YUNCHAN LIM, MARTHA ARGERICH & MIKHAIL PLETNEV

Martha Argerich and Yunchan Lim: Piano Artistry Across Generations

With its double-concert format, Le Piano Symphonique brings together chamber music and orchestral works. On this evening, three world-class pianists from different generations meet on stage: Martha Argerich and Mikhail Pletnev open the concert at two pianos with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony in Pletnev’s transcription. The soloist with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester is Yunchan Lim – one of the most closely watched young pianists of our time.

If worldwide acclaim from critics and audiences is any measure, this concert brings together two extraordinary pianistic presences. The title of a pianist of the century belongs first and foremost to Martha Argerich. In her second appearance at the piano festival, she joins pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev in chamber music at its most concentrated: two musicians, two pianos. Yet this intimate setting takes on symphonic dimensions when Pletnev’s transcription of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony combines the familiarity of a repertoire classic with the excitement of a world premiere. The dark mysteries rising from the depths of Schubert’s string writing are heard here anew in the light of two pianos.

The second part of the concert shows the level at which the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester is building artistic partnerships with the new international generation of pianists. Yunchan Lim is not simply a young soloist, but one of the most striking pianistic phenomena of his generation. In 2022, the South Korean pianist won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 18, becoming the youngest gold medallist in the competition’s history. His interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto became an international event and was viewed millions of times online. Since then, Lim has been recognised as an artist who combines extraordinary technique, depth of expression and an almost uncanny stage presence. The fact that this internationally sought-after young star gives his only Swiss concert at Le Piano Symphonique underlines the festival’s special significance.

In Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto, Yunchan Lim reveals the combination of poetic imagination and eccentric virtuosity that makes this work so unique. What at first seems to continue the Romantic sound world of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony is transformed by Liszt into a dramatic, highly virtuosic form of symphonic piano writing.

To conclude the evening, Mikhail Pletnev conducts Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. The Russian composer’s final work exists both in its orchestral version and in Rachmaninoff’s own arrangement for two pianos – making it an ideal reflection of the spirit of Le Piano Symphonique: the piano thinks symphonically, and the orchestra answers with pianistic energy.