United States Rachmaninoff, Mahler: Yunchan Lim (piano), London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor). Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa, 20.2.2025. (LV)
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op.18
Mahler – Symphony No.1, ‘Titan’
In the midst of their grueling US tour of both coasts – eleven concerts in ten cities in sixteen days – the London Symphony Orchestra played at the Segerstrom Hall in Orange County, where they were greeted by a full house that couldn’t decide at the end of every movement whether to remain silent or applaud – and most of the time simply shouted. Although much of the audience was seemingly there for the appearance of the young heartthrob superstar pianist Yunchan Lim, their enthusiasm carried over to a splendid performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.1 conducted by Antonio Pappano.
The energy in the hall reminded me of what happened when the Colburn School hosted Ray Chen’s TonicCon conference last October. Lim didn’t have advance people prepping the audience before the concert with bling bags, like Chen did before his performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Colburn. Basically, he just let Rachmaninoff’s primo Romantic warhorse play itself and let the crowd become immersed in the romantic waves – and adore his presence. Of course, it is not an easy thing to have such command of Rachmaninoff that you can allow it to glisten out of your fingers and go straight to the heart without missing a note or mussing your hair, but audiences expect such command from Cliburn Competition winners (in Lim’s case, in 2022 when he was 18), and Lim delivered.
The ovations were thunderous and relentless and only subsided when Lim returned for a spellbinding, introspective reading of Liszt’s ‘Sonetto 104 del Petrarca’, which has become a signature tune for him: he played it at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2024 in October.
To prove they were not there just to provide a backdrop for Lim, the LSO and Pappano put their best Mahler forward, warm and sane, and were similarly adored. It was a fine, straightforward performance with very few unorthodoxies to mar what is becoming as familiar a symphony as any of Beethoven’s. The strings swept majestically when they had to, the woodwinds were somewhat rustic and the brass superb. By coincidence, the last time I heard Mahler’s First was by the Pasadena Symphony in January when their new music director, Brett Mitchell, had the entire double bass section play the opening of the third movement based on the 1992 Critical Edition; in consequence, it was a corrective pleasure to hear the LSO’s double bass soloist play it alone, and eloquently so.
The cultural impact of an elite ensemble like the LSO reverberates far beyond their scheduled performances, creating ripples of artistic influence throughout the communities they visit. This became vividly apparent when the LSO’s principal second violin, Julián Rodriguez, conducted an extraordinary masterclass at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito the day before the orchestra was set to play in nearby Santa Barbara. I happened to be in town that day and witnessed twenty-year-old Sofia Malvinni deliver a stunning rendition of the first movement of Brahms’s Violin Concerto that left me astounded – her interpretation combined a breathtaking technical mastery and emotional depth that compared well to performances I have heard from multiple internationally acclaimed virtuosos.
Laurence Vittes