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 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.

INTERESTING NAMES @ NATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION 2013

It has always been a habit of mine to leaf through the pages of the souvenir booklets of any music competition, to see who is participating as well as to ponder on the sort of repertoire offered. Often interesting choices of works crop up, but in this year, several players themselves were a source of interest, especially their names.

Imagine the surprise when I saw the name of Li Yundi pop up in the Piano Intermediate Category. This is indeed a famous name, that of the Chopin International Piano Competition 1st Prizewinner of 2000 turned Tchaikovsky Thrasher of 2009. From reliable sources, this Yundi turned out to be a girl. Hopefully she is a better pianist.

  

Now I was looking out for a Lang Lang, but found a Mei Fei Fei  instead. Does she (this has to be a girl's name) come from from China as well? Considering that Dong Fei Fei was a finalist in the 2013 Van Cliburn Piano Competition, this is going to be a good name for pianists. By the way, I've actually seen recordings by pianists Niu Niu and Dong Dong, and met a pianist called Fang Fang.

Indonesians, I've heard, like to go by a single name like the Brazilians do, such as Pélé, Zico, Kaka, Romaria, Ronaldo, Junior and Eder. So here are two Indonesian pianists who like to be known by their only names, Wilson and Josephine. I heard Josephine play in the semi-finals and she is very musical.

Some Indonesians like to go by two names, both of which are first names. So here is Sandy Amanda, a student of NAFA who was also a semi-finalist. Other examples I've encountered include Andrew Alexander, a young pianist who also sings, and my all-time favourite Indonesian pianist name, Randy Ryan.

Finally, what are the odds that the father of Solskjaer Alesi Thio is not a Manchester United fan? Does he have brothers named Ferguson, Sheringham, Beckham, Roy, Keane, Ruud, Jaap, Cristiano or Ronaldo? The last notable pianist in Singapore named after a football star is probably Keegan Ng Zhi Wei.

If I come back reincarnated as an ahem... real pianist, perhaps I should go by the name Liang Liang.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2012)

BAX Winter Legends / Morning Song

ASHLEY WASS, Piano

Bournemouth Symphony / James Judd

Naxos 8.572597 / ****1/2

The British composer Arnold Bax (1883-1953) is best known for his seven symphonies and symphonic poems on Celtic lore and legends. This recording presents three concertante works for piano and orchestra, all premiered by his lover and muse Harriet Cohen. 

At 38 minutes, Winter Legends (1929-30) is a three-movement symphony with a virtuoso piano part employed with orchestral textures in mind. It is a highly evocative score using folk-like themes, both Romantic in spirit yet coloured with broad impressionist sweeps. The ruggedness of Sibelius’s tone poems is recalled albeit with an aromatic Celtic flavour.

Cut from the same fabric is the compact Saga Fragment (1933), an orchestrated movement from an earlier piano quartet. The percussive and hard-hitting 10 minutes was admired by no less than Bartok himself. 

Far more congenial is Morning Song (1947), carrying the subtitle Maytime In Sussex, which wallows unabashedly in the English pastoral tradition. For some years, this was regularly used in on-air commercials by Symphony 92.4 FM. Prize-winning pianist Ashley Wass has become Naxos label’s in-house pianist for English piano music, and the quality of this release confirms his prowess and obvious sympathies. This is ardently recommended listening.    

RED PIANO

YUNDI, Piano

EMI Classics 4394320 (CD and DVD) / ****1/2

The social history of the piano in contemporary China makes a fascinating topic for a doctoral thesis. Li Yundi’s latest album Red Piano, released to coincide with the Chinese republic’s centenary, qualifies to be its Exhibit A. The piano, with its wide range of colours and textures including percussive and orchestral effects, is an ideal vehicle for transcriptions of Chinese music. 

The best known are oldies such as Liu Yang River, Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon and Five Yunnan Folksongs, in Wang Jianzhong’s highly idiomatic arrangements. Romantic and impressionist writing simulating traditional Chinese instruments are the norm, as is the Bartokian treatment of folk songs and dances. All these come to a heady fruition in Zhang Zhao’s Pi Huang (Beijing Opera), a virtuoso showpiece dedicated to Li Yundi.

Patriotic music, particularly the overtly Socialist kind, still makes popular subjects. Zhang Zhou’s transcriptions of Liu Chi’s My Motherland and Nie Er’s March Of The Volunteers (the Chinese National Anthem), the latter in the style a Chopinesque polonaise, are both over-the-top and floridly jingoistic. 

Then there is the Yellow River Concerto by a Beijing committee of four based on themes from Xian Xinghai’s Yellow River Cantata, composed in 1939 as an anti-Japanese war effort. Despite being derivative (it is the Chinese counterpart to Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto), the highly effective showpiece sounds spectacular in the hands of Yundi and the National Centre for Performing Arts Orchestra conducted by Chen Zuohuang. 

The accompanying DVD includes a short documentary in Mandarin and two tracks performed on a blood red (really!) Steinway grand. Yundi diehards need not hesitate.     

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2011)

ERWIN SCHULHOFF Violin Sonatas
Tanja Becker-Bender, Violin
Markus Becker, Piano
Hyperion 67833 / *****

One of the most grievous losses of the Second World War was the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), who died in a Nazi concentration camp from tuberculosis and starvation. His was a highly eclectic voice, absorbing the many prevalent styles and idioms of the turbulent years that preceded the great wars. The four violin works (three sonatas and one suite) on this disc reveal his disparate influences. The Solo Sonata (1927) looks back to Bach’s polyphony but filtered through the modern idioms of Ysaye and Bartok.

The First Sonata (1913) is filled with the impressionist hues and colour of Debussy’s sound world, contrasted with the bluesy harmonies and jazzy rhythms of the Second Sonata (1927). The five-movement Suite (1911) is almost neoclassical, its baroque dances are shaded with a Viennese brush, as if wielded by Korngold or Kreisler. German violinist Tanja Becker-Bender has a bright and incisive tone, illuminating this fascinating music with a penetrative laser-like clarity and razor-sharp reflexes. With pianist Markus Becker’s nimble and mercurial partnership, the duo makes these lesser-known works sound like classics. Here are new and piquant flavours for the jaded palate.

YUNDI Live in Beijing
EMI Classics 631639 2 (CD & DVD) / ****

The piano music of Frédéric Chopin remains the first love of Chinese pianist Li Yundi, winner of the 2000 Chopin International Piano Competition. He now goes by the name Yundi, but has not lost his li (power or energy in Chinese) for the Pole’s passion-laden scores. The big work in his 2010 Beijing recital was the Second Sonata in B flat minor (Op.35), a reading which had both requisite fire and dogged defiance, tempered by lyrical beauty in the central section of the Funeral March. In the other extended work, the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise (Op.22), an impeccable technique serves him well.

The shorter pieces included four Mazurkas (Op.33) and three familiar Nocturnes, all of which benefit from an innate sense of rhythm and poetry. The coruscating Heroic Polonaise (Op.53) rounds up an impressive show in front of his countrymen. He offered two encores, the Chinese melody Cai Yun Zhui Yue (Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon) and an uncharacteristically messy Revolutionary Étude (Op.10 No.12). An accompanying DVD of the entire concert, with two additional Nocturnes, will no doubt delight his legions of fans.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2010)

CHOPIN 21 Nocturnes

YUNDI, Piano

EMI Classics 6083912 (2CDs)

****

The Nocturnes of Frederic Chopin represent the French-Polish pianist-composer at his most personal and expressive. Taking the simple genre of a “night piece” created by the Irishman John Field, he transformed these into exquisite miniature tone poems. Most of these open in tranquillity but some take on darker and more turbulent overtones. Arguably the greatest of these is the tragic C minor Nocturne (Op.48 No.1) with its rapturous chords and tumultuous octave passages. Others revel in Chopin’s love for bel canto singing, none better realised in the seamless D flat major Nocturne (Op.27 No.2). Despite his recent onstage travails, Chinese pianist Yundi (who has now dropped his surname Li) is still quintessentially a Chopinist at heart. He finds beauty in these pages and his fingers do not fail him. The two discs are priced as one.

RESPIGHI Church Windows

Brazilian Impressions

Buffalo Philharmonic / JOANN FALLETTA

Naxos 8.557711

****1/2

The Italian Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) is best known for his sumptuous orchestral canvases, typified by his Roman Trilogy. Vetrate Di Chiesa (Church Windows) of 1925 follows in this grandiose tradition, an orchestration of his Three Preludes On Gregorian Melodies (originally for piano solo). The second movement St Michael The Archangel explosively depicts the shock and awe of an almighty celestial battle between good and evil. Brazilian Impressions evocatively paint scenes of a tropical rainforest, venomous snakes at the Butatan institute (the ominous Die Irae is quoted) and a Copland-esque Song And Dance. Alongside these exotic musical picture postcards, Rossiniana – a suite of Rossini’s dances - sounds staid by comparison. Lady conductor JoAnn Falletta, who conducted the Singapore premiere of Church Windows, directs these less familiar scores as if they were great classics.

THE BEST AND WORST OF 2009 / CLASSICAL MUSIC IN SINGAPORE

An edited version of this list was published in The Sunday Times on 27 December 2009.

THE BEST OF 2009

Best young local group:

There were three performances of Rachmaninov’s hour-long Second Symphony by young local orchestras this year, but pride of place goes to that by the one-year-old Orchestra of the Music Makers led by Chan Tze Law. It soared from the word go, fuelled by an irrepressible momentum, took all kinds of risks but communicated in a manner that was utterly compelling. HSBC’s Youth Excellence Award could not have gone to a more deserving group of über-youths.

Best début:

Paganinian mane flew as his sonorous violin vibrato shone through like a laser in works by Vitali, Beethoven, Moszkowski, Trachtenberg and Ravel. Has there been a more stunning début recital than that served up by Yang Shuxiang, partnered by pianist Khor Shang Jin? This outsized talent has however lost his glorious locks, and is now serving a higher cause – National Service. His ORD could not come soon enough!

Acts of inspiration and courage:

A tie between SSO Young Associate Conductor Darrell Ang (far left) and young pianist Azariah Tan (left). Called on to replace an indisposed Yu Long, Ang had just two days to lead the SSO in an all-Tchaikovsky concert, and conducted a magnificent performance of the Fifth Symphony completely from memory. Despite his progressive deafness, Tan bested 27 other pianists to win First Prize in the Senior piano category of the National Piano & Violin Competition. His performed the first movement of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto as if his life depended on it.

Best foreign act:

Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu looked like she was thoroughly enjoying herself at the opera gala in this year’s Singapore Sun Festival. Her gig with tenor Marius Manea and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic translated into an evening of sparkling high spirits, genuine spontaneity and much vivacity. Not to mention that quite distracting extremely low cut fiery red gown…

Most underrated:

The free concerts at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music present music performed at an amazingly high level. The recent piano concerto competition finals was a showcase in point; four piano concertos on display, won by the stylish Khoo Hui Ling performing Gershwin’s jazzy Concerto in F.

THE WORST OF 2009

The worst by far:

Chinese pianist Li Yundi’s nightmare showing in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra takes the wooden spoon. It was a crude, shabby and totally unprofessional solo performance, full of exaggerations, lapses and wrong notes. This pianist used to record for Deutsche Grammophon? Little wonder they off-loaded him. Good riddance.

None too distinguished:

The concept of a multimedia piano recital – music, poetry and videography – was a laudable one, just a pity that Dutch pianist Monique Copper could not deliver the notes with any accuracy or proficiency. With a technique perilous at sea for most of the evening, her water-themed concert came close to a washout.

 
Clueless and deluded:

A young pianist (best left unnamed) in the Artist category of the National Piano & Violin Competition stumbled from Chopin to Bach, then Debussy to Scott Joplin. As the jury picked progressively easier pieces for him to play, wrong notes piled up, closing with a monstrous raspberry. Now was a good time for the floor to swallow up both piano and pianist.

Most overrated:

Still on the piano, a music school (best kept secret) presented its annual student concert promising musical enchantment and keyboard bravura, but delivered barely a whimper. A 14-year-old playing Liszt’s great Sonata in B minor sounds like an exciting prospect, except when it is the musical equivalent of Gurmit Singh playing Hamlet. Heaven forbid.

THE JURY IS IN: LI YUNDI FLOPPED

(Please click for larger resolution.)

My review of the Li Yundi-SSO debacle in The Straits Times (27 July 2009) has met with several responses: almost unequivocal on a thumbs-down for the Chinese pianist. 

Although many in the audience "enjoyed" his performance, it is gratifying to note that there are discerning people who can tell they have been short-changed and taken for a ride. Li Yundi's irresponsible outing to the "boondocks" of Singapore (would he have played the same way in London or New York?) must never happen again.

"STARRY FLOP": PIANIST LI YUNDI IS SHOCKINGLY BAD / The Straits Times

Here is the article on the Life! section of The Straits Times (27 July 2009). Please click on article to read.

Agree or disagree?

Your comments please (click below), or you can write to stlife@sph.com.sg

SSO Concert: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 with Li Yundi / Review

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1
LI YUNDI, Piano
Singapore Symphony Orchestra / LAN SHUI
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (24 July 2009)

This was the concert everybody was waiting for. With tickets sold-out many weeks in advance, piano fanciers had keenly anticipated the return of Chinese superstar pianist Li Yundi after a hiatus of seven years. He had performed a solo recital at Esplanade’s Opening Festival in 2002 and was expected to return with a big splash. The reality was quite the opposite.

But first, the audience was obligated to sit through the forty-odd minutes of Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony. This five-movement work had its heyday several decades ago, and was even recorded by the likes of Bernstein and Previn. Overlong by half, it has its moments of naïve folksy charm (think Smetana’s Bartered Bride) with the best music coming in the fourth and fifth movements. Performed with much enthusiasm and verve, the orchestra made a best possible case for it, and one would not mind listening to it again albeit in small doses.

If only the same could be said of Li Yundi’s ham-fisted assault on what is possibly the world’s most popular concerto. His performance may be summed up in two words: shockingly bad. From its outset, it seemed that his intent was to pummel out everything the score had to offer, as if to out-Lang Lang Lang Lang. Coupling a cold harsh tone brutally extracted from a brittle-sounding piano and muddled peddling, poor Tchaikovsky was left looking like some battered bride.

Li (left) certainly loves the bravado that the octave passages offered, but with neither musical thought nor sound judgment applied, these had the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Dropped or misplaced notes accumulated – so many as to keep any panhandler well fed – and the coup de grace came with a royal hash in the first movement’s cadenza.

Things did not improve in the second or third movements, with wild instincts running roughshod over the delicate prestissimo episode in the former, once famously described as a “scherzo of fireflies”. There was also a major desynchronisation between pianist and orchestra in the exciting run up to the finale’s grand coda. Wham, bam, thank you, m’am.

The ending was loud and emphatic to be sure. To add insult to injury, the frankly over-generous applause offered was rewarded with a horribly chopped-up and crudely played Schumann-Liszt Widmung (Dedication) as the sole encore. Word has it that he had a plane to catch. Destination: Nowhere?

This travesty of a performance may have been a one-off. However with so many young Chinese pianists – Wang Yuja, Chen Sa, Chen Jie, Wu Di and recently crowned Van Cliburn competition winner Zhang Haochen – emerging and not to mention the omni-present Lang Lang, Li Yundi looks in dire need of reinventing himself.