Pianist Yunchan Lim continued what he has described as his Mozart pilgrimage, performing the composer's Concerto for Two Pianos No. 10 in E-flat major (K. 365) alongside his teacher Sohn Min-soo at a special concert marking the KBS Symphony Orchestra's 70th anniversary. The event took place at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul on July 22.

The concerto, which Mozart composed in 1779 for performance with his sister Maria Anna (Nannerl), is one of the earliest works for multiple pianos in the classical repertory, making the teacher-student pairing especially resonant with its origins.

Lim, 22, rocketed to international prominence when he became the youngest gold medalist in the history of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022 at age 18. He and Sohn, a professor at the New England Conservatory in Boston, took the stage not merely as teacher and student but as artistic partners. The two seated themselves at lidless pianos arranged keyboard to keyboard, the same configuration used at their duo recital a year earlier. Their mature rapport was evident throughout, as the pair appeared to share every subtle breath and gesture, effortlessly exchanging phrases until the boundary between their individual voices seemed to dissolve.

Lim displayed a remarkably delicate and refined touch, shaping Mozart's elegant musical architecture with grace. He floated transparent melodic lines over Sohn's broad, solid sonority, performing with striking freedom. Throughout the concerto, Lim visibly enjoyed the collaboration, swaying rhythmically from side to side.

The concert was led by Japanese conductor Masato Suzuki, who also collaborated with Lim during Camerata Salzburg's recent tour of Korea. Suzuki reconfigured the orchestra's usual stage setup for the occasion, placing the second violins on the far right and moving the cellos beside the first violins to create a more spatially defined sound.

The program opened with the overture to Mozart's "Don Giovanni," an opera of historical significance for the KBS Symphony Orchestra, which performed it during the National Opera of Korea's first Korean production in 1962. The orchestra's nimble, energetic playing established a celebratory tone from the outset.

The concerto's second movement, structured around an intimate musical dialogue between the two soloists, served as the emotional centerpiece of the performance. Suzuki provided meticulous support that allowed the pianists' duet to unfold naturally.

The encore proved equally memorable. When stagehands placed two chairs in front of the piano where Lim had been seated, audible excitement rippled through the audience. Sitting side by side at a single keyboard, Lim and Sohn performed a four-hand arrangement of Bach's Cantata No. 106, "God's Time Is the Best Time." Even the angles of their upper bodies mirrored one another as they shared the keyboard, producing a striking sense of unity.

After intermission, the KBS Symphony presented Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, revealing an entirely different musical character. While the orchestra had employed restrained string vibrato in the first half for a clear, refined sound, it embraced rich sonorities and explosive energy in the second. The ensemble's robust lower strings, widely regarded as one of its greatest strengths, stood out in particular. The brass section blazed brilliantly in the third movement, evoking a festive fanfare.

Clearly delighted with the orchestra's performance, Suzuki leaped lightly onto the podium with a broad smile and offered the finale of the fourth movement as an encore.

Lim and Sohn will reunite on July 26 at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, where they will perform the same Mozart concerto with the Verbier Festival Orchestra under conductor Lahav Shani.

Looking ahead, Lim is scheduled to perform Mozart's complete piano sonatas along with two Fantasias (K. 397 and K. 475) across four recitals at Carnegie Hall during the 2026–27 season, as part of his Carnegie Hall recital series.

Source: The Korea Times. This article originally appeared in the Hankook Ilbo, sister publication of The Korea Times, and was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.