Yuja does jeans

Yuja does jeans

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norman lebrecht

August 11, 2018

It’s a funny old summer.

Comments

  • Geoff Cox says:

    Fabulous playing as always!

  • Ravi Narasimhan says:

    Flip phone on the piano? I’d bet this clip is at least ten years old.

  • Been Here Before says:

    Can’t wait to hear Yuja and Kirill do Prokofiev 3 on Sept 1!

    Yet there is one I would like to hear even more…

  • Alexander says:

    she is looking even more sexy in jeans … go Yuja , go 😉

  • david riviere says:

    Good fingers but what else ?

    • John says:

      What else? Well, assuming you can knock out playing like that in a practice room (clearly in the middle of a session where she was working on something else) and sound as impressive as that through the internal microphone of a camcorder, then of course you have every right to ask the question. Assuming you can…

      …the ‘what else’ in her case might be the range of repertoire. She doesn’t just do the warhorses but goes well beyond them: Tchaikovsky No.2, Rachmaninov No.4 (both pieces that really deserve to be better known), all the Prokofiev concertos (even the left hand one), both the Ravels, not just the G major, all three Bartoks. Turangalila. – and you don’t mess with anyone who can play that. She does new music too (John Adams has just written a new concerto for her) and loads of chamber music. And she’s in her early 30s, so just getting started musically speaking. If she is concentrating on glitter and virtuosity at this stage, that’s OK; there’s plenty of time for her to be profound when she is older.

      There is considerable enthusiasm for criticising her fashion sense, as if she were the first young musician to use their attractiveness to help connect with their public. Liszt did that almost 200 years ago and artists have been doing it ever since. If she was a singer no-one would even comment. If she is helping to bring an enthusiastic audience to classical music, then there is nothing wrong with that, because to my ears everything she is doing musically is in the service of the music, not traducing it. We’re not talking Vanessa Mae or Medieval Baebes here.

      People should stop patronising her and should instead appreciate her undoubted virtuosity, her ability to connect with a wide audience and her willingness to explore the margins as well as the core repertoire (something I suspect she will do more and more).

  • Bruce says:

    Hoo boy. Her intonation is terrible. Every single note is out of tune.

  • Bruce says:

    Also – it’s amazing that she actually wears jeans sometimes. I would have thought that she lives her entire life in strapless orange mini dresses and spike heels.

    The jeans were probably just for the video.

  • Brettermeier says:

    I’m wearing camouflage cargo shorts and a hawaii shirt. Nobody cares, hm? Rats.

  • Elizabeth Owen says:

    “Gentlemen”. Purleeeze.

  • Hilary says:

    Loved her Barbican recital earlier this year.
    So much to savour but perhaps it was her account of Scriabin 10 which really sticks in the memory.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    Ms. Wang wears ordinary, non distinct clothes and plays her usual fantastic way, but some media can’t stop commenting on her appearance.

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