Yunchan Lim says he doesn’t relate to Ravel. Is his G Major Concerto any good?
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Yunchan Lim is probably the closest thing classical music has to a rock star — since his historic run at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition, he’s built a reputation on piano literature’s most punishing repertoire: Rachmaninoff 3, the Goldberg Variations, Liszt’s Transcendental Études. So when I found out he was bringing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major — a piece so modest in scale that Maurice Ravel almost called it a divertissement instead of a concerto — to a stage near me, I had to see it for myself. Especially because Yunchan Lim himself has said he’s never really been drawn to Ravel at all.
In this video, I break down what makes his interpretation so distinctive: the ever-so-slightly slower tempo that reshapes the polyrhythm between piano and orchestra, the jagged, unrefined edges he’s not afraid to bring to a composer usually treated with kid gloves, and the surprising inspirations behind his phrasing — from Yakov Zak’s obscure recording to Peter Serkin’s second movement. Most strikingly, Yunchan Lim has said that when he plays this piece, he isn’t thinking about the jazz influences everyone else hears — he’s thinking about Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, and the darker, tragic undercurrents that run beneath Ravel’s playful surface. I also compare his performance to Martha Argerich, Samson François, and Mitsuko Uchida, and talk about the encore that closed out the night.
Let me know in the comments: what’s your favorite recording of the Ravel G Major Concerto, and have you gotten to hear Yunchan Lim play it live?
⌛ CHAPTERS ⌛
0:00 Yunchan Lim: classical music’s biggest rockstar
0:45 Why Yunchan Lim playing Ravel is unexpected
1:28 Ravel’s two piano concerti: light vs. darkness
2:05 Movement I: jagged edges and fairy tales
2:45 Yunchan Lim’s unusual tempo choices
3:23 Yakov Zak: Yunchan Lim’s biggest inspiration
5:19 Yunchan Lim’s incredulous take on Ravel
5:40 It’s not about jazz.
7:19 Movement II: a single singing line
7:42 How Couperin predicted Yunchan’s Ravel
8:20 Airborne phrasing in the second movement
9:00 Peter Serkin: Yunchan Lim’s favorite interpretation
9:40 Yunchan Lim’s favorite moment in the concerto
10:10 The magic of the second movement (a Mitsuko Uchida aside)
11:57 The coughing, though…
12:15 Movement III of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G
12:52 A surprising parallel to Mozart
13:30 How Yunchan Lim conceives of the Ravel
13:58 Yunchan Lim’s encore, explained
15:40 Closing thoughts on Yunchan Lim’s Ravel
15:55 Learn more about Ravel with ToneBase
17:05 My own Van Cliburn Competition story
📖 Sources & further reading
Yunchan Lim’s interview with Pauline Harding
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#YunchanLim #Ravel #ClassicalPiano #PianoConcerto #ClassicalMusic #임윤찬 #ToneBase #Pianist #VanCliburn #ClassicalMusicYouTube
Yunchan Lim: 임윤찬 / Лим Юнчхан / 任奫燦
Maurice Ravel: 모리스 라벨 / Морис Равель / 莫里斯·拉威尔
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What piece do you want to hear Yunchan Lim tackle next? 😄
Lim has this phenomenal humility he brings to his work, he knows it's always about what best channels the piece and the feeling, not his own talent. I respect his work so much!
Thanks for this illuminating breakdown. The Little Mermaid framing makes real sense of the darker undercurrents beneath Ravel's playful surface. My touchstone remains Michelangeli, though Samson François brings something no one else quite has.
The second movement is one of those pieces where I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard it, late one night senior year of high school, on the stereo. I remember being captivated from the very beginning, and almost holding my breath waiting for the phrase to resolve, which it never really does! The LP liner notes described it as being inspired by Mozart, but I was too young (musically inexperienced) to hear that connection, but later understood it.
11:29 i love your impression :))
Samson François!!!!! My favorite forever!!!!❤❤❤❤❤ But Yunchan!!!! Incredible!!!! What else!!!!!❤❤❤❤❤
The tragic reading instead of jazz makes total sense once you hear it. My pick stays Samson François – nobody else makes this concerto sound that dangerous ✨ Have you heard his 1950s studio take vs live?
2:56 to be fair, almost any performance of anything is going to be slower than Argerich 🥲
He owns this piece.
you give the composer of the encore, but show a pic of a different composer with a different name…. which is which?
I was so struck by the excitement and beauty of Yunchan's Ravel concerto on youtube that I played the second movement with my writing class, asking the writers to write what they were feeling as they listened. The writing was gorgeous, inspired by the music.
We do not need to TALK about him. It makes him sound like a problem!
4:10 "delili delili triplet thing"
Perfect description of the second movement!
0:45 .. why doesn't he sound like someone from that town…
Alicia de Larrocha has great recordings of both concertos.
Why wouldn't a Gaspard be right up his alley? Has anyone asked him?
I love when performers don't care about shoulds and make the music played their own. I mean, why even listen to any new performer if it's copy-paste?
Yunchan Lim is such a special pianist. I'm so happy that we get to share this limited spark on Earth that we have with him in it. The more I learn about piano and the better I become in my studies, the more I grow to appreciate how once-in-a-lifetime Yunchan really is ❤
I saw him do the G major concerto in Taichung, Taiwan earlier this year.
Great concert!
Oh, and which hall and what orchestra was this?
Wonderful video. Thanks Robert Fleitz. Where was this filmed, what Orchestra and conductor? So informative and well-written. Thanks.
Hmmmmmmm