Yuja Wang gets bored with piano
mainWatch.
Does any other pianist have more fun with their music?
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much diversity from Yuja 😉
Thank god I’m not her neighbour!!!!!
Silly publicity aside, she has a lot to say in Tchaikovsky’s underplayed 2nd piano concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX29pHsEeqQ
No gimmicks, no mannerisms, just good and polished music making.
Great link, thanks. Grateful for anything with repertoire value after Sheik 1 in B flat minor has been hackneyed to death and beyond.
Y.W. is very good, but in my view the Yefim Bronfman performance of the Tchaik. 2nd PC in G also on youtube with Neeme Jarvi and the Frankfurt Radio SO is even better. Bronfman makes poetry of it with effortless technical perfection. Even though he looks like s**t at age 59.
Thank you for the Bronfman tip. Also a wonderful performance.
There is a moving clip of 16-old Bronfman, playing part the first Bach Concerto, with the legendary Gina Bachauer on his side. (They are both properly dressed.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcQjpUMV1ro
If you are tired of Tchaikovsky’s 1st concerto, try Jerome Lowenthal or Kirill Gerstein, for thoughtful performances of earlier versions. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Nothing moving about it. Back in those days most pianists didn’t realize Bach wrote counterpoint and it shows in that clip.
Yuja is indeed one of the most interesting pianists of our time.
When judging about her one should never forget she’s just 30 – the volcano in her sometimes is very active but, having heard her playing “Hammerklavier” I just can say that if she continues on her way – and I see no reason why she shouldn’t! – she will be one of the leading figures on the piano for a very long time.
It would be wrong, demanding from her now the wisdom of the late Rubinstein.
Her dresses? As long as she plays so wonderful I don’t care……
Frankly, I find “late” Rubinstein stodgy and characterless, particularly his Chopin. For good Rubinstein Chopin go to his 1930’s recordings in London for HMV (I think they are now owned by Warner when they bought EMI). I think Yuja, who is always amusing even when displaying mammoth talent, needs to find a better, more intellectually demanding repertoire. Then she’d be a more interesting pianist and she might be more “amused” by her own playing. I imagine virtuoso fluff can only challenge those interested in technical prowess, not musical truth.
Hammerklavier Sonata intellectually demanding enough? She played it last season at Carnegie Hall………………very fine. She hasn’t recorded it (to the best of my knowledge) but then again she hasn’t recorded the Debussy Preludes which strike me as her cup of tea…………..
Turangalila-Symphonie is all I need to know. She actually has enormous repertoire breadth.
In fairness to Yuja, I have not researched her repertoire in any systematic way but have allowed myself to be guided by superficial impressions of adds of what she plays, mostly outside NYC. This, of course, may be what orchestras and concert associations ask her to play, more so than being indicative of her true nature as an artist. In an exaggerated way, supposedly is what drove Van Cliburn off the concert platform, specifically Tchak 1.
I’m not a big Rubinstein Chopin fan, either. Ivan Moravec ruined any other version of the nocturnes for me long ago: I probably don’t go without hearing at least one every week.
Yuja is beautiful to look at as well as to listen to. What a complete package.
She’s a stunning artist – technically, physically and intellectually. I saw her in Vienna at the Konzerthaus in 2011 and wearing those stiletto heals and a fabulous, long dress with a slip us to her waist. I remember being amazed by how she negotiated the Steinway pedals in those shoes!!
Edit: “slit up to her waist”. Grrr. Old age!!
What about the music she made?
She only said she “saw” her, not “heard” her 🙂
I don’t mean to make fun of Sue, but never understood this usage. I’ve heard it in other languages too. If one uses one verb only, why not say heard?
Yuja’s version of Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca is entertaining, but it doesn’t top Cleo Laine’s version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXa8my9pb5g
Could someone please identify the gypsy version of the Turkish march being performed towards the end of the video? Thank you.
Rondo Alla Molto Turca – Igudesman & Joo
https://youtu.be/R1AZDcaEcqY
butuh. everybody gets bored with their work. ms. wang is a WOW pianist and performer.
Since I wrote that Yuja does not have ten fingers, but ten ballet dancers pirouetting across the keyboard, I have been bombarded with umails mainly crudely insulting and even pornographic. If this is the intellectual and misical level of a great deal of her audience, hen she is casing pearls efore swine. As a pianist muself I am astonished at the beauty of her hands as she plays. She is one of the three greatest panists alive right now. In a few years time she will reign supreme/. And she is extremely beauruful to boot.
We attended an astonishing performance last night of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Sydney Opera House, with Yuja Wang, replacing Martha Argerich, conductor Charles Dutoit with the Sydney Symphony. Incredible hands, enormous ability, and very musical. Surely she will continue to enjoy a wonderful career and music lovers around the world her rich and exciting musical adventures.
Yuja Wang is certainly one of the best classical piano players of our time, classical music is in good hands.
These are my favorite interpretations: http://www.intermezzo.ml/2017/08/the-great-interpreters-of-classical.html