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Tarfumes.com - Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No 2; Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major
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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $16.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028947765936
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: 2007-11-13
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
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Editorial Reviews:
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Young piano sensation Yundi Li collaborates with Seiji Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmoniker to present two highly innovative and provocative keyboard works from the 20th-century-- Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ravel Piano Concerto in G major. Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 is the most brilliant and virtuosic of his concertos for both the soloist and the orchestra--and one of the least recorded. The Ravel Piano Concerto, a perennial hit with its haunting and jazzy second movement, rounds out the program. In this album, Yundi Li is joined by one of the world's greatest orchestras, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and also by one of the most sought-after conductors of our time, Seiji Ozawa. With this recording, Yundi Li makes another significant step forward in his recording career. His first concerto album-- the Chopin/Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1--featured a repertory he is known to play well. With this second concerto album, Yundi Li discovers new ground with completely new, highly challenging works and in collaboration with a legendary orchestra and conductor.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Artificially Artistic
Comment:
Like His all other recordings, Li displays amazing texterity & artistic maturity too, but somehow sounds artificial & shallow. The numbers of second-hand CDs accumulating here tells the story, despite the high praise from critics.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great stuff
Comment: The only alternative to Malcolm Frager's classic and not reissued rendition of Prokofiev Nr.2. His comments show that Yundi Li has understood the qualitiy of this great and totally underrated concerto.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fools rush in....
Comment: ...to review performances of piano concertos by "young sensations"! Wow, piano aficionados are almost as passionate in praise and denunciation as film critics. Read the previous reviews of this performance if you care to understand my anxiety about venturing an opinion based on my anachronistic taste.
The three piano concertos by Serge Prokofiev are marvels of bravura. I wrote my PhD thesis in history while listening to various recordings of #1 and #3 played again and again, until the vinyl grooves began to crackle. That was a long time ago, and I didn't have a recording of #2. If I'd had this #2 energizer, I'm sure my thesis would have been published and become a best seller, and I wouldn't feel the urge to write reviews for amazon gratis.
There are people who listen to music without much emotional involvement, hearing only the musical ideas, and they are not all mere idiot savants such as described by Oliver Sacks in his book Musicophilia. That may be how I listen to this disk. I'm told that Prokofiev's music is full of dark forebodings and socio-political angst, but that's not what I hear. I hear thrilling musical athleticism and, in this case, youthful confidence in powers of chromatic orienteering. Yundi Li seems to hear Prokofiev rather similarly, with the result that his interpretation seems beautifully congruent with the music itself. Seiji Ozawa follows Li's lead intuitively, the Berliners play crisply, and that's all to the good. The Ravel concerto is full of its own laid-back charms. Reviewers seem to hear echoes of "jazz" in it, but to my pre-modern ears it sounds more founded in pre-Wagnerian "enjoyment" than in 20th C expressionism - a picnic on the musical lawn, as it were. Yundi Li, once again, plays it as I hear it.
Prokofiev's #2 is an eccentric piece, perhaps almost an "unfinished" piece in terms of the odd imbalance between the movements, the first and fourth so massive, the second almost a gymnast's whimsy, just a minute and a half long. Frankly, it's too exciting bar-by-bar for me to worry about musical unity. It's a young composer's outburst, performed vigorously by a young pianist, and I'm glad I feel young enough to be "down with it."
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Piece of Music
Comment: When i first heard the CD, i didn't really appreciate it, but after listening to the CD a few times, i find that the more i listen to it the more beautiful every note sounds. It is one of those music that has a lasting enjoyment effect on listeners.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Olympian...oops, olympic playing!
Comment: Audience beware: Yundi Li is now tackling the Russian repertoire. The monumental Prokofiev piano concerto no.2 is the new concerto chosen by the marketed romantic virtuoso. Why? Because from his own account, he always wanted to play it and it is rarely played. DG released it and concert management now flogs it.
The recent concert in Canada was dutyfully recorded by CBC radio 2, with the TSO under Yannick Nezet-Seguin: Valentine day...
From the start, Yundi Li cannot follow the score and has to "romanticize" the simple yet haunting melody that will grow into one of the biggest forces set in motion in a concerto. He therefore breaks the rythmic pulsation, unraveling the structure and the interaction with the orchestra becomes somewhat inarticulate. In order to compensate, Li accentuates and is already in fortissimo few minutes in it, trying to find in his limited palette the lost structure, but to no avail. The newly created nuddle expands up to the climax...
The return of the theme after the climax sounds like the Monty Python sketch about the song "you say patato, I say patato, patato,patato": one wonders if anything, any hint of a transformation happened to Yundi Li through Prokofiev's genial music...
Then the next two movements reveal what it's all about: gymnastics. Banging on the keyboard, the fearsome Li shows steely fingers, no heart and little brain: cut and paste as he himself explained in an interview -Mr Li listens to others and takes what he likes in their performances-.
So will the fourth movement finally redeem this mechanical display of notes, this memory exercise? Nope. The sublime theme is brushed over with an eagerness that confirms Yundi Li's complete lack of nobility, message, understanding of Prokofiev's soul and utter lack of colors. At that stage, one truly wonders who was in the jury of the Chopin Competition when he won that one! But fortunately Li can soon resume his favorite banging and finish his piano weight lifting routine: what was said? Why? What did Prokofiev meant with this piece? Who cares! Certainly not Yundi Li who will soon in recital, attack Mussorgsky's Pictures... you have been warned!
Already a documentary on this piano genius is in the can and another round of PR will reach screens in the fall. But before this the real artistic question, the big buzz is: will Yundi Li play for the Olympics?
Boxing perhaps...
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