Seong-Jin Cho - Winner of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition (2015) [Hi-Res]

The classical music landscape is so littered with competitions in which the fix is in for a dutifully colorless musician that one might justifiably treat the 21-year-old South Korean Seong-Jin Cho with skepticism after hearing that he won the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. His performances there were recorded in October of 2015 and released by Deutsche Grammophon a scant six weeks later, and the good news is that Cho is a competition winner of a different stripe. These are entirely innovative readings of Chopin standards, rendered with muscular excitement. The best comes first on the program here with the set of Preludes, Op. 28, where Cho strips out any hint of hazy mood music or late-Romantic neurasthenia, focusing on the counterpoint and turning the remarkable level of dissonance from a sort of chromatic wash into a pure extension of Bachian principles. Sample one of the well-known preludes, such as the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 4 (track four), to learn what you're getting here: tough, detailed readings that make you hear the music anew. The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35, is a bit less daring, but it's a forceful, absorbing performance of the work throughout, and the single Nocturne and Polonaise each suggest new avenues of interpretation in those genres. Hats off, gentlemen (and gentlewomen) -- a major new Chopin interpreter! -- James Manheim