Nathan Schiller

Sometime before the pandemic I heard Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 live for the first time. The piece, known as the Rach 3, is among the most gargantuan in the standard repertoire, a vast structural complexity with knotty technicalities and tender souls. Long ago, I stretched my talent to learn its notes; I’ve probably encountered most online recordings. 

I always assumed a live show would be hallucinogenic. Instead I got a concert. The soloist was a younger but established virtuoso. His interpretation felt off, obtuse. Afterward, while exiting the concert hall, someone remarked that the artist would play it better when he’s older.

Age is the laziest default critique of classical piano playing. Last June, in the final round of the Van Cliburn competition, one of the world’s most prestigious, Yunchan Lim, led by Marin Alsop and accompanied by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, brought new wonder to the Rach 3. He was 18.

People noticed. His performance quickly gamed the YouTube algorithm. In five months, it’s amassed 8.6 million views and—astonishingly—13,600 comments. For perspective, the most-viewed Rachmaninoff concerto has 32 million views and 14,800 comments. But it took nine years, and it’s not even the Rach 3—it’s Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, which, comparatively, might as well be pop music.

The comments are raw and real and amusing in anointing the latest Rach 3 GOAT. But they tell little. Classical piano YouTube commenters have a tendency to gush that that their favorite version of a piece is the one they’re commenting on, and that their other favorites are the other versions by other pianists that went viral on YouTube.

An entertaining analysis of Lim’s performance from Ben Laude at tonebase reveals some of the objective inputs that explain the pull. And that creates space for judgement and editorializing. Careful phrasing to unlock melodic integrity is one way to put it. Getting in the zone and getting hot is another. Any piano player with one-in-a-billion gifts can compete. It happens more often than the classical piano community has energy to celebrate.

Still: a kid? 

People who listen to classical music love to claim that it contains something sophisticated enough to be inaccessible to youth. We can always laugh at this. Far easier than wondering why the player produced the sound is forgetting the complexity of a teenager’s universe. 

Everyone eventually finds outlets for their ideas. Yunchan Lim’s got captured on camera. He can easily blossom into more than a man of his time.