Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner I heard yundi li practicing tonight

Around 11PM tonight, I walked down the hall and heard him practicing his program in my teacher's studio for his concert here tomorrow. He was doing slow practice on his Mozart sonata k. 330.

Are you going to his concert? He's a blessed performer.

Where is "here"?

I guess this is just a lesson for all of us - not only does Yundi Li do slow practice, he also does it the day before a performance. This demonstrates the real importance of this practice method.

I assume that CCM Stephen goes to CCM

Oh... hehe. Never heard of it.

I just checked their website.

For some reason, I always associate "CCM Stephen" with "Stephen Kovacevich"...

Yep.

Well I hope to go to the concert--I'm having trouble buying tickets due to a rather bizzare policy: you can only buy tickets on ebay with a paypal account, but there is something wrong with my paypal, so I'm planning to show up at the door and see if they will sell me a ticket that way.

He's playing here Friday night (22nd), let me know how it is.

I got my ticket for free.

I just saw him here in Seattle on Wednesday night. I really was not that impressed overall. I thought he really lacked a unique voice...it wasn't a personal performance it was an auto pilot performance. That being said I thought his Liszt sonata was the best piece of the night simply because

a) he really did a nice job of keeping the structure of the piece stable. It is really easy to make that piece sound like one giant thematic ramble rather then an ever evolving thematic story. It felt complete at the end.

B) He has killer octaves...my god they are fast.

in my opinion the last 2 minutes of the program were the most musical. the way he closed the sonata was the most vulnerable and personal statement of the entire night...at least it was the last 2 minutes they are probably the most important.

wow...well i almost never slow practice even though my teacher so strongly reccomends it...i think its time i start...

Isn't Yundi a frequent poster here?

Is he? He certainly a frequent topic around here!

What sort of bizarre policy requires that you purchase tickets only on eBay? Who has set this policy?

This means that someone who doesn't have a computer and/or a Paypal account cannot get to hear one of the current "hot" stars in the piano firmament in his Cincinnati recital. Unless this is a private recital this sounds very discriminatory to me.

Regards,

Concurred...

Yundis octaves are very fast, gotta be about 12 a second (in the La Campanella video..)

Well, I am going to the concert. I finally got in touch with someone in charge of the concert, and they will let me pay for my tickets at the door.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

I heard Li play here in San Diego last Friday night. He's probably doing the same program in Cincy - Mozart, Schumann Carnaval, and the Liszt Sonata. Frankly, the Mozart was the weakest part of his program. Certainly not bad, but rather pedestrian. The Schumann was excellent, but the Liszt was great! One of the best performances I've ever heard, either live or recorded.

Well Stephen do you mind giving us more of a description of what you heard when you heard him practicing, we are all curious to hear even the slightest nuances I'm sure.

yes, such as, how slow was slow?

This is the exact description I would use for today's performance. Best Liszt Sonata I've ever heard. His performance of the Schumann was probably the best performance I've heard of that piece as well, but did not compare to his Liszt rendition. I was most impressed by his control of tone and pedaling, as well as his tremendous facility. I was actually expecting him to be just another young pianist with great fingers, but was blown away.

As to his practicing, I didn't listen for too long due to the potential awkwardness that would result if he walked out of the room unexpectedly.

He was isolating short passages in the outer mvts of Mozart. Interestingly, he didn't sound that much different from any other student's practicing--heavy into-the-keys practice that was slightly under tempo. I can understand why he would need to secure the notes in his fingers since he has to just run that program in performance over and over night after night.

There was someone else in the room with him (I heard two voices speaking in Chinese, and one was female). It seemed like she was coaching him--he would play something, then I'd hear the female voice speak, and he'd play some more, etc.