At De Anza College’s Flint Center last night, 2000 fans came to hear Yundi Li play the piano. Li is an icon among Chinese fans of piano music, and understandably so, for he was the ultra talented winner of the 2000 Warsaw Chopin Competition. The qualities that won the hearts of the audience (and the judges) were obvious — a technique equal to anyone’s, a joyful exuberance in his piano playing, and a genuine gift for Chopin. His winning performance of the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E Minor had all the best qualities of youth: it was powerful, it was joyful, it was young and it was fresh.
Subsequently released CDs confirmed his prodigious talent, and his playing has continued to excite and inspire legions of young piano students. Was this the Yundi Li we heard last night?
Unfortunately, it was not. What we heard was an arrogant, self-indulgent Yundi Li, whose greatest sin was that he seemed not to respect the music he was playing. We heard exaggerated gestures (the musical kind, not the Lang Lang physical ones), exaggerated dynamics, rushing in phrases, spiky accents not called for in the, and little of the refined beauty and emotion heard in his best recordings.
Advance publicity and the evening’s printed program led members of the audience to expect to hear the following works:
- Mozart - Sonata in B-flat Major, K.570
- Liszt – Ballade in B Minor
- Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35
- Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
Of course, we also expected to hear some encores at the end of the concert. Well, we were in for some surprises. 2000 people staring at the printed program observed Li walk out on stage and begin his program by playing some encores at the beginning of the concert. His first piece was Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 1. Obviously most of the audience would have recognized this instantly, and most might also have recognized some of the subsequently performed Chopin Mazurkas in G Minor, D Major, C Major and B Minor. How were the individual pieces in this Chopin group? All of the performances had some good moments, but most of them were also marred by self-indulgent over playing, mannered phrasing and carelessness about important details in the music.
Next followed a rough and unrefined performance of the Schumann/Liszt Widmung, a work he plays very well on CDs. After this, all of a sudden we ended up in uncharted waters, as Yundi Li launched into a group of pieces by Chinese composers (some of them sounding like “New Age” drivel). One of them, we learned from a knowledgeable audience member, pianist and teacher Gwendolyn Mok, had something to do with a “Butterfly,” but even she couldn’t identify the remaining pieces. Looking around I noticed people desperately thumbing through the printed program trying to figure out what they were hearing. So, to Yundi Li’s sin of disrespecting the music he was performing, we have to add to that the sin of disrespecting his audience.
At the end of the group of Chinese pieces, we had no idea what to expect next, but were surprised that he chose to play Chopin’s Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brilliant, Op. 22, one of his signature pieces well known from his recordings. This turned out to be his best playing so far in the program, perhaps not as clean and refined as on his CD, but nonetheless a very good performance that earned him a rousing standing ovation.
Something has to be said about the piano, a Hamburg Steinway D, rented from Sherman Clay and prepared for the event by piano technician Peter Acronico. Fifteen minutes into the recital, we could hear the unisons going out of tune, and more so during the remainder of the first half of the program. During intermission Mr. Acronico came on stage and did a brief twenty-minute brush up of the unisons. We subsequently learned that the instrument was not a “Concert & Artist” piano reserved exclusively for concert rental and always kept in top playing condition, but rather an instrument for sale at Sherman Clay’s retail store in Santa Clara. The question we have to ask ourselves is how can it happen that an artist as prominent as Yundi Li wasn’t provided a better and more stable, concert instrument for his recital?
After the lights dimmed for the beginning of the second half of the recital, we weren’t sure what we would be hearing. Well, the saints be praised, he actually ended up playing one of his scheduled works, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” It was a large scaled performance, full of sound and fury, and representing some of his best playing of the evening, although it was still not Yundi Li at his best. He seemed reluctant to give the audience an encore, and had to be coaxed out after several bows, at which point, he sat down and played a dazzling Chinese piece, that no one could identify.
It has been said that as soon as a pianist sits down to play a recital, you can usually tell in the first 30 seconds whether his attitude is, “I am a piano virtuoso and am going to amaze you with my dazzling skills” or “I love these pieces and want to share them with you.” Well, Yundi Li has not progressed to that exalted second stage quite yet.
Rumor has it that Yundi Li commands a fee of $75,000 for a solo recital such as we heard last night. You can do the numbers yourself, for it appeared that about 2000 tickets (capacity 2300 seats) were sold at an average price of $60 each. Dimension, the organization that presented Mr Li, did not lose money on this concert. If anyone was short changed, it was those members of the audience who had expected more solid music making, rather than “show biz glitz.” Perhaps they are in the minority, for most of the audience departed in a happy buzzing state. Were they happy because they were truly moved by the music, or were they happy that they had heard the great Yundi Li “live?”
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