At just twenty-two years old, Yunchan Lim has already become one of the most talked-about pianists in the world.
Since his historic victory at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, his performances have been viewed tens of millions of times online.
Yunchan Lim
While many listeners know his now-legendary Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, which won him the title in Texas, there is a trove of other concerto performances available online that reveal the full depth and versatility of his artistry.
Today, we’re looking at ten underrated Yunchan Lim concerto performances you might not have known existed.
Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 22 (1785)
During this April 2021 performance, Lim appeared with the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra playing Mozart‘s Piano Concerto No. 22. He had just turned seventeen.
For any Yunchan superfans, it’s interesting to compare this performance to the one he gave of the same concerto during the semi-final round of the Van Cliburn Competition in June 2022.
The Van Cliburn performance is here:
Yunchan Lim plays MOZART Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K. 482 – 2022 Cliburn Competition
Mozart composed this concerto in December 1785. It is significant for being the first of his piano concertos to include clarinets in the orchestration. Its final movement is featured in the blockbuster Amadeus.
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 3 (c. 1800)
Here’s a concerto performance by Yunchan Lim dating from the 2019 Isang Yun Competition, held annually in Tongyeong, South Korea. At the time, Yunchan was just fifteen years old, and had only been playing the piano for eight years!
He won the overall competition, as well as the UNESCO Creative City of Music Special Prize, which is voted on by the audience.
This performance made him the youngest winner in the competition’s history.
Three years later, after he’d made the final round of the Cliburn, he returned to this same concerto. As of late 2025, that Cliburn performance has 5.6 million views.
It’s a joy to see how his artistry has grown between 2019 and 2022.
Yunchan Lim plays BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, op. 37 – 2022 Cliburn Competition
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 4 (1805)
In November 2023, a little over a year after his performance of Beethoven‘s Third Concerto had helped him win at the Cliburn, Lim gave a series of concerts of the Fourth Concerto.
This particular performance took place with the Münchner Philharmoniker in Munich, Germany. The conductor is Myung Whun Chung, and the orchestral accompaniment is incredibly sensitive and responsive.
The professional videography makes this performance a real treat.
Astonishingly, it becomes clear throughout this performance that Lim’s Beethoven playing has matured even beyond what he offered at the Cliburn competition, featuring a truly consummate ease and genuinely breathtaking subtlety.
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor” (1809)
In the summer of 2024, Lim brought out yet another Beethoven concerto: the fifth, nicknamed the Emperor.
This performance is staggering. The sound he coaxes from the keys is delightfully warm, full, and pearly.
Every phrase boasts a new musical idea. One gets the sense that he’s not just playing music, but that the music is somehow coming alive through him, and that the piano just happens to be the vehicle through which that happens.
Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 2 (1829)
In May 2025, Yunchan Lim played Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.
This performance was recorded off the radio, so unfortunately, there is no video to accompany it, but it is worth checking out anyway.
Maria Wodzińska: Chopin, 1836 (National Museum in Warsaw)
Chopin has been a composer that Lim has prioritised in his career. He played the composer’s early “Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano'” at the Cliburn competition, and in April 2024, he released a studio album of Chopin etudes on the Decca label.
To sum up, this is a composer whom Lim has clearly thought a lot about, and his performance of Chopin’s Second Concerto is a joy.
A particular highlight is the second movement. The way he can make notes seem as if they’re floating in the air is intoxicating.
Mendelssohn – Piano Concerto No. 1 (excerpt) (1830-1831)
Here’s another bootleg recording of Lim, this time playing Mendelssohn‘s first piano concerto with the Korean Symphony Orchestra at an outdoor concert in August 2022, just weeks after winning the Cliburn and becoming a household name in the classical music world.
He plays with real fire and abandon here. Of course, his technique is more than up to the challenge of anything a composer can throw at it, but it sometimes feels here as if he’s right on the edge of losing control – and it just makes the performance more exciting.
It’s also a treat to get to see him playing in an outdoor setting, where the atmosphere is more casual and he is projecting out to a large audience.
Schumann – Piano Concerto (1841–1845)
This performance is another radio broadcast. It dates from October 2023.
He’s performing in Paris with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and conductor Myung Whun Chung.
His playing is arresting, even from the opening cascading chords. The rhythm is sharp and swings. When he comes in again, the subtle delicacy just blossoms.
It’s a performance that seems as if it’s speaking with you, not just at you.
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 (1900–1901)
Of course, the single most important performance of Lim’s career so far was his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto at the Van Cliburn Competition.
It made a lot of listeners wonder: what do Yunchan Lim’s other Rachmaninoff concertos sound like?
So much of what is so striking about that competition-winning Cliburn performance is also present in this performance of the second concerto, which was given in January 2025 in Cologne, Germany, with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Cristian Măcelaru on the podium.
You can hear a rainbow of tonal colours, a wide variety of dynamics, as well as a simple but profound preoccupation with the beauty of the piano’s sound.
It’s hard to explain why, but Lim just sounds like someone who has listened to Rachmaninoff’s recordings from the 1920s and 1930s over and over again…maybe because he famously has! His interpretation is the better for it.
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 4 (1926)
In the summer of 2025, Lim appeared at the BBC Proms playing Rachmaninoff’s fourth piano concerto: an intriguing choice, since, especially compared to the second and third and the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, this is not a warhorse.
It suggests that Lim wants to do more with his newfound fame than just play the same dozen concertos over and over again for fifty years.
Again, everything that is so satisfying about his Cliburn competition performance is present here, too: a beautiful pearly sound, a flawless technique, and an unerring sense of the work’s architecture and the pacing it requires.
It’s fascinating to hear him apply those gifts to a work that most listeners will probably be new to.
Bartók – Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945)
This performance of Bartók‘s third concerto was given in September 2025 with the New York Philharmonic and the orchestra’s future music director Gustavo Dudamel.
Bartók is not a composer that Yunchan Lim has been linked to. However, this performance suggests that might change in future.
The gradations of sound that he pulls from the piano during the breathless second movement is really astonishing stuff, and the crispness of the third movement virtuosity is deeply satisfying.
Despite the aesthetic differences between the languages of the two composers, it seems that he has just as clear a conception of what he wants to say with Bartók as he does with Rachmaninoff.
This performance, perhaps more than any other performance on this list, suggests that Lim has the ability to excel in a wide range of repertoire…and that we’re only getting started in seeing what he can do on the world stage.
Conclusion
Yunchan Lim
Taken together, these ten concerto performances trace Yunchan Lim’s evolution from a fifteen-year-old prodigy to a mature artist performing with the New York Philharmonic.
As his repertoire expands beyond Rachmaninoff and Chopin to include works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Bartók, Lim’s artistry will continue to unfold in thrilling new directions. And we’ll be here to listen!
What concerto performance on this list is your favourite?
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