05-05-2025
Seong-Jin Cho review — a fabulous feast of Ravel
It has been a busy couple of weeks for marathons in London. A few days before runners took to the tarmac, the pianist Igor Levit took on Erik Satie's Vexations — a short piece to be performed 840 times. At the Barbican in London on Friday, Seong-Jin Cho played the complete solo piano works of another French musical adventurer, Maurice Ravel. Levit's performance ran for 13 hours; Cho's lasted three, with two intervals. But given the demands of Ravel's music, physical and mental — an increasingly sweaty Cho played entirely from memory — the 'Ravel-athon' may have been the more extreme endurance event. Cho has also been touring the programme internationally since January.
Running through the pieces chronologically, the concert faithfully followed the recording Cho
