Last night at Yuja’s…
NewsMusic editor Ariane Todes was blown away:
Yuja Wang coaxing and thrashing the life out of piano music from Bach to Berio for more than an hour non-stop in a magical photographic box flitted about with the inside of David Hockney’s exquisite imagination was one of the most exciting artistic experiences – musical or visual – I’ve had in a long time.
Each piece timed and coloured to match his mood, each visual fantasy completely different, whether a Bach Cantata illustrated by an Yves Klein-blue stained-glass church window (the beauty and reverence utterly poleaxed me); Rachmaninoff setting off the vastness of the Grand Canyon; or Prokofiev illuminating driving rain and the energy of nature renewing itself.
And then there were the pieces where Yuja herself was the image, her face or hands filling the entire wall, glancing up self-consciously at first, but by the end triumphant and relieved (her teddy-horse hidden in the piano for emotional support). I have never seen the sheer effort and energy of music performance captured so viscerally – in one Busby Berkeley style section, filming her fingers from above, double vision, you could barely see her fingers for blur.
I’m fairly cynical about immersive art shows that cash in on dead painters but when the artist is Hockney, who even at the age of 87 is more curious and innovative than most creators, and when he is as involved as much as I presume he was – he was in the audience – I think it’s an absolute game changer for multimedia projects. They’ve set the bar very high. I was standing in the gallery for £20, which was fine. I’m very glad I went, and very glad that I live in a world that has Hockney in it.
Sounds wonderful I’m envious. Thanks for the word picture. I’ve seen the exhibition and it’s well worth a visit but Yuja as well gosh.
Oh, these kind of ‘presentations’ are merely meant for the deaf.
what’s that supposed to mean?
i am nearly deaf, and that’s an egregious insult…
And the blind…
It means that it is about visuals, not music.
They are not for those whose minds, as well as eyes and ears, are closed. But nor is any art…
I’m sorry to report that Beethoven was contemptuous of Rossini. But, as you say, art is not for those with closed minds.
What an insulting and idiotic comment from someone who so desperately posits themselves as “accomplished”.
Mr Borstlap: that’s a silly thing to say. Or does your ego feel it needs to be contentious to be noticed?
Simply try to think a bit: a classical music performance is ‘enlivened’ by silly screen projections (including Hockney, of all people, one of the cheapest poster artists), to accompany a performer who does all she can to draw attention to her looks. People who want visuals going with classical music, should got to the opera, or watch filmed versions of operas. Classical music is not about visuals but is an acoustic art form. It is an art to be listened to, with ears, and to be digested emotionally within the interior realm.
Do we want to go back to the very early, primitive stages of public performances in the 18th century where audience members chatted during the performances and watched and commented on each other?
(My PA looks very disapprovingly so I must be right.)
I was there too, it was tremendous!
I went last year and I am going tonight. I totally agree. Last year’s … installation … was one of the, if not the most moving and impressive artistic experiences of my life. Note that I didn’t call it a concert. It’s the combination of two distinct art forms to create something unique.
Likewise, I am grateful to experience this genuine collaboration of two peerless artists operating at their peak.
Oh, it’s an “installation”!! I’m so sad Schumann wasn’t around when “installations” were available.
Multimedia performances sure have come a long way from the days of overhead projectors showing still photos of Mercury while the orchestra plays The Planets (not that I didn’t enjoy that, too…)
A change isn’t necessarily an improvement.
Immersive (so-called) experiences replace the inherent imaginative abilities of each person as an individual with a programmed event. It presents a similar problem which A.I. does; to wit, the ability to think and imagine according to ones own life experiences. It may be “entertaining” now, but, in time, the more of these kinds of substitutions for individual internal, emotional perceptions
will render human beings nothing but robotic tools for control by…whom? Or, what?
At best, in the present, it is simply a form of entertainment. What it has to do with the genuine art of making music or making art is highly problematic.
David Hockney is basically a has-been artist trying to be “relevant” by embracing the technology of “now,” coat-tailing on Yuga’s youthful energy which doesn’t need these gimmicks; or maybe, she feels a need to do so as she ages..staving off middle age with fears of the rising musical stars, younger than she is, who will, eventually, steal her thunder with sheer pianism and INDIVIDUAL creativity.
That’s ridiculous. It’s not a substitution for “individual internal, emotional perceptions”. Actually, it seems to be precisely the opposite: a collaboration (you can look this word up for your very own self) between two artists who think they might enhance or re-envision one another’s work. How generous of them to share their perceptions with each other and us. I wish I’d been there, but I might have been watching a film, with voices and music!
I agree: Hockney is so overrated. His Turandot looks like something I drew in first grade. And I’m so sick of hearing about two particular performers: Yuja Wang and Taylor Swift. Enough already.
Sorry, but isn’t Taylor Swift a tennis player who just lost the US Open?
“has been”? rubbish. don’t like it, don’t go see it.
A comment that explains correctly why such entertainments are damaging to the art form.
Classical music is an art form of interiority: it is an acoustic art form. Visuals are subordinate to it. There is already such an overwhelming presence of visuals in modern public space that preserving an island of interiority is a much needed alternative. People who, in contrary, advocate such developments are unintentionally supporting cutural destruction.
And then Hockney! This silly sixties poster artist of ‘modern images’ that aged as soon as they were distributed.
Hockney is/was a very gifted “drawer” as we artists call masters of graphic art. His drawings of people, early in his career were beautiful. It was when he went “Pop” that his work began to border on cartoonishness. His problem is that he is too prolific, which leads to a superficiality about his work. As 2-dimensional art it is outdated in style. Hence, my remark about catching the coattails of video/multimedia gimmicks. Yuga should not need these gimmicks. Music is meant to be listened to.
Yes, ‘pop’ is the best description of Hockney’s work.
All art forms must be ‘interiorized’ to be comprehended. Something heard is just as external as something seen. There is as much difference between seeing and really looking as between hearing and really listening. All art forms are sisters, like the Muses, and can work equally well singly or in combination. Why limit your experience so drastically? Can you not walk and chew gum at the same time?
There is enough music meant as part of a more total experience. Music specially written to be digested as an aural experience should not be put together with visuals which mostly happen to be entirely random.
It is amazing that such very simple basic assumptions have to be explained….
The modern world is getting more and more visually-defined, but classical music should retain its own character.
Can’t individual imaginative abilities be exercised while using more than one of one’s senses? If you go to ballet, do you have either to put in ear plugs or keep your eyes shut? You are, by the way, quite wrong about David Hockney, and quite wrong plus very catty about Yuja Wang (as well as misspelling her name).
Ballet or Opera are theatre arts.
Piano recitals are aural works.
A blind person can hear the music; thus, visual stimulation is not necessary to a comprehension of it.
I understand that, but it is a purist, even reductionist view. Listening to a record alone with your eyes shut is not the same as attending a live recital or symphony concert. If artists in different media collaborate to their mutual enrichment (I don’t mean money), why is that so bad?
The point is: how is the music meant to be experienced? is that so hard to understand?
The Hockney Lightroom exhibition was terrific and entirely independent of the Yuja Wang recitals in the space. He isn’t and never has coat-tailed anyone and has been using and embracing different media techniques for decades (and first designed for the stage in 1966 and the opera stage in 1975, a design that is still being successfully presented).
To combine music and the visuals made for a wonderful evening for those open to embracing the experience. Both the video and music were well-chosen and technically combined and presented superbly.
As I mentioned below, I attended three of the four nights and, like you, thought they were terrific and memorable recitals. The addition of the Hockney images (which Yuja personally chose from the freestanding show), were a rich enhancement, and not, in my opinion, a distraction or cheap gimmick as claimed in some of these comments. But when you state they were “technically combined and presented superbly,” that omits one glaring issue. Although it was an exciting treat to see the Hockney images replaced at times with live video of Yuja’s hands on the piano, the video had a delay of perhaps 1/4 of a second, which certainly detracted from a musically integrated experience. In this technically advanced age, it was a surprising fault, and also strange that Ms Wang found this flaw to be acceptable.
These “immersive experiences” are designed primarily to attract audiences who are neither familiar enough with the music presented to be comfortable at a concert of the music alone, nor familiar enough with the visual art to be comfortable at a nearly-silent gallery presenting the same visual art. Combining both at once can diffuse the focus enough to make the experience seem more accessible to someone who has a casual interest in either art form.
The problem with both art forms is that the experience provided by the devoted patrons (mostly we: the ones reading this and similar forums, are providing) is, frankly, too often insulting and nasty to anyone who is trying to gain some appreciation for an art form when coming from a position of ignorance and curiosity.
As lovers of music, if we shame the audience members who dress differently, who applaud at an inappropriate moment, or who express their post-concert enjoyment in laughably-ignorant terms, we should not be surprised when they choose not to return in order to avoid encountering the slimy personalities who consider themselves art patrons. Do the newcomers expect the atmosphere at the opera to be the same as a rock concert? No, they do not; but we assume they do–in our own ignorance–and we turn our noses up in classist prejudice. If all the grocers and grocery patrons treated those of us who eat common foodstuffs as inferior human stock, our species would quickly starve ourselves to extinction.
Are these immersive concert experiences a gimmick? Almost certainly, yes. Can they be good art? If they combine the art forms intelligently, also certainly yes. Might they be poor art? Just as much as all the individual elements could be poor, yes.
If you’re skeptical, visit one of these immersive performances that you have already prejudged as worthless drivel. Sit quietly and observe those around you as intently as you would normally observe the art. Try to control your countenance from wincing in terror for a couple of hours. Is this performance the sort of educational experience that might lure these audiences to appreciate a wider range of art and become our next generation of supporters and patrons? If so, they might have value.
I lived through the 60’s with multimedia extravaganzas of rock. Yes, it certainly did move people. Noise and flashing lights tend to do that. What I am arguing against is the removal of the personal (underlined), interior, spiritual experience of music/or art.
Media is not a replacement for what the intimacy of a musical performance can bring to a listener. But choose your own poison. I think tech will destroy us, ultimately, as human beings with our own, deep reserves of imagination.
I was there last night, I think she is tremendous generally. It’s also nice to see a more human side to her, she seems freer these days. Not everything worked but when it did it was brilliant. My one disappointment was that having attended last year, it was exactly the same art show albeit in a different order just set to different pieces. If she comes back next year; which I hope she does a collaboration with another artist could be very successful. A highlight was after Prokofiev 7 precipitato, which she has played countless time as an encore even she was surprised how well she played it and gave a funny glance for all to see as her face was lit large on the screens causing a ripple of laughter through the room.
Odd spelling of Leif Ove.
Yeah? Nuh.
Strange way to spell “Leif Ove”
I was there. It was amazing
I hope this concept comes to the CSO…they need a shot of newism…
I couldn’t go so can’t comment on the quality, but i wd certainly turn up for the combo of Yuja/Hockney as an “event” which cd also be an artistic success/failure/so so, etc. I wdn’t be expecting “high art” or profundity (altho that cd also happen), but Yuja has a talent for “events” and Hockney for the immediate effects of color, texture…etc, without expecting more. In lesser hands (and fingers!), i probably wdn’t bother but as a “one-off”.. why not?
It was a unique smd interesting combination. I can understand the purists who felt that the visual art took away from the music
They remind me of friends who prefer an opera in concert performance rather than staged.
My partner and I flew in from Los Angeles to see the freestanding Hockney program, plus three out of the four nights with Yuja. The concerts were a great success both musically and visually, and we will always treasure the experience. A nice touch was Lightroom sending out an email to attendees after each performance which contained a playlist of that performance, i will save those as a potent reminder of each remarkable night.