Chopin Competition Winner Dazzles With Mastery of Tonal Shades

The young South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho became an instant celebrity when he was awarded first prize at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw.

- Chang Tou Liang

CONCERT SEONG-JIN CHO IN RECITAL Esplanade Concert Hall June 9

Not to be typecast merely as a Frederic Chopin interpreter, his most recent piano recital here contained not a single note of the Polish pianist-composer's music.

The first half of Cho's programme was built on a theme of nature and countryside. Out stepped a most severe and serious-looking presence, one who ambled slowly and took short unsmiling bows, but it all changed the moment he touched the keys.

The pristine and crystalline sonority he coaxed from Franz Liszt's Les Jeux D'eaux A La Villa D'Este (The Fountains Of Villa D'Este), from the third book of Years Of Pilgrimage, had to be experienced to be believed.

Seldom has the waterworks of Tivoli sounded this pearly or luminescent, from mere trickles to full gushing spouts, with the spiritual qualities of its inspiration fully realised.