The best of Yuja Wang’s comedy show
OrchestrasThe Igudesman & Joo comedy act have put together a clips reel of their funniest sketches with pianist Yuja Wang.
These guys sure know how to ride a rollecoaster.
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As Maria Callas said in one of the Julliard classes, the audience always sees more.
These are the funniest????
Frankly it’s not funny and ridiculous.
Amen!
Yuja Wang is a world-class pianist slumming in a mediocre lounge act.
Sigh, if she only had enough faith in her own classical music bona fides, would she still dress as a human band-aid?
This is entirely predictable from Yuja Wang and no thinking person would be surprised. She is morphing into a caricature of herself, courtesy of grunge culture.
My daughter-in-law turned up here last week in shoes so ridiculously high – like Yuga wears, only much worse – that they looked like something out of a bizarre fairy tale.
Back and foot problems coming down the pipes!!
But I thought all of Yuja’s shows are comedy anyway…?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrOxzR5VvYk
No comedy. Enjoy.
A poor performance though. She does not feel the pathos and pain in this music, and skims over all the harmonic shifts; subsequently the tensions become lost and what’s left is just a bland wash of ongoing note spinning, albeit with fluency but very little character. Sadly, this rendition does not move me.
Phrasing is of course ok, but the constant use of left pedal tells me she has 1) rehearsed the piece in a hurry and 2) few sound colours. Imagine a pianist like Andras Schiff playing this. We would all be crying by now.
Agree. She completely loses the thread on that left hand melody at the beginning and the final third is soulless. There’s a YouTube version by a very young Kissin (perpetually young!) that shows how it can really be done.
I usually don’t like to make comparisons, Anson, but another comment urged me to discover Jorge Bolet’s interpretation: really worth a listening, magnificent poignant playing!
Lot of seemingly sophisticated words stating nothing. If she did not “skim over all the harmonic shifts”, you would instead say she sounded artificial and contrived, and played for effects. Exactly which ones did she “skim over”, anyway?
No I wouldn’t say that at all. Schubert uses the most amazing harmonic shifts often to heighten the tension, in order to match the words. From tonic chords, to diminished sevenths, to dominant chords – all three types need to be played and voiced differently, with different colours and touches. You cannot play them all the same. Yuja takes no notice of these different kinds of chords and plays them all the same here. So it’s boring and uninvolving. That’s what I mean by skimming over.
She coloured those chords just fine. The problem is you have no ear for subtlety. Any more emphasis on those shifts would be drawing attention to them for the sake of it and disturb the line. There is a reason she is a world famous pianist working with the finest conductors and composers, and you are … you.
But at least I actually have some ears. I don’t listen to music with my eyes unlike you. You’re the type of person who’d think McDonald’s is the same as a Michelin restaurant. It’s the tonedeaf audiences like you who need educating. Go back to listening Einaudi.
No, you don’t. Fans of Trifonov and Cho don’t have ears, Laurie. We all know that. Ever notice how nobody really wants to consistently work with Trifonov except Gergiev, who has been confined to Russia? Yeah.
Ha. Fans of Trifonov and Cho don’t have ears – the most absurd statement I’ve read all year. Oh yeah, Trifonov is finding it really hard to get gigs, isn’t he. Your nonsense make me laugh and I feel sorry for you.
That was when she was MUCH younger!!
Yuja is young, beautiful, and a superb pianist and musician.
She’s just having a bit of fun with the comedy act. Blowing off a little steam, ya know?
There’s no need for anybody to call down SD’s classical music police on her.
Doesn’t anyone remember Victor Borge or Anna Russell? Or Dudley Moore?
C’mon, people – loosen up.
Yes, everyone remembers all three, and we didn’t need you to remind us. Nothing in these head-scratching, cringey little clips remotely approaches anything at their level.
None of those people Greg mentions expected us to take them seriously. Dudley was a comedian first and foremost. The rest were also in the comedy realm.
The tragedy is that Dudley Moore had more talent than any of them!!
I agree. Musical comedy at its best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazlqD4mLvw
“Nothing in these head-scratching, cringey little clips remotely approaches anything at their level.”
Agreed, Bollocks.
I mentioned those three great artists as an example of “having a sense of humor”.
Where’d yours go?
Of course miss Wang is talented I have seen her three times in concerts… But I prefer 10 times a concert with Yeol Eum or Buchbinder. But is it the good way to make classical more popular? I’am not sure… And I wonder what will be the next thing to get attention. Miss Wang is in a trap she created to get attention. And I wonder if the people around her have always good intentions
Clearly she never had a childhood.
It’s never too late!
I’ve said myself for ages that this is at the heart of it all.
Lots of very talented people have ‘eccentric’ tendencies. Yuja Wang is just another of these. But she needs an adult mentor who is brave enough say “enough” – without fear of shame, cancellation and abuse.
It is hilarious! Musicians “playing” in public, what they like to do in their own private spaces. The creativity and joi de vivre of musicians is never ending. As long as they can deliver in the serious art, it’s alright with me.
Unbelievably, I caught that show in NYC. Lucky me!
What a bunch of stuffy fuddy duddy’s frequent this site. She is a musician and a showman not a high court judge.
This isn’t funny. It’s crass.
A wonderful opportunity for YW to be celebrated once again for her legs and body.
Infantile and superfluous.