Well, Lundi Li did a recital here last night - he played Mozart K330, Schumann's Carnaval, Liszt Spanish Rhapsody, and Chopin's Anadante Spinato and Polonaise Brilliant. It was all nice, but nothing really special.
The kid's good, but he still plays like a kid. The Chopin was the real teller. it was particularly obvious on the heals of the Louis Lortie recital, where the Chopin was simply incredible. He's technically hot, and if he keeps working at it he could be wonderful in several years. Right now (yawn) he's another wunderkind with fast fingers.
Not that I want to praise Yundi Li. I thought I could give you another view from other as follows:
"Yundi Li, piano recital"
04/08/2005
Review by David Gregson
“Wild nights! Wild nights!” Emily Dickinson’s poem is about love, not Franz Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor (1854), but this is a tempest-tossed piece, a monumental struggle between Eros and Thanatos. Richard Strauss composed his orchestral tone poem Death and Transfiguration several decades later (1899), but as great as that work is, it cannot top this titanic sonata, a quintessentially Romantic work of heroic struggle. And it takes a hero to play it. Liszt was not writing music for genteel domestic consumption. He was composing for some kind of pianistic superman -- namely himself!
But I wonder if Liszt could have done what this young man did Friday night in Sherwood Hall. As the dark final note sounded like a death knell, he held the audience spellbound – a long silence, perhaps as many as eight seconds. I have never heard anything like this silence following a playing of the B Minor Sonata. People are usually too eager to applaud. But this was a perfect, stunned silence, commanded by a simple and familiar gesture of an outstretched arm. It was nothing absurdly flamboyant (such things are absent from this artist’s physical vocabulary), but a sign of his absolute artistic control.
“I can count the number of pianists worth hearing these days on my left hand,” remarked my concert companion, “and this is one of them.”
If my friend had been just anybody and not one of the last century’s top managers of world-class concert pianists, the remark might have seemed a bit silly. But Chinese pianist Yundi Li is the genuine article: a real artist, amazingly mature for 23, a young man already in possession of a phenomenal technique and the gift of musical sensibility that can lead to greatness.
Born in Chongquing in central China, Li learned to play the accordion at the age of four. Fortunately, he turned to the piano with the help of his parents. In October 2000 at the age of 18, he won the first prize at the Frédéric Chopin Competition held in Warsaw. Now he has a recording contract with Deutsche Grammphon (not too many artists are so lucky these days!), and he clearly has a fan club. Sherwood Auditorium was packed last night. So many Chinese music lovers were there, it seemed as if Li might be a national hero.
Before the intermission and the amazing Liszt performance, Li gave us his readings of Mozart’s Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K.230, and Schumann’s Carnaval, (Scènes mignonnes sur quarte notes), the latter clearly more congenial for the artist than the Mozart. This “simple” and familiar work began mechanically and was not especially well articulated. By the middle of the second movement, however, Li found material more to his liking, lyrical phrases that might have been composed by a Romantic composer. This man’s heart might said to be anchored in the 19th century, yet by the time Li reached the Allegretto, his playing had become fluid and stylish.
Playing Schumann’s Carnaval is no easy task, its musical and technical demands are so protean. Unifying the whole thing is the trick. But because Li is a true artist, the whole thing came together.
It’s not easy to talk about such fine playing. With total justification the printed program proclaims, La Jolla Music Society Proudly Presents. This recital was certainly the highlight of this year’s excellent Revelle Series.
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Never mind if you don't agree with this review for I am not going to argue about it.
Topic: Yundi Li