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09/13/2025
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, opus 37a
Yunchan Lim (piano)
Recording: Menuhin Hall, Stoke d’Abernon, Surrey, England (July 31 & August 1, 2024) – 43’
Decca Classics 4871021 (Distributed by Universal Music) – Booklet in English, French, German and Korean
In 2021, at age 18, South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim is the youngest musician to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and he has been in demand on concert stages ever since. On tour this year he performs Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, the composer’s all but forgotten solo piano pieces, and M. Lim has just released this new recording.
Tchaikovsky’s life was teeming with drama, romanticism, heartbreak and mystique. The same can be said for his music. Some of his most celebrated operas and ballets were flops when first premiered. Furthermore, Tchaikovsky himself was unsatisfied with some of his work. He hated his 1812 Overture which he dismissed as loud and showy and... “without any artistic merit.” Now they are considered timeless classics, and they are performed in theaters and concert halls the world over.
Tchaikovsky composed The Seasons in 1875 during a particularly difficult time. He had just premiered his First Piano Concerto while agonizing over finishing his Swan Lake ballet score. Meanwhile, he needed money, so he accepted a commission to compose twelve short piano pieces inspired by each month of the year from Nikolay Bernard, Editor of a Russian music magazine. Bernard also insisted on writing the subtitles and the presumed themes for each month.
Tchaikovsky tossed it off as a commercial project, and it has remained a footnote in the composer’s catalogue. But for him, it reveals his light, almost freeform compositional structures. A century and a half later, some passages even sound postmodern.
Lim is among the post-millennial pianists who are leaning into the improvisational implications of Chopin, Liszt and other mid‑19th century composers. Lim explains in the recording’s liner notes that he put the original monthly themes aside and reimagined Tchaikovsky’s Seasons as an episodic musical diary on the final year of life. Lim describes the piece as a “man lost in thoughts of the past, feeling sad for no reason.”
Yunchan Lim’s interpretive artistry illuminates the intimacy and casual invention starting with “January” (“By the Fireside”). It opens as a baroque‑esque piano study that progresses to meditative pianism. In “February” (“Carnaval”), Lim envisions a winter Festiva in St. Petersburg. Indeed, this could easily be an interlude in Swan Lake, even if it is sledding on a very different lyrical slope than the composer imagined. Lim interprets it as “lively characters teasing, dancing, drinking beer and stumbling around” with Tchaikovsky’s punch‑drunk keys. Upon the arrival of “March (“Song of the Lark”), Lim leans into the technical implications of “the left hand responding with calm acceptance as the right hand pours out tears of tragedy.” Indeed, proto‑modernism peeks through Tchaikovsky’s counterpoint with its silky passagio and even jazzy note clusters.
“April” (“Snowdrop”) reveals rowdy Russian phrases, arabesques and moody fades in a masterful legato. Lim’s scenario essays his interpretive inferences of “hope and anticipation.” “May” (“White Nights”) conjures the natural Russian phenomenon when the sun never fully sets and highlights the dramatic luminescence of St. Petersburg. Kim compares it to Schumann’s Dichterliebe and imagines a tender love scene in the atmosphere of magical colors. “June” (“Barcarolle”) became a famous melody on its own. Lim calls it the very heart of the seasons, and his storyline is of a woman standing by the sea, gazing at the stars and contemplating ending her life, but she envisions angels there to save her, but it is not to be.
“July” and “August” (“Song of the Reaper” and “Harvest”, respectively) find Lim on board with the peach harvesters on these months, with a rowdy pastorale and a brewing storm as harvesters quarrel. But all is well as Tchaikovsky’s “Allegro vivace” bursts forth with glittering pianistic virtuosity. Then, lyrical clouds take lustrous flight. “September” (“Hunting”) channels a stately vigor of percussive keys and a release of rhythmic tension. Lim imagines a story of a man fleeing danger and betrayal in his pursuit of the elusive woman he loves. Yet they have but only one night before he’s on the run again.
“October” (“Autumn Song”) is a moody character study of a lost man, perhaps a self‑portrait (?) Here, Lim imagines it as a malcontent man who finally finds peace within himself. Indeed, “November” (“Troika”) still is and remains a musical sleigh ride while “December” (“Christmas”) closes with its shadowy warmth...it’s also one of the most famous excerpts from the work.
Lim leans into Tchaikovsky’s score with intimacy, precision and articulation. Lim’s sinuous piano dexterity so reins in Tchaikovsky’s commanding theatrical style. The Seasons is a solo piano cycle, symbolizing Tchaikovsky’s ease at the piano. Yunchan Lim deftly courses through these tumultuous Russian seasons with magnifying resolve.
Lewis J. Whittington
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