Yunchan Lim wows the Proms with muted intensity

Two members of the audience collapsed in the first half of last night’s BBC Prom concert. The air-conditioning at the Royal Albert Hall was on full-blast but the atmosphere in the pit was choking.

And then there was Yunchan.

A wisp of a pianist, barely filling his dark suit, the 20 year-old Korean sat at the piano with an authority unseen in one so young. His entry in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto was so quiet the conductor Paavo Jarvi had to tamp down the BBC Symphony Orchestra and let the soloist dictate dynamics.

I think I heard a pin drop in the Adagio – its tune plundered by Bernstein in West Side Story – but I might be mistaken. Some around me barely dared to breathe. The finale, which often feels self-repetitive, was dashed off at Olympic speed.

Yunchan Lim returned for two ovations. With the second he played a Bach transcription, then he was gone. No wave of farewell. Almost an apparition.

photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou