YUNDI LI PLAYS MOZART: THE SONATA PROJECT I / Review

 

YUNDI LI PLAYS MOZART 

THE SONATA PROJECT 1 

Esplanade Theatre 

Friday (11 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 October 2024 with the title "Pianist Yundi Li offers crisp, articulate readings of Mozart".

Fifteen years ago, Chinese pianist Li Yundi gave a most shambolic performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, reviewed in these pages as being “shockingly bad”. His star further fell in 2021 after being arrested for allegedly soliciting a Beijing prostitute, which saw him being cancelled from all concert activity in China. 

Yundi's latest CD,
the all-Mozart programme
he performed at the recital.

Surely every artist deserves a chance for redemption. This came in recitals of piano sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, first in Australia last year and later in Europe. These were generally well received and judging from the full-house at Esplanade Theatre (with the Concert Hall undergoing refurbishment), it appears he still has a wide and loyal fanbase in Singapore. 

The good news is that he did not disappoint this time around. His Mozart playing is crisp, articulate and non-idiosyncratic, evident in the opening Theme and Variations of the Sonata in A major (K.331). That he chose to play all repeats gave a chance for this drawing room music to be savoured a second time round, and occasionally with unobstrusive ornamentations. 

His view of its slow movement, a minuet, was one of grace and delicacy. The sonata’s famous Rondo alla Turca (Turkish Rondo) could have had more oomph, as he maintained an unruffled and decorous demeanour throughout. One can almost guess how Yundi’s contemporary Lang Lang would have played this popular bonbon, with the diametrically opposite viewpoint. 

Out of a total of eighteen piano sonatas, Mozart composed just two in the minor key. Yundi performed both of these, first the A minor (K.310), which has some of his most tempestuous music. He brought out its Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) very well and the climactic highs were never made to sound over-congested. 

The slow movement was lovely, its smooth cantabile perfectly judged, while the finale seethed with an unnerving disquiet. Presto movements in the minor key somehow sound more urgent and menacing, despite a brief bell-like interlude in A major. 

Mozart’s other minor key sonata was in C minor (K.457), preceded by the discursive Fantasy in C minor (K.475), which has dissonances and harmonic surprises galore. This has to be his greatest single-movement work, and Yundi treated it as such by accentuating its sharp contours and unexpected dramatics. 

Continuing without break into the sonata caught the noisy audience by surprise, which had robotically applauded without truly listening and appreciating his nuances and cues, thus almost breaking the spell. Yundi persevered nonetheless, delivering what was the finest performance of the evening. The sonata had surging drive in the outer movements and genuine warmth at its pulsing heart of the slow movement. 

His encores of Ren Guang’s Cai Yun Zhui Yue (Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon) in by Wang Jianzhong’s transcription and Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat major (Op.9 No.2) were just lovely and very well received. It was gratifying to see the sensitive musical soul of Yundi making an honest and gallant comeback.

What a full-house at 
Esplanade Theatre looks like.