Debussy – Seong-Jin Cho

Piano International (Mar, 2018)
Seong-Jin Cho, the young South Korean winner of the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition, first recorded two CDs of that composer’s music (DG 4795332 and 94795941). Now we witness a turn to the considerable challenges of Claude Debussy, whose music requires artistic maturity above all. When lively technical demands are present, as in ‘Mouvement’ or especially ‘Golliwog’s Cakewalk’, Cho conquers them with fluent panache. He is naturally drawn to extroverted display pieces such as ‘Poissons d’or’. Cho conveys a sincere interest in the orchestral timbres inherent in these keyboard works, but a somewhat offhand or cool approach keeps the results from being moving or illuminating.

Children’s Corner, played without the requisite …