Dong Hyek Lim / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Alexander Vedernikov RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 - Symphonic Dances

Lim Dong-hyek, the South Korean pianist, released his Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 album on Warner Classics. Four years ago, he put on a collaboration concert with BBC Symphony and Alexander Vedernikov and issued a Chopin Preludes album, which was chosen as one of the Gramophone Magazine’s Editor’s Choice recordings, and this marks Lim first concert recording. The pianist also played Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances for four hands with his teacher and sponsor Martha Argerich for his album. 

Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of Rachmaninov’s most popular works. His skills as the best contemporary technician are well demonstrated, with long and rich melodies and the sentimentality unique to the Russian composer deeply resonating.

Lim still boasts the intelligent and clinical precision that he showed off as teenager. The ability to interpret both lyrical and realistic sides of the work and mix them together with subtlety is his unique forte. In this aspect, Lim is much like his teacher Argerich. And the new album shows such a feature. In the second theme of the first movement, he drops the speed of his piano. This offers a detailed glimpse into Lim Dong-hyek's rubato. The diminishing dynamics causes an uncanny tension. This intelligent interpretation makes the conversation with the strings even more vibrant, accentuating Rachmaninov’s sentimentality. The same holds true in the slow theme of the third movement.

Symphonic Dances is the number that earned Lim and his teacher a standing ovation in their performance last Tuesday at Seoul Arts Center for “Beppu Argerich Festival in Seoul.” After playing this in Hamburg, Germany last year, Argerich said her best lifetime performance of the Symphonic Dances was with “Limichenko,” a nickname Argerich gave to Lim Dong-hyek.”

Marking their concert in Seoul, the album was released first in South Korea on Tuesday. Global release is scheduled in mid-September. Last year, a constellation of young pianists such as Daniil Trifonov, Yevgeny Sudbin, and Denis Matsuev, presented their interpretation Rachmaninov’s concerto album. Lim’s new album will certainly make a different voice among many.

Martha Argerich & Friends LIVE FROM LUGANO 2015

The Lugano Festival in Switzerland is documented annually with a box set by Martha Argerich & Friends, containing their performances in various instrumental combinations. The three-CD package contains live recordings from the 2015 festival of works by Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Ferdinand Ries, Joaquín Turina, Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Luis Bacalov, Francis Poulenc, Philip Glass, and Alberto Ginastera, Argerich's fellow countryman whose centennial in 2016 is observed with a performance of Dances from Estancia. The roster of performers is impressive, as always, boasting the talents of Argerich and her colleagues, pianists Stephen Kovacevich, Nicholas Angelich, Lilya Zilberstein, and Sergio Tiempo, cellist Gautier Capuçon, violinists Ilya Gringolts, Mayu Kishima, and Andrey Baranov, clarinetist Paul Meyer, and the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, conducted by Alexander Vedernikov. The June 2016 release of this Warner Classics set also marks Argerich's 75th birthday.

Tharaud plays RACHMANINOV

French pianist Alexandre Tharaud takes on the blockbuster 'Rach 2' concerto in a thrilling performance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Russian maestro Alexander Vedernikov. It is coupled with more intimate Rachmaninov for piano six-hands (for which Alexandre is flanked by Alexander Melnikov and Aleksandar Madžar) and the icing on the cake: a sublime Vocalise in the original version for voice and piano, with pure-voiced French soprano Sabine Devieilhe. 

Alexandre Tharaud's recorded catalogue is large and eclectic, but this is the first time he has devoted an entire album to Russian repertoire – specifically to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov. 'I was still quite young when I first played this concerto' explains Tharaud. 'I adored it... Rachmaninov's virtuosity really appeals to young pianists. Today, of course I'm still enthralled by the concerto's virtuosity, but now I'm more interested in its dark shadows: the sense of despair, of staring into the abyss. My interpretation of Rachmaninov has changed a lot over the years.' (Warner Classics)