Salzburg: Kissin out, Yuja in

Salzburg: Kissin out, Yuja in

News

norman lebrecht

August 03, 2022

One pianist has a pain in his arm, the other will make her festival debut on Friday night.

Press Release of the 2022 Salzburg Festival:

(SF, 03 August 2022) The Salzburg Festival is sorry to announce that Evgeny Kissin has been forced to cancel his Solo Recital on Friday, 5 August, at the Haus für Mozart. As the artist informed the Festival with great regret, pain in his arm has compelled him to take a break for some time, and he has been unable to prepare adequately for this solo recital.

The Salzburg Festival is pleased that Yuja Wang will step in to perform at short notice on this evening, thereby making her Festival recital debut.

 

Comments

  • boots says:

    lovely….. she’s amazing as we all know.

  • Kaf says:

    I can’t imagine there is much overlap between fans of Kissin and fans of Yuja, between the sacred and the profane.

    • Lost and found says:

      Since when is Kissin profane?

    • Bone says:

      Just a world-class troll – bravo!

    • Tamino says:

      Projections, projections, projections…

      An experiment would have been most interesting:
      Kissin cancels, the public is not told the truth, but a lie that Mr. Kissin suffers from an anxiety disorder and requested to play behind a curtain, not visible to the audience.
      Then Yuja Wang plays.
      Then the reactions of the audience are sampled.
      Then they are told who actually played and reactions are sampled again.
      I‘m certain the results would be revealing and hilarious…

    • David Chase says:

      Since when is Yuja profane??? as the word profane seems to parallel with Yuja, not Kissin.

    • Ned Keane says:

      Desperate snobbery

  • Serge says:

    From gold to dust. What an absolutely lack of fantasy from the organizers.

    • Maria says:

      Try finding a pianist at short notice who is free and then the travelling to consider and where it fits in with their previous and next concerts too. Pianists are busy. The organisers have done a great job at short notice to get Yuga Wang and she will do an excellent job making fine music, albeit with a different prgramme. Wish him a speedy recovery from his injury and her all the best for the concert

    • JEAN-DAVID COEN says:

      Cannot imagine a more idiotic, asinine comment ..but hey, Tchaikowski said Brahms was a mediocre composer, so you are entitled to your opinion

  • SY says:

    Not festival debut. Festival recital debut

  • Simpson says:

    I seems like the Festival has been gradually relabeling itself as a show-biz venue. I don’t remember if they have a stadium there for whoever the three tenors du jour are and others performing in that isle of classical music.

    • Una says:

      I studied in Salzburg, and have family there. Always found it really snobby and a city full of Herr and Frau Doctors!

  • Werner van Krunkelsven says:

    It is a pitty for Evgeny, who gave last month such a fine recital at the beautifull Flagey concert hall in Brussels

  • For shame says:

    Shame on them! Anyone who performs for this festival is a Putin collaborator and they know it!

    • Trevor P. says:

      Yeah-yeah, and anyone playing Tchaikovsky also. Have a look at events in Serbia and China, if you’re not interested in festival

    • Maria says:

      Don’t be stupid! That is very unfair on a performing artist.

      • For shame says:

        It’s certainly unfair that a performing artist is performing at a Russian-backed music festival that implicitly supports the Putin regime. Hence the justified commotion about Currentzis.

        Kissin did the right thing by morally withdrawing ‘due to a hand injury’.

  • Max Raimi says:

    When Mr. Kissin performs with us here in Chicago, for days beforehand he commandeers a piano that they situate just outside the men’s dressing room, where its sound will not bleed upstairs to the stage. He seems to practice relentlessly, all day every day. It is inspiring and a bit intimidating to witness.
    You can see the results in his superhuman mastery of his instrument. But one must wonder if at some point it won’t take its toll on his body.

  • Pedro says:

    Please stop the Wang bashing and look at the programme of her recital.

    • Pedro says:

      Salzburg is indeed an innovative festival. Look at her programme: Ligeti, Schönberg, Scriabin, Albéniz… starting with two Schubert/Liszt songs. Brava Miss Wang!

  • BigSir says:

    Bravo for Yuja!

  • Gerry Feinsteen says:

    I’m sure those who bought tickets for Kissin will be thrilled to have the stand-in.

  • Manu says:

    The lack of ideas of Mr Hinterhäuser and Mr Wiegand specially in the concert program is alarming. Only superstars allowed. Who else if not the Salzburg festival could present some out of the box ideas in terms of young talent? Or are they just waiting the good old agency friends let them know who they should book?

  • Tony Sanderson says:

    In his new DG recording of his 2021 recital, Kissin played the Dance and 5 pieces by Tikhon Krennikov. He was Stalin’s mouthpiece in the Union of Soviet Composers.

    Kissin played for him as a child and argues that he did a lot behind the scenes in protecting Jewish composers for example.

    Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate his music on it’s own terms. I heard a recording of his third symphony. It was certainly lot better than I was expecting. His music has been trashed by those who have probably never heard a note of it.

    Will history judge Krennikov any more kindly in the future because of Kissin’s
    efforts?

  • Karin Becker says:

    The Chinese singer will be in Lucerne and Salzburg in August anyway to perform a composition by Messiaen. Then she will perform her tour programme again, thankfully without Beethoven’s Sonata op. 31.3. If the Salzburg audience is lucky, she will dress even less on stage than she did in Los Angeles in April, where she wore only a leotard and tights. Wang can always up her vulgarity.

  • geoff says:

    Wow! lots of comments about Kissin and Wang, and so many in agreement and so many not. Very divisive artists it seems.

  • Karin Becker says:

    After Wang showed for the performance of Beethoven and Schoenberg works at the Disney Concert Hall in LA on 6 April 2022 that she needs less and less outerwear but can get by with a leotard and tights, the question now for the audience in Salzburg was: what will the Chinese woman wear for her solo show in Salzburg? The photo https://www.krone.at/2778399 shows Wang in a green mini-mini dress that barely covers her bottom.
    As in all her concert shows, she made it clear to the Salzburg audience that her legs are at the centre of the performance. In Salzburg, too, Wang showed herself as the person she wants to be: sexualised, tasteless, cheeky, addicted to attention. The woman needs a psychoanalyst.

  • Ruth says:

    Saw Yuja at the Verbier Festival on July 22nd & 29th filling in for Kissin. She is a miracle! Don’t miss!

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