Debussy: Images. Children's Corner. Suite bergamasque. L'Isle joyeuse

Youthful Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho seized the spotlight with a hard-fought win in the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition and was promptly signed to Deutsche Grammophon. He is of the technician genus that often takes home contest prizes, but this is not a bad thing in a perhaps over-individualistic age. He is emerging as a specialist in French music (it is said that he undertook a crash immersion course in Impressionism in the museums of Paris while studying there), but perhaps he might be compared to Wilhelm Kempff or Rudolf Serkin. He stays out of the music's way, and this may be to his advantage in Debussy, where so many pianists tip the scale toward either the poetic quality or toward the virtuoso content. Cho does neither. His playing is flawless; you might say it had a steely perfection if it weren't so understated. If nothing seems to be happening, give it a minute, and Debussy's labyrinths themselves will draw you in. You might wish for a bit more humor in the Children's Corner and especially for more ecstasy in L'isle joyeuse, but the two sets of Images are dense with detail. Perhaps best of all is the Suite bergamasque, where understatement is part of the explicit point: sample here, and you may find yourself a Cho convert. He gets excellent support from Deutsche Grammophon's clean Siemens studio engineering. Where Cho goes next is not yet clear, but one's curiosity is roused.

1. Seong-Jin Cho - 1. Reflets dans l'eau (Images I, L. 110)