Chopin Recital | Frederic Chopin, Yundi Li

Chopin Recital | Frederic Chopin, Yundi Li | Great expressive power

classical music:

Chopin Recital

	Chopin Recital Frederic Chopin, Yundi Li Deutsche Grammophon, 2003 average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

This is not your grandfather's Chopin playing! Chinese pianist Yundi Li won the 2000 Warsaw International Chopin Competition at the age of 18. His debut album comes with a small portfolio of hi-tech androgynous fashion photos of the pianist. Li's playing is hi-tech, too. He handles the most difficult music in this recital (like the finale of the Third Sonata and the Grande Polonaise) with disarming ease, tossing off complex passagework with apparent ease. Interpretively, Li is definitely a modern Chopinist, de-emphasizing the poetic aspects of the music in favor of momentum and structure--although his tone is always pleasing, never edgy. Listeners used to the more traditional Chopin styles of Rubinstein and Cortot may find this disconcerting. For those accustomed to Argerich or Pollini in Chopin, Li merely takes their styles a step further. Even if we wind up retreating eventually to the Rubinstein tradition, Li offers a perspective that many will find bracing, and he is extremely well presented by DG's realistic recording. --Leslie Gerber

for more information click here

Exquisite

Regardless of the hype and harm, this is a masterstroke by a prodigy who will have a secure future in recitals and recordings. These interpretations are at the same time euphoric and technically brilliant. It boggles the mind where this youngster will rise to as he continues to gain seasoning and experience. The exuberance that Yundi Li brings to his performances puts such a modern spin on these recordings that any criticisms start to sound like "old fogey-ism" at its worst. Give the young man his time. This is an auspicious debut. Let us give thanks.

for more information click here

Great expressive power

There is a certain unruffled calmness at the center of Yundi's playing that I find remarkably attractive and enticing musically. Like all outstanding pianists, he plays from within and seems to know exactly what he's trying to express. I find his interpretations deeply idiomatic of the composer, and I believe this is something that cannot be taught; it is a gift that one must be born with. There will always be room in the world for such distinctive, mature and refined playing, no matter how young the performer.

Highly original player in a brilliant set - the packaging less so.

19 year old Chopin expert - one could not help comparing him with the big names in Chopin. But, did any of the big names managed to step forward in such a tender age as Yundi Li?
Youth, however, is not an excuse for his placement. Yundi Li has proved to the world that his own original interpretation of Chopin is valid - the almost zen like approach to the ethereal style of this composer, bringing forth both cyrstalline beauty and conviction.
Introverted and full of artistic talent, Mr. Li is destined to be one of the foremost standard bearers of fine arts in the 21st century. That said, the art direction by Universal records leaves much room for improvement, as amply demonstrated in this debut album of Yundi Li, and the most recent Beethoven album of his compatriot Lang Lang.
Rather than showing off the artistic character or the charisma of the performers, these two album's art direction savours of commercial propaganda and hype.
The pianists deserve better treatment than these.

for more information click here

Li's modern approach to Chopin's interpretation

There are good and bad things about Yundi like other pianists. First time I heard and saw the video of his interpretation of Chopin's Scherzo in b flat minor (not on this cd) I thought he has an incredible technical ease and keeps his distance with any low hanging fruits of romantic indulgence that are plentiful in Chopin's music and that so many pianists rely on. This is like avoiding making just grape juice with a vine that is good enough for making wine. Li is like a chef cook who mostly cooks for others and not for himself. The effect is that he moves Chopin's music from the confidentiality of the drawing room to the anonymity of the open public. Is this good or bad there is no absolute answer. The scherzo also strongly reminded me of Rachmaninoff's playing at times almost copycat like. Li admits he studies other interpretations and takes what he likes. I just heard his rendition of the andante spianato and the grande polonaise on the radio and decided to write about it. First why call this a recital for it definitely sounds like it went through quite a bit of post-recording manipulations. This might also explain why the music seems to pass through him without leaving any imprint as a succession of live events would. Li is a perfectionist in the music aesthetics he has set for himself. Note perfect without exhuberance and with detachement is what would most characterize his playing. But having heard Alfred Cortot I am missing something in his playing. There is some inspiration but no message or poesy. I guess the pianist that has these qualities and Li's unaffected and wonderous fingerwork has not come through or maybe lived when recording technology had not yet been invented and pianos were not yet developped to mechanical monsters. Aside from the difference in the XIX musical word to what it is now I can not imagine that anything from Chopin's music could ever have been composed on a Steinway Grand aside from some Waltzes and Mazurkas. Yet people will forever persist that it does not matter. But this is why Chopin's music on the modern piano will always sound either over-romanticized and bombastic or note perfect but bleached and bland. Li's playing however is nothing short of amazing and deserves to be heard. When comparing the Polonaise with Rubinstein it becomes clear how an awfull reduction of the score hidden behind over pedalling and distorted rythms wrapped up behind the "aristocracy" stamp Rubinstein recording is. Yet even there Chopin's art had something to say. It does not disintegrate all at once a bit like those antique statues washed by centuries of erosion and seasons keep their grandeur.

for more information click here