Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Valentina Lisitsa at Royal Albert Hall

Don't.

I liked her Totentanz the most. It was crazy fast, but it's kind of okay to lose it with that piece.

Arghhh! I missed it! Probably a good chance that some or all of the performances will be up on YouTube, knowing her.

Anyone know the full program?

Woah! Thanks!

Thanks for the link! It's about 12% of the way to being on my ipod.

Anyone else hear the dude's camera in the front row? Kinda irritating :\

No I don't, I want to have a life next to piano. Just being out there in front of so many and performing all these pieces on this level is something I could never do nor want to do.
But nobody is beyond critique. I think she rushed too much and that particularly affected the Rachmaninoff pieces.
Besides that, impressive performance and big respect for her.
I guess you're one of those blind fanboys from youtube who don't allow any critique. If you read all my posts in this thread you'll see I'm actually quite positive.

The worst kind of fan is one who is blind to the artist's faults.

I really enjoyed the concert. May write more about it later when I'm home and not on my phone.

You can skip the first 20 minutes or so. Lengthy banter and some kind of light comedy act. "If your phone rings, please email me your name and phone number so you can get credit on the CD". FOud it pretty annoying and lost my patience. will have to check it out later.

Wow people are still talking about her? Yawn.

That's a bit mean spirited. I thought her pre concert talk was delightful.

I bet there was a huge difference being there and watching on YouTube as far as that goes though ...

I stopped after a few minutes, it was so distracting.

Edit: In response to "Anyone else hear the dude's camera in the front row? Kinda irritating :\"

Luckily it stops about halfway through the first piece.

Wow, and people are still talking about Jimmy Page on your thread?

I think she's so humble and charming. I enjoyed the talk.

I loved the Chopin Eb Nocturne, a piece I've certainly heard enough of. I enjoyed the bits of originality in there (now let's hear from those who hated it.)

-Daniel

If you read the program notes (here), she mentions that she bought a new Urtext edition and found two versions, one with the ornamentations that she used. I've never heard of any such edition, I wonder if someone can clarify.

What she plays is close, but not exactly identical, to the "Version with later authentic variants" that appears in the Polish National Edition edited by Jan Ekier. That may be the edition she's referring to.

Speaking of the nocturnes, I found it interesting that in the program notes Lisitsa passionately advocates taking 27/2 at the indicated 50 dotted quarters per minute, and yet in the recital played it at a much more conventional 30 to 32. She claims in the notes that it makes "perfect sense" at 50, but I just tried it myself and found that hard to imagine, except possibly through the use of so much rubato as to make a tempo the exception rather than the rule. In particular, the (in)famous measure 52, with its 48 consecutive notes, would require 20 notes per second if rendered at full speed!

Are there speakers connected to the piano? How do the audiences at the back even hear the piano properly in such a big hall?

I've never known classical music to be amplified in the RAH: its very reverberant acoustic can project even a solo piano's ppp to the back of the hall, as long as the audience is silent.

When Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, Andras Schiff and Maria Joao Pires played there in the past (in the BBC Proms), they weren't amplified.