I am teaching in China and out of the apartments in the evening you hear kids playing the piano everywhere. I teach a couple of 8 year old girls on the weekends. They started singing notes together one day. I asked what it was and the chanted Rachmaninoff like it was the latest rapper. This isn't unusual here. I played a video of Yuja Wang to a class of 8th graders and you could have heard a pin drop. Never criticize places you haven't been to. There are always surprises. And for heaven sake, don't make a contest out of everything. Learn to just enjoy the good in what you've been blessed to experience. That is enough.
I have over 150 CD's of classical solo piano music and piano concertos, and only one by an Asian pianist - Yundi Li. The best pianists will always be the non-Asians, like Hamelin, Matsuev, Bronfman, Grosvenor, Delucchi, Grante, Pollini, Berezovsky, Maltempo, the late Kocsis, Ullen, Kimura Parker, Watts, Sokolov, Lisiecki, Trifonov etc...As can be seen from my list, the best are predominantly male. Asian pianists mainly play with no passion for, or understanding of the music - with a few exceptions, like Yundi Li. They are player-bots who practice ten hours a day, and Yuja Wang is no exception. She is nothing more than a machine in skimpy clothes.
@@franksmith541 You may have a lot of recordings but, if you believe Yuja is just a robotic pianist, you have absolutely no musical appreciation. Yuja is invited back time and again by the top orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic because they know outstanding musicians when they hear them. Yuja is not all about technique. Indeed, outside of some of her encores, she eschews superfluous virtuosity. What is important is understanding the composition and being able to produce a compelling interpretation of it (as Yuja does here). One of the all time great conductors was Claudio Abbado. Friends persuaded him to listen reluctantly to Yuja once at an impromptu music gathering, and he invited her on the spot to open the Lucerne Festival with him. (She was quite a bit younger than in this performance, about 21 I think.) Abbado had great respect for Yuja's musical instincts, and pushed her to take the lead in the interpretations of the pieces they performed together. The results were memorable. If you want to learn, watch and listen to ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q4TyQ97Jcr0.html and observe how Abbado gets the very best out of the young Yuja and the orchestra. Abbado was a genius in his way, as Yuja is in hers. [You are correct, though, that Yundi Li is a fine pianist.]
Words really are insufficient to say how great this performance is. Suffice it to say her first appearances at Verbier blew the roof off the place and generated a torrent of applause from audiences, critics, and fellow artists alike. We are so lucky to have this incredible talent playing for us today.
With regard to music critics, I once heard a wise man say that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. As the years have passed that has seemed more and apposite - never more so than when reading through some of the inane internet coments and criticism about Miss Wang.
@@Blueboyo1 Excuse me.. who is she performing for if not an audience?? And you are saying that audience is not allowed to criticize or express their displeasure, or preference for another?? This makes no logical sense at all.
@@Blueboyo1 You are listening to idiots, not sages. Language (words) is a means of communication and a way to transmit thoughts. Of course, if there are no thoughts, then you can dance (about architecture).
I had always thought that Liszt composed only to show off his virtuosity - until I heard Michele Campanella play this work in Locarno many years ago! He led me to the realization that the B Minor Sonata is a very profound work of philosophy in music! This is exactly what wonderful Yuja Wang demonstrates!
@@comment6864 I would agree: You don't know about music. Pathetic, actually, your comments. Her sensitivity in the slow and quite passages is what seals the deal for me. That is real musicality.
The day Yuja decides she wants to wean herself off sheet music and wants to learn smthg new from eg Stephanie Trick and friends, the day she learns to play ad lib & BY EAR jazz, pop, boogie, stride...anything, THAT day she will become music. Until then she'll remain a virtuoso performer, aka a sheet music robot dependent on sheet music. No hard feelings. That's the way the cookie crumbles.
@@mikedaniels3009 This is the proof that you don't really understand Romantic music. No hard feelings either. I totally understand what you say about her, and the famous cliché of "the sheet music robot" playing classical music, though. 2 things about that : 1) There is a fact you seem to ignore: You simply CANNOT play a work like Liszt's Sonata with no feelings. Err, let me correct: You could, but you will never hear so in a concert room. There are PLENTY of feelings and sensitivity in this interpretation, even if I see what you say, some parts are uselessly fast (like the coda), and some other uselessly slow, but I can't, and YOU can't either, deny the feelings in this. 2) The day when she will play Jazz, Pop, Boogie, and all that stuff, may never come. And there are PLENTY of good reasons for this, excluding she being a feelingless robot: for instance, maybe she's just not into this. Like me, maybe she's a huge fan of Romantic (Chopin, Rachmaninov) AND heavy Metal :) But no jazz of any kind. So, to sum up, your comments and feelings are personal and respectable. But don't say she's not making Music. 'Cause it's factually false.
I only know her from RU-vid, but I think I'm won over. I'm a fan, big time. Not just from this video, but from other videos I've seen in the last few months. She's the real deal. All-time great material, in my very humble opinion. She's in studio-Zimerman-greatness territory in this LIVE - LIVE!!!! - performance. Unbelievable.
this is one of the most romantic and profoud pieces of music i have ever heard.To me when he wrote it he was deeply in loved with a women and her with him. I know thathe was married ,and i do not know wheather he wrote it to his wife or someone else.Yuja brings it all out in the open and this is a fabulous and poetic and profound interpretation of this piece..Yuja you are one of my favourite pianists of our time.Thank you.
I have heard the sonata several time live including Horowitz and Gilels. Leaving studio recording aside, only Gilels opened my mind to this fantastic composition - and that was live. He played the Chopin sonata before intermission and the Liszt after and it floored me. I never was - still am not - a big liszt fan. I do find his very late works good, though. This live performance by Yuja is second to none, my favorite by far. As for the missed notes? who cares? She explains every level of this very complicated composition so clearly that everyone should be able to see its genius. Her sense of breathing, of space betwwen notes, of actually listening to her instrument while playing in absolutely perfect. She never play against the instrument, she lets it sound...
THERE ARE JUST NO ADDECUATE WORDS OF PRAISE AND ADMIRATION FOR THIS CYCLOPEAN FEAT OF MUSICAL BRILLIANCE YUJA DEMONSTRATES HERE. ONLY THE FINAL NOTES OF TRISTAN COME CLOSE TO THE DIVINITY OF THIS MUSIC. I AM GRATEFUL TO HAVE HEARD THIS IN MY LIFETIME.
It's 6:30am in the morning on 1-31-15 and my eyes are heavy and about to drop asleep and I decided to give Ms.YW a little hearing on Liszt famous B minor sonata before I crash but she woke me up with astonishment. To my great surprise she'd given new meaning to this piece, as if this were a new classical piece. Her rendition is original, unlike the hackneyed playing from other circuit pianists. Her sense of space is formidable. I was so used to the highly emotional, macabre, and pensive interpretation by Horowitz which, to me, is a gem with its great story telling .... but the dexterity, clarity, nimbleness, and splendid colors from this young pianist is unparalleled. She is in a class by herself. What sublime talent. Horowitz has an idiosyncratic spin but that is expected of an octogenarian. This young gal hasn't beared a lifetime of travails. She is still in her optimistic years, not her cynical years yet. A true talent discovery!
I have to agree - I had never heard her play this before either, but had to hear it all the way through once it started. Few performances of this piece flow as seamlessly as this one.
When I was growing up it was the Jewish pianist now it’s definitely the Asian pianist. This is a great performance with color and nuance . Her technique is tremendous.
I wonder from where she gets her motivation. I just love her, like a snake she waits and pounces on her prey [the piano], truly amazing. It's not her fault she happens to be so beautiful. God how I long for another Steinway piano in my life
For me this is the best interpretation since Martha Argerich's monumental studio performance for DG in 1971. What makes the whole thing almost spooky is that when Martha Argerich made her recording she was 29 - 30 years old... and Yuja is 19 or 20 here. Both interpretations are very different, though. Where Martha Argerich puts fire, energy, and a dazzling speed, Yuja Wang puts her hallmark elegance (although paired with great energy) and an insight that goes well beyond her age. The term "Sonata" is a misnomer. This work is rater a "Symphonic Fantasie" for piano, the style is very free and leaves a wide field open to interpretation by pianists, as was intended by the composer. (BTW: Liszt wrote a similar work for organ "Fantasia and Fugue on the chorale 'Ad nos, ad salutarem undam'" in his later years).
If this and argerich were, for you, "The Greatest Interpretations" then you simply have bad taste. Zimerman and Horowitz are just so,so,so,so,so,so fucking far ahead that it's not even funny.
@@epicaunleashed8764 I was unimpressed with Zimerman. He did some things which I preferred to Yuja's performance, but Yuja's performance is far more enjoyable to listen to as a whole. Horowitz was also good, but my favorite that I've listened to has been Yuja's recording here.
@@ack7956 I think you're trying to prove some point. Either to me or to yourself, bc Wang makes a tremendous amount of mistakes, and a lot of her performance in non-uniform and sloppy.
@@epicaunleashed8764 I don't think the (very few) mistakes detract from the musical quality in any way. In fact, I think the colorful dissonances add some spice and realism to the performance. This is a real human, playing real music, using their real emotions. It's a deeply touching performance, one that's never been matched for me in terms of its character and interpretation. And what you're hearing as "inconsistency" or what-have-you is known as rubato, which has become quite a dirty word for some reason. Yuja's rubato is exquisite, and gives this piece the life it is so often deprived of in many performances, like with Zimerman's. Zimerman shamefully rushed through some of the most musically profound moments of this piece, but Yuja gave the piece adequate time to breathe and tell its story. Zimerman's performance is monumental in its own right, don't get me wrong, but to me it doesn't even compare.
I thought I knew the piece. Today this performance was played on BravaTV and from the start I was frozen, fascinated and moved by this incredible pianist. Happy to have found it also on youtube. I knew of Wangs existance, how a great musician she is, we visited two of her concerts in Amsterdam, but up to now I missed her Liszt-sonata. Can't wait to hear 'Vallée d'Obermann' by her magic hands. Or Brahms's Haendel-variations. Let her play and listen to almost whatever she plays.
I have buried myself in Chopin for the last many years, and now poking around a bit with Lizst, and what I love about Lizst is that he was Chopin’s contemporary, and wrote amazing stuff that Chopin would never have written. It’s truly unique!
Whatever the work and for any interpreter there will always be someone to find it's too much this or not enough that. Yuja Wang has a huge talent, a prodigious technique and plays this work with conviction and feeling.
yes, and such as brilliant Dudamel, but there are inimical forces in high places also at work. Problems are surely not with true artists! Such a comfort.
I have to smile when I watch this beautiful young lady tame this magnificent beast-monster music. I’m sure that somewhere, Liszt is smiling, too. Magnificent!
3:20 this, my fellow musicians, this, is the music of the gods...the most epic and greatest theme of all!!! You can even see it in the face of Yuja Wang, who certainly has nailed the voicing
I have over 150 CDs of classical solo piano music and piano concertos, and only one by an Asian pianist: Yundi Li. The best pianists will always be the non-Asians, like Hamelin, Matsuev, Bronfman, Grosvenor, Delucchi, Grante, Pollini, Berezovsky, Maltempo, the late Kocsis, Ullen, Kimura Parker, Watts, Sokolov, Lisiecki, Trifonov etc...As can be seen from my list, the best are predominantly male. Asian pianists mainly play with no passion for, or understanding of the music - with a few exceptions, like Yundi Li. They are player-bots who practice ten hours a day, and Yuja Wang is no exception. She is nothing more than a machine in skimpy clothes.
@@franksmith541 Well many of them are as you describe, they play like robots, or they only play putting a show on them and not on the music. I don't think Yuja Wang is on that level, but she is definitely less expressive or original than other pianists. I suppose we agree that we don't have any racist bias against Asians here right?
It's such a monumental climax, and Yuja Wang brings it to life in such a brilliant way, no other recording I've heard really sells it quite like this one does imo.
Phenomenal! Thanks for posting this stupendous performance by one of the greatest pianists ever! Yuja's passion and powerful display of all the nuances of the colors within this almost impossible piece are a testament to her spirit's ability to soar and shine as the musical master who she is! Liszt would be thrilled to witness her dynamic interpretation.
My favorite female pianist of all time by far. 2nd favorite overall. This is also the second best interpretation, closely following Yundi Li. I was blessed to see her play live at the Hollywood Bowl.
This is a great performance considering Yuja is still young. So despite a wrong note here or there, this IS played with great passion, more than some well-known pianists. Bravo!!!
This performance must join the pantheon of greats (despite a minor memory glitch at c.26:40...after all this is live & unedited). Magnificent musicality and bravura technique...and she makes it look as easy as a Mozart minuet! I noticed the same with her Rachmaninoff 3rd...amazing talent! Thanks for the beautiful posting.
This is probably the best live performance of The Sonata I have ever heard. And I can't think of many studio recordings that are comparably passionate and original, either. Stupendous, gripping from beginning to end. Keeps the listener on the edge while playing on the edge herself. The couple of jumbled moments are made easily insignificant by the genius interpretation of the whole. Thank you!
Excellent left hand voicings. She played this AND Cziffra's lightning fast arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee" in the same concert. I really hope that the audience appreciated the absolute insanity of what they just witnessed!
A brilliant performance of an astonishing composition that is still seemingly eons ahead of its time over a hundred years after its inception... No matter who I'm around while watching a great performance of this sonata, no matter how macho I try to be, I always end up crying buckets during the opening chords of the Andante Sostenuto (which begins at 12:44 in this recording)... In my best attempt at an humble opinion: if you truly love music of all varieties, from Baroque to hip hop, and if you know anything about Liszt's life, then there might be something terribly wrong with you if a truly skillful and passionate performance like this doesn't bring you to tears... But I'm just one dumbass dude spewing his musical opinion on a youtube video... *Sips another mouthful of tear-filled whiskey and soda*
@@costelconstantin4845 My comment above was from 6 years ago so I imagine they have either been downvoted or removed since. I seem to recall it was a lot of people complaining about her style/clothing/"robotic" playing. It's nice to revisit and see a different vibe in the comments, and to be reminded of such a great performance!
@@cyrillepiano364 Liszt sonata with CUT ???? Horrible!!!!! When I first heard this in album Horowitz complete Liszt recordings I thought: A disk must have broken, but when I heard the 1946 performance with the same cut It was clear for me that Horowitz planned this cut. It is like putting a moustache on Mona Lisa .
This for me compares very well with Earl Wild, my favorite Liszt pianist. Glorious tone which she nevers "plays through." At 27.58 she just lets the piano "ring" - a bit shorter than Wild does but its is very effective and most pianists don't. It's a wonderful effect. This is a very romantic view of the piece and for me quite superb.
I have always loved Argerich's & Horowitz' interpretation on this sonata, but now.......... So very genuine this is ...... she is a genius. And her technique is without handicaps whatsoever. I wonder, how is this in heavens name possible?
Really, but she has many technical issues in this performance. She misses a great many notes. That's not acceptable in today's high standards, especially.
Missing a note or two is not an issue in technically difficult music. It happens all the time, even with Horowitz. The issue is the music, and here that is really superior.
Si Franz Liszt était toujours parmi nous, il se sentirait au Paradis avec cette sublime interprétation de sa Sonate par Yuja Wang ! Peut-être l’appellerait-il à le rejoindre là-haut… Mais le Paradis est une fiction, donc profitons ensemble ici bas de cette merveille qu’est Yuja !
Pianist Wang executes a unique Liszt sonata in this presentation. Though, I'm not too familiar on how the artist should interpret the full emotions of Liszt sonata, Wang is a superb virtuoso at the piano. Great credit to a young talented pianist and a promising future 'Horowitz' expressionist.
Лист это как лакмус для пианиста. Все становится ясным с первых аккордов. И тут все видно .Потому так верно передаются все нюансы произведения. Даже по дыханию видны ощущения при игре Юджи и это весьма показательно. Привет из Киева.
Holy of holies, this is an amazing performance. Diverges from the traditional interpretation in amazing ways. I love the base As that she adds too. I love that! Like Pletnev and Gould, Yuja adds enormously with her interpretations.
Okay, I've played keyboards on and off for 25+ years. I thought that I have about a millionth of musical skill of the likes of Yuja Wang and Hiromi Uehara. When I am seeing this, it feels barely like a billionth or a trillionth.
Well, heard this interpretation for the first time today. I'm used to Howard's recording and many others, prob. heard 50 different recordings and live performances. So yes, I know this piece very well. And - esp. regarding her age then - this performance is one of the better ones. I miss some fine emphasizes of eg. Howard, but I like it much more as e.g. the boring recording of Hamelin or the - for me - way to clear version of Hough - have all on CD. Yes, this piece prob. gets better the older you are, but this piece also represents the quintessence of (dark) romantic piano music. And this woman not only plays this piece as good as possible (for her abilities), she also feels the music in her soul. And - as it is a live recording!! - I am very sad to not have been in the audience.
Ottima performance. Un giusto mix di virtuosismo ed interpretazione. Considerata la giovane età, direi molto buona nell'insieme la performance. Con buona pace di coloro che criticano senza sapere niente di tecnica pianistica ed interpretazione. Tra parentesi, io sono un pianista.
An incredible talent. One of the best improvisers and modern classical pianists in this era. Her dynamic technique is a force to be reckoned with. Bruce Lee on the piano! :-)
@@nihilistlemon1995 , Bruce Lee had his own Kung Fu school fort many fights and invented that style of fighting he was the first to do the really high kicks
Yuja has had affinity for Liszt since always,she plays instinctively,this works well here.In the first section we get,for once,the true note values of the imperious theme0.50.She holds back to give full weight to all the drama of the first part.QuasiAdagio is among the best i've ever heard,truly intimate,never rushed,only passionate where demanded.Part3 is less satisfying:she succumbs to the temptation of the bass B(22.14)and has a Boulez moment later but recovers well.Overall,a great LisztBm!
What stuns me about this, is that it was live. And it's so close to the version of my favourite living pianist, Krystian Zimerman, in the legendary recording that I have and have listened to so much. Zimerman infamously took dozens of takes to get the recording (I've seen the number of takes he required given to be over 70!!), but this live Yuja Wang performance is SO CLOSE, and it's LIVE. IT'S LIVE. And it's close to matching the hyper-perfected, over-taked recording by the great Krystian Zimerman. Absolutely staggering. My pick of Zimerman as my favourite living pianist is based on studio recordings, not live performances on stage. But I don't actually own any Yuja Wang recordings, so I can't fairly compare them in that regard. But if this is what she can do live, in front of an audience, without being able to cancel, retake, start over..... wow... WOW. WOW!!!!
This Lady's talent is unquestionable, she made more mistakes than SHE can cope with. Not an artistic matter. Yuja understands the piece! (Her repertoire is already double mine!) Look forward to at least two or three performances over her long career to come. I'm a big Pollini fan (so is Yuja), he found this Sonata at 57ish! Give the Lady time.
Qué bueno es disfrutar de las composiciones de un virtuoso del piano como Liszt en manos de otra virtuosa como Yuja, que va despegando por momentos y vuela hasta los dominios de la bella Euterpe para seguir deleitándonos con su magia desde allá. Yuja + Liszt = excelente binomio.
