Young prizewinning South Korean pianist William Youn is a new
name to me, but this is his third release from the Ars label.
The others were the two Chopin piano concertos and a Chopin/Schumann/Wolf
recital.
Youn makes a beautiful sound on the Steinway used for this recording,
and everything in the garden is very rosy from beginning to
end. He can bring out much of the drama in the music, as well
as creating perfect lyrical lines and weighing Schubert’s harmonies
with gorgeous dynamic shaping and shading. The SACD sound is
of demonstration quality, the piano sounding natural in a rich
but not over-resonant church acoustic, not too close for comfort
and not too distant for detail.
Such a fine piano disc is a delight for the ear, and I would
gladly leave further comments aside – I don’t really want to
criticise such a fine production, but I can’t help feeling there’s
something missing here. Schubert’s great piano works have of
course been recorded by countless great pianists, and with the
Vier Impromptus, D 935 as one of the main pieces in this
programme I turned to Radu
Lupu to try and work out the source of my niggling unrest.
Yes, Youn’s playing is superb, but compared with Lupu he really
is skimming the surface with a work such as the Impromptu
No.1 f-moll. Lupu’s opening 30 seconds or so hold worlds
of potent expression. The opening broken chord is given a touch
of extra weight through being held just a fraction longer, the
following dotted sequence also sustained, gathering tension
which is disarmed by the simple little cadence which is its
reply. This drama is quasi-repeated, building further as the
curtain-raiser for tunes which aren’t really tunes, a song which
could only be expressed on a keyboard with all its arpeggiations
and figurations. Youn skates through that introduction, yes
– giving us that dynamic development and a certain amount of
contrast between thematic elements, but hardly really exploring
the expressive potential of the material. Youn doesn’t find
angst in Schubert’s subtle changes of harmony, doesn’t show
us the innigkeit which the composer is revealing from
the deepest of depths. Timings are by no means anything like
the whole story, but it is telling that each of Youn’s Impromptus
come across the finishing line well before Lupu’s. The second
of the set comes across as a fairly innocuous waltz from Youn,
where Lupu – barely slower, still generates that sense of tragedy,
and really hits us between the eyes with those outbursts of
rage and frustration which explode from that most charming of
melodies. Youn is too mild at these moments, still creating
fine sonorities when the strings of the piano should be screaming
for mercy. When Schubert writes ffz he means more
than we get here. He also misses out the second repeat in the
first section, which you may or may not regard as a criminal
offence.
For the Drei Klavierstücke D 946 I happened to have the
Brilliant Classics box with Michel
Dalberto to hand, which is a very fine set indeed though
doesn’t have all the answers. I hate being a member of the repeat-mark
police, but here this question does arise – Dalberto putting
in pretty much everything, and transforming Youn’s truncated
6:52 into an almost symphonic 13:40 in the first piece in E
flat minor by adding in the second repeat in the slow central
section. The actual performance points are less clearly delineated
here, and Youn’s runs and tremuli are more even that Dalberto’s.
The climax at the end of that Andante is where Schubert
has his moment for howling at the moon, and Youn’s is arguably
the less for having it appear only once, and very much the less
for his going all quiet on us at the moment supreme when
there is no indication for this in the score – at least, not
in the edition I was looking at. The second of these pieces
D946 is marked Allegretto, and Michel Dalberto
manages to find plenty of expression even at a tempo which moves
with a more dance like character than Youn, whose main theme
sections sound a bit fat and self-satisfied. Youn misses the
second repeat in the first section which to my mind does truncate
the flow and spoil the proportion of the piece, though he does
keep all of those magical harmonic progressions which arise
in the fast central section.
I won’t carry on with points of interpretation, but I hope you
get the idea. William Youn’s technique is superlative, and less
critical listeners can ignore my pickiness, bathe in his wonderful
sound and enjoy some of the best music written for piano in
the 18th century at the same time in the full spectrum
and 3D acoustic of a marvelous 5.1 multichannel recording. I
do not want to give the idea that I dislike his playing, for
this is by no means the case. When however you’ve become used
to hearing so much more in Schubert’s piano music it’s hard
to revert and accept less, no matter how wonderfully produced
or performed it may be. Youn can and does create many magical
moments, and makes it possible to forget you are listening to
a piano at times, such is the enveloping quality of the sound
he conjures. I fear however, that these performances will not
be entering the pantheon of the truly greats.
Dominy Clements
William Youn (piano)
[67:34] 
