Yunchan was enchanting, no comparisons are needed. It was a glorious performance. No disrespect to the greats but that kid rivals some of them. Your videos are awesome for piano geeks. Thanks!
I know little about this music, but you talk about it in such a way that I can really appreciate what’s happening. Thanks from the blue collar community
Tonebase lost a great when they lost you, but for you personally I cant wait to see more content and video essays from you. It'll will do so much good. You're so smart and talented!
Thanks - actually working on a video for the ol’ tonebase piano channel next. Look out for it in the next week or two. Ultimately I needed my own channel to do all the things I want to do; just grateful I got the opportunity to cultivate my little hobby there :)
I can't wait for the finale of the series, especially your analysis on Yunchan's playing of one of my all-time favorite Liszt pieces, River Flows in You!
18:51 woooo... I made it! 🤣 Love this content, another masterpiece level that only you can come up with. BTW, it was so wonderful meeting you at the NYU workshop last Feb! 😆 I must say although you remind me of a goofy but very clever college student, in person you look like a very fine, scholarly professor. 😆 I enjoyed the workshop. I tremendously enjoyed the whole NYC trip with meeting you, then the next day experiencing the Carnegie debut of Yunchan Lim. Incredible night. Incredible February in NYC.👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻🐾
Though this may not have been the main focus, I think it stands as a testament to the quality of your essays that I can enjoy them as a beginner without feeling like I need a music theory dictionary on my nightstand.
Yunchan is a young genius - I think he isn't a student of his contemporaries but rather a student of the "Golden Age" of piano. Pianists who were born in the 19th century played with this kind of freedom and care for details - it's incredibly rare nowadays. It's almost like he's a long-lost student of Ignaz Friedman.
That’s true. But I think he’s a student of living pianists as well. I think he’s a student of RU-vid! He has talked about it before in interviews - this is a new generation of pianists who have access to the entire recorded legacy, and he’s taking advantage of that more than any other, it seems.
@@benlawdydefinitely true and recently i’ve seen yunchan’s old comments in the youtube videos where i watch old pianists’ recordings. He is literally using the comment section to making time stamps and taking notes on particular part of the piece.
Dude, I know nothing about piano music or classical music in general. While I like classical music, I can't decipher any of it. Your storytelling is so compelling.
Nice to hear that. I had “you” in mind when I started making these, because I found myself watching similar kinds of video essays about things I have no expertise or technical knowledge in (science, chess, etc), but found them compelling anyway. I thought people outside the classical music bubble might be similarly drawn in with the right kind of content
@@benlawdy I know nothing about this classic music stuff. I have a question. Like you said in videos, GOAT comments are a dime a dozen. So, what would you look for in a new performance and say, "Look, hear that. Right there. Go back a few seconds. There it is. Did you hear that? saw Yunchan's performance and is trying to play that part like Yunchan."
@@americanswanthat’s a good question and hard to answer. I don’t think there is (or can be) a general principle that you can follow to know that. You have to keep listening and developing sensitivity to how a pianist balances the independent voices in a harmony or texture, how they carry a phrase (does it soar, or is there frequent rubato), is there clarity and how are they using the pedal - to blend and accentuate or to distort?, what about dynamic contrast, and so on. Yunchan doesn’t yet have one definitive way of playing, I think, because he too is still trying on different hats based on artists he’s listened to.
The quality of Yunchan Lim 임윤찬’s performance that always strikes me is how _internal_ it seems to be-it’s like there’s no audience, no concert hall, almost no piano, just the music and his own response to it. It’s almost like he’s in an ecstatic trance. 11:20
One of the marvels of Yunchan's performance was that he could switch between all the vastly different moods and embody them so well. I agree that Pogorelich's Ricordanza is out of this world, no holds barred. Can't wait for your analysis of the final 2...to me, truly the climax and such a wondrous closure to the entire experience. My favourites among favourites.
Love these long form essays. I’m also a recovering Gould fan and will listen to the one on Gould again. There’s so much music I haven’t really listened to, including Liszt. I’ll give this young man a listen.
I just heard him perform the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 live 3 days ago. I thought his phrasing and use of rubato was incredible. Everything breathed. I love the analysis that Ben provides and just ordered the Liszt CD!
one of the many reasons i appreciate Yunchan and your videos is because I have been introduced to a whole new world of classical music. it was once staid and pleasant but a genre that was better appreciated from afar. now, it is exciting, controversial, and for the first time, digestible. for all the critics out there of YCL, he has the ability to draw people who had no interest in classical music and who now not only appreciate him but all other artists, including possibly your favorite. one of the things that I have learned is that unlike sports, artists do not compete with each other. we, as their listeners, should do the same.
11:38 I completely agree with Yunchan’s attacca choice here - not just because of the contrast, but because they’re in relative keys - F minor is the relative minor of A flat major. In other words, the key signature hasn’t changed.
I can't wait to see how Yunchan's sound changes over the course of life. It was so special because Yunchan was only a teenager when he played these pieces. Imagine what it would be like to hear a seasoned Yunchan,it's a boner
Ben, thank you for this. Another wonderful job. Appreciate the work that went into it. Can’t wait til the finale. (Didn’t know you left Tonebase but thank goodness we can still find you here).
Oh my..Ben thank you so much giving me your insight on Yunchan's play as I am not a pianists nor have the depth to understand what makes Yunchan so special. All I can say is thank you for sharing your knowledge and understanding
Always something to learn in your videos. Love the comparisons because it wasn’t “who played it better” but “how they played it differently.” Thank you!
Merci beaucoup Ben!!… Pour moi, Pogorelich va tellement vite qu’il perd beaucoup en clarté… nul besoin d’aller à cette vitesse… Quant à Kissin, on le sent parfois « à la peine « , c’est un peu laborieux !… vraiment Yunch a le son juste, la virtuosité et la clarté, et les émotions qui déferlent de son jeu sont authentiques, sincères ! C’est pour moi la plus belle version… comme pour tout ce qu’il interprète d’ailleurs ! Un géant, un génie !
These past years we are so blessed by all young musicians giving us their musical talent, whilst the world makes their ugly noise of wars. You too Mr. Laude thank you for your lessons. 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 (Holland-eu)
Okay the last 15 seconds of this video had me laughing out loud like a maniac. I am really blown away by Yunchan Lim as a performer, though I admit sometimes his interpretations leave me a little cold. It may be sacrilege to say it, but he strikes me very much the way Richter does: His technique is so transcendent, he's able to create such long, perfect lines, that sometimes the performances feel like looking at polished marble. Like the monolith in 2001.
Yunchan knows how to show us a musical fairy tales ! Each note hasa great meaning ! Nothing is loose ! Everything is important to him ! Absolutely awesome ! 🙏
Ben, I love your essay, and will wait the next one. At the same time, I am curious that you are going to make new essay projects about Yunchan’s Chopin Etudes. You were at the Carnegie Hall for his Chopin Etude performance.
How wonderful it is to be sat at one's PC in one's boxers sipping cheap merlot having multiple concert pianists and classical music experts explain it to one why every one of these performances is so darned awesome, all for less than Netflix eh.
Congrats on launching your own YT channel! Your lessons and videos on Tonebase were always my fav (great mix of humor and info...Chopin's Op. 64 #2 comes to mind), so I'm excited to see what you do next. To new horizons!
Ah Lisztomania ! It was seeing that film that took me to Liszt. I went home and found the bits of Liszt sheet music I had and that began 45 years with FL
I love the conceit of quasi-polyamorous love for a variety of performers and their interpretations of select works. In the same way, we (humans) can be as promiscuous as we wish with our adoration of scores of composers; no reason for Beethoven to feel jealous just because I also worship Bach, and vice versa, and then add Brahms, Satie, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Wagner, and hey -- why not? -- Franck and H. I. Biber (no relation to Justin) into this love fest! Anyway, lovely video, as always, and fun fact: I caught many performances of Ivo Pogorelich at Carnegie Hall in the 80s and 90s -- whew! those were some incredible concerts, but boy, did he HATE audience noise (coughing, rustling, etc) almost as much as I do. He once just stopped a movement of a work (I think it was Beethoven) dead in its tracks, slowly turned to the audience, made a few polite gestures with his hand over his mouth, as if to say, Cover your mouths, or maybe just stop coughing. His recording of Bach's English Suites (just two of them, but still) remains one of my all-time favorite recordings of those works, of Bach, and of anything!
19:30 that was really funny video editing. 😂 22:23 I don't really have anything against River Flows in You...but nonetheless...this part was really quite disturbing. Glad to hear you'll make another RU-vid video for ToneBase! You built up an audience there and they sorely miss you. I hope ToneBase makes it worth your while!
@@benlawdyWell, your flirting with vulgarity is one reason why your videos are so enjoyable…haha. Only thing that would make that part better is if you were the real performer of that section of The River Flows in You (unless it really WAS you, of course!).
Context matters - Jed said that Pogo is only playing 3 selections from the full set? Comparing relative intensity/risk-taking from the 10th of 12 to (presumably) the 3rd of 3 doesn't feel right.
Oh I agree, and I actually mention that context in the previous video in the series. In that sense, Yunchan’s taking a bigger risk. But just taking the 10th Etude on its own terms, I find Pogorelich to take the biggest risks in terms of exploring the emotional/psychological possibilities in the score. (Not that taking risks always = better, but I do think in this case Pogorelich raises the stakes and achieves stunning results).
J'ai cherché dans mes souvenirs pourquoi et en quoi la musique culmine sous les doigts de Lim. Mais aucune comparaison ne me semble opportune avec les plus célèbres pianistes du siècle passé...La réalité, chez lui, dépasse tous les imaginaires déjà construits par les Rubinstein, Horowitz, Argerich, Brendel, Richter, Bolet, Pollini, Pires, Michelangeli pour ne citer que quelques sommets du passé. Non par une supériorité d'excellence quelconque qui serait "mesurable", mais par l'intuition mystérieuse des âmes habitant le discours musical. Lim nous raconte ce que la musique transporte de souffle : toutes les émanations en altitude de la vie, telles que l'amour et l'émerveillement dans leur plus simple et nue simplicité. Oui, pour le dire autrement, il rend obsolète et ridicule le monde figé de l'Intelligence Artificielle !
