Chopin Competition Winner's Album Sweeps Charts

Published on 2015/11/10 | Source

An album with Cho Seong-jin's winning performances at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition last month swept the music charts here as soon as it was released Friday.

Cho even beat top K-pop stars Lee Ji-eun and Shin Seung-hoon, who released his first album in nine years. It is at any rate practically unheard-of for classical music to top the overall charts.

It was the first time that live performances during the Chopin Competition were made into an album. The Deutsche Grammophon CD includes Cho's performances of Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1 in C minor, Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, and Preludes Op. 28.

Sadly his performance of Piano Concerto No. 1 in e minor, Op. 11 with Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in the final round was not included.

"We agreed with the Chopin Institute to include only Cho's best performances", said Lee Yong-sik at distributor Universal Music.

/Newsis

Cho's album already topped various charts with the pre-orders. An almost unprecedented 50,000 copies were released, compared to the 1,000 to 2,000 copies that are the norm for classical albums.

"Nearly 30,000 copies were sold on the day of the release, so we think we'll soon run out of stock", Lee said. "We'll see if we need to produce more".