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Artist: Seong-Jin Cho
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Seong-Jin Cho:

Ravel - The Complete Solo Piano Works

Having loved Ravel since childhood, Seong-Jin Cho has chosen to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth by recording his complete solo piano music and the two concertos. He is joined in the latter by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, following acclaimed live performances with them as part of his ongoing focus on the French composer. Cho’s insightful readings of Ravel, on stage and in the studio, underline his status as one of today’s most elegant and accomplished pianists, ten years on from his Chopin Competition victory.

Deutsche Grammophon releases the first of two albums, Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works, today. (digitally and on two CDs). The second album, containing the two piano concertos and a deluxe edition will soon follow!

Seong-Jin Cho has always felt a close connection with the French piano literature and found himself fully immersed in Ravel while studying at the Paris Conservatoire. Discussing the challenges of the solo works, he points to the composer’s orchestral sound and meticulous attention to detail. “Ravel really knew what he wanted, so I try to follow his specific markings,” he says. “Miroirs, for example, is incredibly technically demanding. It’s so sensitive and dramatic, full of imagination and colour – it’s almost impossible to apply every marking, but I try my best!”

Recent reviews suggest he knows exactly how to realize Ravel’s wishes. Following a recital in Madrid in March, Scherzo hailed Cho as “perhaps the finest Ravel interpreter of our time”, while after his Edinburgh Festival recital, The Scotsman wrote, “With what seemed like impossibly perfect precision, the first half of all Ravel heard Cho in a contrasting and extensive range of colour, coupled with a sense of flow that allowed the music to breathe with ease and warmth.”

Seong-Jin Cho:

The Handel Project

Handel’s keyboard suites have remained strangers to most concert pianists. Seong-Jin Cho hopes that his latest album for Deutsche Grammophon will shed new light on some of the most heartfelt of all Baroque music. Set for release today, The Handel Project contains three of the 28-year-old South Korean pianist’s favourite suites from Handel’s first collection of Suites de pièces pour le clavecin. These are coupled with Brahms’s virtuosic Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, which Cho believes to be “the best variations that have ever been written”.

The artist was drawn to Handel’s keyboard suites after years of immersion in music from later periods. Having fallen in love with their wealth of musical ideas and wide-ranging melodic invention, Cho listened to recordings of the works on harpsichord, the instrument for which they were conceived, and refined his finger technique in order to give different tone colours and weight to Handel’s contrapuntal lines. He has avoided the sustaining pedal as much as possible, but modified some of the dynamic markings in order to exploit the potential of a modern piano.

“Of course, Bach is the most popular Baroque com­poser,” notes Cho. “But I discovered Handel’s suites a few years ago and realised that they contain so many great pieces, which are not so often played by pianists on a modern piano. I don’t remember when I first heard Handel’s music, but I have been interested in works by Baroque composers – Handel, Rameau, Couperin – since I was a teenager. I really wanted to explore this kind of music and was very happy to record this Handel album. For me, Handel’s music comes directly from the heart, so people can easily follow it.”

Seong-Jin Cho:

Chopin Piano Competition

Deutsche Grammophon (DG) presents the debut solo album from Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition. Cho took the coveted first prize, among the most prestigious titles in the world of classical music. He was named winner this past Tuesday following three weeks and three stages of competition in Warsaw. The recording, set for digital release on November 6 and physical release on December 18, contains highlights from the 21-year-old South Korean pianist's recital rounds. This live album marks the start of a long-term collaboration between DG and the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, created to promote the work of outstanding interpreters of Chopin's music.

Seong-Jin Cho:

Debussy

Following his two previous Chopin albums on the Yellow Label, it is entirely fitting that Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition, should turn to Debussy for his third album. Towards his life's close, the French composer edited the piano works of Chopin, an experience that reignited his creativity, opening his heart to music he had loved since childhood. In turn, Cho's connection to Debussy runs deep. "I have always loved Debussy's music, but my feeling for it has deepened during my studies with Michel Béroff at the Paris Conservatoire," Cho recalls. "Michel never presses me to accept his ideas on interpretation, which would be so easy for such a great master of Debussy's music. His lessons are like meetings in which we discuss my playing, talk about music and art, and allow things to develop naturally."

Seong-Jin Cho:

Chopin_Piano Concerto No. 2 - Scherzi

For his sixth and latest Deutsche Grammophon album, pianist Seong-Jin Cho returns to the music of Frédéric Chopin with Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 · Scherzi. The album is set for international release on 27 August 2021 and features these best-loved works in interpretations characterised by thoughtful poetry and youthful ardour. For the concerto, Seong-Jin Cho teams up with the London Symphony Orchestra andGianandrea Noseda, a conductor with whom he has enjoyed a productive and stimulating collaboration over the past five years. The digital version of the album will include three bonus solo tracks: the "Revolutionary" Étude, Op. 10 no. 12, Impromptu No. 1, Op. 29 and Nocturne, Op. 9 no. 2.

Cho came to worldwide prominence in 2015 when he won First Prizeat the Warsaw International Chopin Competition, the first South Korean pianist to achieve this feat. His technical mastery coupled with his artistic maturity – particularly remarkable given that he was only 21 years old – impressed a jury of seventeen members, including the 1970 competition winnerGarrick Ohlsson, who praised Cho as a "remarkable, complete young artist". After the success of his first studio album for the Yellow Label, featuring Chopin's First Concerto and the 4 Ballades, also recorded with the LSO and Noseda,Cho is now realising his wish to follow that release with what he considers to be its logical companion, a pairing of the Second Concerto and the four Scherzi.

Seong-Jin Cho:

Mozart - Allegro in D Major, K. 626b 16

What better way to celebrate Mozart's birthday than with the world premiere of one of his compositions? Seong-Jin Cho did just that in the Great Hall of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation on 27 January 2021, which was also the opening day of the Foundation's first virtual Mozartwoche festival. The acclaimed pianist's performance of the recently rediscovered Allegro in D K626b/16 was streamed on Deutsche Grammophon's DG Stage in the context of a full piano and lecture recital including other works by Mozart. A short version was broadcasted on DG's YouTube channel as well as on the Mozarteum's social media channels. The Yellow Label further marks this truly unique occasion with today's release of Ninety-Four Seconds of New Mozart, Cho's e-single recording of the brief yet profoundly moving keyboard piece.

Seong-Jin Cho:

The Wanderer

After winning the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015 and releasing lauded albums of works by Debussy and Mozart, the "unequivocally brilliant" (The Telegraph) pianist Seong-Jin Cho now explores Schubert, Liszt, and Berg. The new album features Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and  Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor.

Seong-Jin Cho:

Mozart Piano Concertos w/COE, Nezet-Seguin

Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho will release his first Mozart recording, Piano Concerto No. 20 & Sonatas, on Deutsche Grammophon on November 16 – boasting a dynamic interpretation of one of the composer's most powerful and dramatic piano concertos. The album is available for pre-order everywhere today, along with the first track off of the album, Piano Sonata No. 3 in B-flat Major, K281. 

Seong-Jin Cho was fortunate that his earliest memories of Mozart were fixed by his parents' recordings of two of the composer's greatest operas: The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute. They opened the young musician's heart to the limitless compassion of Mozart's music, which continues to resonate with Cho.