahia. Heard live, in the excitement of the moment, this Goldberg Variations was a breathtaking ride on the big dipper.Lim prefaced the Bach with a new work, Hanurij Lee’s . . . Round and velvety-smooth blend . . . , a canvas of impressionist splashes of sound with a modernist tint. The piece was composed for Lim and it will be interesting to see if he takes up new music as an ongoing interest.After the Bach not many people play an encore, but Lim did and Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet 104 from his second book of Années de pèlerinage was the full virtuoso deal. Bach and Liszt might not seem obvious soulmates, but in Lim’s hands they found common ground.★★★★☆wigmore-hall.org.uk
