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I'll be going to Yundi Li's recital in Vancouver this Friday. I'm quite stoked to be able to hear him play again! Hopefully it'll be just as great as the last time he was here.

This is his program:

Mozart (1756 – 1791) Piano Sonata in C, K.330
Schumann (1810 – 1856) Carnaval, Op. 9
Liszt (1811 – 1856) Rhapsodie espagnole S.254
Chopin (1810 – 1849) Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante

I think he's used this program alot in his current tour. Has anybody heard it yet?

I know alot of it is on his latest CD, but I've never heard it yet.

I'm going too!! I cant wait!!

I have his cd with most of this (plus some Scarlatti Sonatas and minus the Chopin), and it is excellent. The sound he has for the Schumann is so clear and smooth, and his wonderful articulation only adds to the effect.

I missed his last concert, I was still a classical music noob back then (Yundi who?). What was the program then?

Nice to see another fellow British Columbian on here (I think BruceD is as well?).

Anyways he played the Chopin scherzi and the Liszt sonata the last time he was here. He also encored the Rigoletto Paraphrase, this Chinese piece, and La Campanella (which was a blast even though it wasn't as perfect as it was on his Liszt CD).

Sounds like it'll be great! I wonder if he'll do autograph signings and photos afterwards. I managed to get a photo with Lang Lang when he was here.

I went to his recital last night at Carnegie Hall. His program was similar, but with some changes:

Mozart - Sonata in C K.330
Schumann - Carnaval

---

Liszt - Sonata in b S.178

Was an enjoyable night.

I had tix to his Monday night Carnegie Hall recital debut but couldn't go. Can anyone perhaps post the NY Times review of the concert?

Thank you!

Lang Lang played here last Friday and I didn't even go.

Is this at the Chan Center?

Maybe I'll go buy a nice bottle of wine for $40 that would've cost me $8 in California and enjoy it at home after the concert!

It's at the Orpheum.

It's at the Orpheum Theatre.

Another must see for any Vancouverites is Krystian Zimerman at the end of this month. Check out the program:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sonata In C Major, K. 330

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Valses Nobles et Sentimentales

George Gershwin (1898-1937) Three Preludes

Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) Mazurkas, Op. 24
Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 35 “Funeral March"


It should all be amazing. I especially look forward to the Ravel and Gershwin, I can only imagine what they will sound like under his fingers.

Man, wish I could go to that one as well. Didn't want to spend too much money .

I know. I was cringing when I pressed the accept button for the tickets. I had to get the $85 ones, as I waited too long; at least they will be good seats. (haha, I cant be pessimistic about this concert)

Here's the very interesting NY Times review:

April 5, 2006
Classical Music Review
Yundi Li: Living Large With Schumann and Liszt
By BERNARD HOLLAND

One category of concert program says to its listeners, "Here is music you don't know and should, or else music you ought to be reminded of." Yundi Li's piano recital at Carnegie Hall on Monday evening was the other kind of program. Schumann's "Carnaval" and Liszt's B minor Sonata are two of the more celebrated and often repeated pieces in the repertory. When they appear side by side, we can be pretty certain that the evening is going to be more about a performer than about the pieces he plays.

Could Mr. Li say anything more about "Carnaval" than a thousand other performers, good and bad, have already said? Possibly, but unlikely. So Schumann in these circumstances becomes a yardstick: a device against which the person onstage is measured. Granted, the measurements here were impressive, and to be fair, a young man riding atop a swiftly rising career and given an unexpected opportunity to shine in a major hall (replacing the injured Murray Perahia) cannot be begrudged the chance to advertise himself.

Mr. Li has major manual skills, including an octave technique scarcely to be believed. The sound he makes on the piano is both vivid and enormous. The famous Liszt Sonata, like all good Liszt, is what a performer's mind and heart are capable of making it. If an Alfred Brendel finds in this music a roiling, introspective melancholy, Mr. Li goes, as many do, for the grand statement: huge bursts of sound, shiny passagework, dramatic pauses and tempo changes.

What saved Mr. Li's grandness from grandiosity is a very real musicality. He has a feel for Romantic style. He is also well trained in Mozartean correctness, as he showed at the start of the evening with the splendid C major Sonata (K. 330). And he has the kind of keyboard touch in which tones don't so much sound as speak.

When musicians can play as fast and as loud as this one, they do. Great surges in the Schumann, while brilliantly managed, tended to run away from the music and descend into technical glitter. Indeed, Monday night's playing made a backhanded argument for less virtuosity as a means toward better musicianship.

The righteous listener might have come away from Carnegie Hall asking, "Can this man play the kinds of music in which size and theatricality don't work?" Maybe he can. In the meantime, let us leave Mr. Li to frolic in the big arena, where he seems to be doing so well and having such a good time.

I'm seeing Zimmerman this Saturday in Baltimore. Yundi Li played here two days ago, and although I wasn't able to go to the concert, I heard from a few friends that he played remarkably well. As one friend put it, "although he played basically the same program he did two years ago (with the addition of the Schumann), it was very clear that those two years did not go to waste."

Of all of Ravel's solo piano works, Noble and Sentimental Waltzes is probably my least favorite. I wonder if he's playing the same program here...

VANCOUVERITES / VICTORIA-ITES:

Can ANYONE please give me some info on that French radio station that is near the left end of the FM dial (90.something). They play some absolutely incredible stuff from jazz to Gregorian Chant to any and all types of ethnic music, to French popular music, etc., etc. Another big plus is that they have very little to no news or talk. (I hate politics, the idle chatter on CBC radio, most news and the like.)

My only problem is that I don't speak French and can't understand what they are saying when they announce what they've played. I've searched for them on the net, but can't find anything! Do they have a website, or is there any way I can get a playlist????

Thanks for the info.

Kevin

I did get to hear Yundi Li at Strathmore Hall in D.C.'s Maryland suburbs last Saturday. One anecdote nicely sums up how good he was: my wife, who much prefers folk and Celtic music to classical, came with me to the concert (a rarity) and said to me as we walked out, "Buy me a ticket the next time he hits town." His Mozart sonata was a bit on the romantic side, but the scale and ornamentation work was crystalline and the overall musical lines were well conceived. Carnaval was amazing. His octaves and passage work in the faster sections were breathtaking, but musicality was never sacrificed to virtuosity.

The second half of the program was a last minute change -- he yanked two of my favorite works (Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise and Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody) and replaced them with Liszt's B minor Sonata. This was, hands down, the best live performance of that wondrous work I've ever heard. There was thunder when you wanted it, birdsong at other times, and every other conceivable musical evocation of emotion. The audience wouldn't let him rest at the end; after playing a flashy Chinese piece, he finished up with a nice light entertainment -- the Grande Polonaise he originally programmed, measurably faster -- better -- than Rubinstein played it. And here was a first for a classical concert in my experience -- he sat at a table outside the auditorium after it was all over, still decked out in white tie and tails, and signed CDs.

This young man is everything Lang Lang would like to be, but he knows how to pull it off. Bravo! Don't miss the chance to see him.

hehe, I wont be disappointed if he does this on Friday; I would love to hear that sonata live.

And I think your review counterbalances that NYT article rather nicely. IMO Yundi Li is in the category of pianists who do NOT sacrafice musicality for virtuosity (unlike what the NYT critic said); actually, he's much like Zimerman in this aspect of his playing. It will be very interesting to compare the K. 330 Mozart Sonata that both of these musicians will be playing.

I understand the NY Times' reviewer's point to be that the pieces played on the program are war horses. There is nothing new to be said about them, so the seasoned listener (or jaded reviewer) listens to the pianist more than the music. Li doesn't sacrifice musicality for virtuosity, but his program didn't provide any insights into the music because no insights are possible with pieces played this often, or so the reviewer suggests. He has a point, though he may have overstated it for your taste.

Wouldn't it be something if Li programmed some music nobody has heard before, rather than play the nth performance of the Liszt Sonata, regardless of how well he plays it? I'm not sure Holland is scolding Li or a culture that requires this type of programming to get people into the hall. Maybe a little of both.

KJC :

Are you referring to "Espaces musiques" (or "Espace musique"; I've seen it in both singular and plural) Do a Goggle search and you'll get several hits, all for the CBC French language radio station out of Vancouver. It's RadioCanada 88.9, Vancouver!

Regards,

Awesome! I hope he does that again here on Friday.