The billion-click pianist
NewsA PR informs us this morning that the Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson has passed ‘the remarkable landmark of one billion’ streams of his varied programmes. His video of the Goldberg Variations alone has reached over 88 million streams.
In January, Vikingur will give the world premiere of a John Adams concerto in San Francisco, followed by a US resumption of his four-hand tour with Yuja Wang, who cannot match his click-rate.
Bizarre. He is completely overrated.
As is your musical taste.
It makes no sense to me at all.
I saw him in a solo recital in Utrecht. The first half was full of short, simpler Bach pieces: pretty but little depth. The second half was a pair of Beethoven sonatas (1 and 8). These were technically poor, full of wrong notes and uncertain rhythms, well below what you would hear by a conservatoire student.
I gave him a second chance and saw him play solo Mozart and Haydn at the Concertgebouw. Again, pretty playing but hardly any depth. Full of small pieces he played back-to-back without even pauses between works by different composers.
I also saw him play Grieg and Mozart (K 491) concertos with different orchestras in Amsterdam and both were also shallow and disappointing: he played along with the orchestra, much movement and expression in his body but nothing added musically other than superficial playing.
I just don’t get him or the fuss, and I rarely feel this strongly after going to recitals and concerts.
Let’s also remember he is 40 already, so this is not a case of an up-and-coming pianist finding his feet.
I’ll join the club. I heard him in Boston doing his Mozart program a number of years ago. I thought that perhaps he was sick or injured that night and didn’t say anything to the audience, because his playing was at a level of a (not great) student at a conservatory. His technique was substandard. I would have rated the concert a 2 out of 10…
…until I heard the comments of some other listeners in other cities, who all heard the same thing and had the same experience on other nights and in other works.
Maybe VO will get better. But I have no plans to purchase a ticket for a future concert, nor a future CD. I’m not sure how he got to the level of success he’s attained. But in my one experience hearing him live (which has been seconded by others), in my opinion he has neither the technical capacity nor the interpretive skills to be a world-class pianist.
Good for him for convincing people otherwise.
Maybe he can undertake a duo-pianist tour with David Helfgott.
Exactly . With Helfgott for those who want to help. Its sad that labels pressure Wang into doing engagements with him. Makes me question her sincerity. But she plsys Bartok 2nf concerto and few do and even Skryabin Sonatas and she is the real thing. Is there depth? A Graffman student. I need to hear her in Mozart c abd Bach that would settle a lot. But she knows so very many interpretive tricks that could make her sound deep when she just has good taste.With rump as prez these things wont matter. Seriious problems are coming!!!
I’m far from a professional but I have been a very interested and conscientious listener, for many years and, being from the New York City area, I have had the opportunity to hear many live, and the greater opportunity to listen on the radio or on YouTube to many of the great pianists of the 20th and now, 21st century. I do have a good ear, although I do not have any talent myself. It seems to me that Yuja Wang is not only technically unbelievable but also has great feeling for the music. And when you hear interviews with her, she sounds quite sincere about both her interest and her dedication to the music and also her interest and dedication for making it a great and in depth and moving experience for her audience. I think that her young age and rather non traditional attire, for a classical musician, has caused her some unfair, un called for de traction in the comments, from what she truly deserves for her incredible artistry. This is the opinion of a well-educated and long time amateur. I am an emergency medicine physician and was a high level athlete before that, but have grown up with classical music and all types of music, since birth.
Thankyou. Its good to hear others who know talk about this. He has a big repertoire but not dee mind nor the equipment. Must be rich parents and placement. People have always been easiest to fool in matters related to art.
He is simply a click collector. It reflects the world we live in.
Im wondering just what he has to share that is So compelling. He plays slow music mostly relaxful stuff fir the average know noyhing about music people. No Franck orLiszt rhapsodies or Chopin etudes. I heard him in a snippet recently in Brahms dminor. He might not even know how to play heavy, massive music. Like AwadaginPratt he doesn’t seem a big ,supertrained,knowledgable technician. Could he win Busoni,Leventritt or Chopin competition?
Click rate? More likely click bait. Millions, trillions, quadzillions- PR people can’t tell the difference between them
I would imagine that among the clicking community, as they would likely think of themselves, there are a lot of people who would click on someone whose name began with Viking.
I wonder about Kristian Zimerman’s click rate, and what it tells us about his artistry
Heinrich Neuhaus’ click rate is in the basement, what a loser!
I’ll take his playing (and his choices of repertoire programming) over Yuja any day! I enjoy that he is not some empty-gestured loud-bang virtuoso who impresses by playing faster and louder, but an actual musician with artistry.
I have no opinion of Olafson, but certainly enjoy Yuja along the same lines. Here is one of her well known encores:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA9GCwstBMM
If you mean by “artistry” blank, indistinguished playing in which scales and/or runs can’t be played evenly (which most pianists with real talent have successfully resolved by the time they graduate from high school), then I totally concur.
Andras Schiff’s Goldberg Variations on YouTube: 851,000 views. Which means that V.O. is more than 100 times better than A.S.
(This is how we assess worth now).
I’m of two minds about Olafsson. I haven’t heard him live, so, only based on recordings, he has a beautiful sound. Listening to him play Bach, or French music, the first time is startling in a good way, and not ordinary at all. But with time it becomes a bit tired, almost schmaltzy. Yuja Wang, like Lang Lang, is a different matter. Utter pianistic genius. However, my problem with all three (who aren’t really very young anymore, but youngish), is that they lack the intellectual and artistic gravitas of the truly great pianists. Among the young(ish) generation today, the ones I think do gave true greatness developing in their artistry are (in no particular order), Seong-Jin Cho, Yulianna Avdeeva, Jan Lisiecki, and Daniil Trifonov (I suppose a few more should be added to the list). The last two I’ve heard live, and Lisiecki in particular impressed me. These are true artists, in whom one sees pianism and musicianship in the service of the great composers, beyond all the stupid commercialization which belongs in pop culture, not in classical music.
I’m afraid you all missed the point here…..
Nothing about Olafsson, it’s about SD saying Yuja, who “cannot match his click-rate”.
just like starbucks and mcdonalds, he’s fashioned himself into a brand, which may speak more about name recognition than it does about quality.
John Adams latched onto him before he was a big deal based upon his early Bach recordings. He knew there was something big in store for this young pianist which included a number of performances of his first piano concerto after he grew weary of the reviews that discussed Yuja’s attire before the music and hence the primi of his second piano concerto.
What a piece of work Adams is. He went to the London recital of Wang and Olafsson and he himself made a point of Yuja’s clothes in his tweet afterwards. So exactly what was he complaining about re media coverage of Yuja’s attire? I’m glad Yuja paid him no attention at all and instead posted pictures of her and David Hockney instead, who was also in attendance. Adams has a new concerto coming up next year in San Francisco which will be premiered by Olafsson. David Robertson, rather than the music director EP Salonen, will be conducting. Good luck to Adams getting any reviews at all now that SF Chronicle’s only critic retired.
Yes, but he’s young and good looking, which makes him highly marketable. You don’t have to be good at anything if people are buying what you’re selling.
And we’re assuming people are watching his vids just because of the music and not to ogle.