Jimin Oh-Havenith - audite Russian Piano Forte

Jeremy Nicholas, gramophone.co.uk, 10/2022

"Fiery passion with uninhibited élan" - Gramophone 10/22

In the small differences between Mussorgsky’s original piano score and Rimsky-Korsakov’s revision, Jimin Oh-Havenith sticks quite faithfully to the manuscript. […] The South Korean-born pianist, now resident in Germany, has made a careful study of the score. In fact care and caution are the watchwords here.

Oh-Havenith makes a deeper impression with the four Scriabin items. Cool introspection seems to be her strongest card – I loved her handling of the two delicate Preludes and the B minor Prelude from Rachmaninov’s Op 32 – though in the C sharp minor Étude from Scriabin’s Op 42 set and in Rachmaninov’s B flat major Prelude from Op 23, she is comfortably at home delivering fiery passion with uninhibited élan. These are well played indeed, in the final Rachmaninov Prelude in D flat Oh-Havenith has a vitality and range of colours […] Superbly recorded in the Schafstall, Marienmünster, her chosen instrument, a sumptuously voiced Bösendorfer, is well worth hearing.