She is simply one of the most gifted musicians to come along in many years. She can play with nuance and feeling as well as passion and fire. I have seen her perform numerous times and it is always amazing. She tends to knock the crowd out when she is on her game, which she usually is. The sniping criticisms of her are actually amusing, no doubt coming from people with limited, if any, abilities.
The amount of debate about an artist's performances is a testament to their stature. If Yuja were not so incredibly good there would be little if any debate about her. This performance is just another example of her extraordinary talent.
A superb performance! Bravo! Yuja Wang is one of her generation's most talented Prokofiev interpreters. She understands Prokofiev; she gets it! She plays the closing chords perfectly: they are a variation on the four-note main theme and must sound Armageddon-like. In her hands, they do. Magnificent!
Fantastic then,2009 and after seeing her now,2022, Ms Wang is still fantastic and better. A wonderful soul sharing her virtuosity throughout the planet with music and love 👏🏼🎼🫶🏼
She is very good. Sometimes tends to the technical but is gifted with strong, large hands for a female which many female performers do not have. She has passion which helps. I like her performance. It is hard not to contrast her with Evgeny Kissin but each performer is unique and she deserves very much praise.
I got the impression from this video that her hands are enormous structures attached to very slender wrists. It reminded me of my grandmother's hands. She spent the bulk of her life hand milking cows on the family farm. I would bet that Yuja could one hand a basketball. That said, for me she is the most exciting thing on RUclips.
Such disruptive genius.. it isn't possible just to hear her playing in the background whilst one is working on something else elsewhere! She demands eyeball attention.
Yuja Wang gives always the best interpretations on Prokofiev! Amazing! Just sad that she has no recordings from the Prokofiev Sonatas and piano concertos respectively.
This is fantastic. I read someone dissing this performance on Richter's video (which is, of course, also fantastic), so I had to come check it out. I was very surprised to instead find a performance simmering with that beautiful imaginative sarcasm of Profokiev that weaves in and out of the colourful and the colourless, magnetises harmonies, cuts themes in half, stitches them together, makes silence heavy and bass comic. Brilliantly done, Ms. Wang.
I enjoy this performance! Perhaps it doesn't languish exorbitantly in or launch wildly into the moments of pure apocalyptic insanity (RICHTER!), but it's definitely more than just empty showmanship or even worse "bleeding it dry." I have a decent ticket to see her performing this sonata (as well as Liszt B Minor) at Carnegie Hall in a little more than a week... Can't wait!
No kidding: Yuja Wang is a PHENOMENAL talent and pianist!! Although a collegue from Antwerp calls her " 'n driedagsvlieg", I would listen hours a day to her playing, if music was still appealing to me. G. Dehoux, ex music addict.
There is a Lucerne Festival DVD from 2009 featuring Yuja and Claudio Abbado playing the Prokofiev concerto No.3 in C major, Op. 26 along with the Mahler Symphony No 1. A fine performance with excellent sound and video. Itcan be found on Amazon.
How many people alive can play this piece? We know Prokofiev could, he wrote it. Argerich certainly. Did Horowitz and Rubinstein record it? Don't know. As far as I'm concerned this trash talk about Yuja's abilities and maturity are just that.
I heard things in her performance of this piece that I've never heard before, especially in the lower register. She just keeps going on her merry way impressing the world.
@th3wing3dpaint3r I never said you weren't entitled to an opinion, but thanks? And you're right, why start a coparison when, clearly, there is none. Yuja rocks (Y).
@rblcoles I'm just as entitled to an opinion as anyone on this page. The comments don't all have to be "Yuja is the best". I admire her dexterity & i really like that she's not as ostentatious about it as other pianists, but her Prokofiev sounds rather bland. I did not start the comparison and don't really see any grounds for one. But i'll pitch in my opinion anyway, and you'll learn to live with it :)
@demosj Seeing as she already has a recording contract with DG and a busy concert schedule, I can't imagine why she'd end up entering any competitions.
@demosj As far as I recall, Argerich was not that much more accomplished at 23. She only won the Chopin competition when she was 24. I am a big fan of Argerich, but we must just compare apples with apples here.
I believe that paragons need a temporal range, the terms of paragon must be not properly coeval, but in an acceptable subset of elements. Many pianists are old or dead for a possible paragon, was she 20 here? Give her time to mature: a long time course.
@hawaiilaw "She's already outshone Argerich" How exactly? Let's say both are playing Prokofiev3 in adjacent halls. Are you naive enough to think people would go listen to Yuja over Argerich? :D
Great passion and technique. I still stand unconvinced though, for me this movement is all about machines, dreariness, and compaction. She only gets 1 of the 3. Perhaps it's the acoustics, but it's way too wet here, and I don't like her use of pedal (when I can tell she is holding it down). It isn't very haunting either. At first I thought it was better than young Kissin, but I went back to him and changed my mind. I like him better. IMO, they both don't hold a candle to Richter's best.
@th3wing3dpaint3r How arrogant of you to come to a video where clearly some people favor this pianist and tell them they are wrong? If any, you should be humbled to know a pianist you like was compared to Yuja! Grow up.
Как странно - великих композиторов так мало и в большинстве своем они из России. Не знаю, к сожалению, ни китайских, ни японских, ни корейских композиторов. Восток не создавал великих творцов музыки? Или я просто не просвещенная?
@ Aleksandrova, kindly, I have to disagree with U...Have U heard of Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Wagner, Chopin, Bellini, Donizetti, Massenat, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Handel etc? The Russians are great, but they've never dominate in classical music in composition. They did dominate the piano virtuoso for well over 100 years. But today, they are replaced by the Asians, who may have 5 of the 6 best piano virtuosos in the World and almost equally impressive in the violin virtuosos.
Ваш вопрос надо переформулировать.....1).Развелось столько азиатов, уродующих великую русскую (и другую) музыку, что это поистине чума 21 века. 2) Не знаю ни одного достойного азиатского исполнителя, которому нельзя было бы запретить подходить к русской музыке и близко, тем более промовировать,раскручивать и нести в мир этот музыкантский и человеческий и культурный неадекват, 3) Так мало великих пианистов, но много очень хороших, и все- и великие, и хорошие- родом из России.
Aldona Aldona You are being very ethnocentric. Russia does not own the classical World. They are important, of course. But great non-Russian composers include Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, the list goes on and on. No-Russian pianist who are great includes Hofmann, Pollini, Wild, Schnabel, Lizst, Chopin, Mozart, Brendel, Argerich, Zimmerman, Yuja, Barenboim, Uchida, Perahia, and Yundi. The list goes on and on...
+Vette gaddia I am curious if you're even a musician or just an obsessed fan. nobody is "replaced by the Asians". if you see music as some kind of sport, maybe yes. I will tell you there are also some good Asian MUSICIANS -- Di Wu, for example -- but there is an equal, if not bigger, number of talented Russian and European musicians simply because their schools pay more attention to serious music study (have you ever heard of Moscow Conservatory, for example?). it's just most of them are largely unknown to people like you because you're only interested in those overhyped "5 (...) best piano virtuosos" (let me guess: among them Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, right?). your comment is a sad proof of our current musical situation.
In my opinion, she is one of the very few pianists who CAN connect with this piece. Yuja is peerless when it comes to Prokofiev. This sonata, composed during world war 2, is intended to evoke the feelings of that time. The dissonance makes it less accessible than some of Prokofiev's other works, but Yuja does a great job of reflecting the composer's intentions.
honestly, this performance isn't good. her tone is far from perfect. plus it might be interesting to know that Prokofiev actually marked dynamics in the score, which she completely ignores (mainly because of a lack of technique -- her tone simply isn't full enough). around 4:28, for example, she plays mp instead of f. as soon as there is an easier passage, her tempo is getting faster so she can bang out the notes. then at 6:11, she slows down again because she cannot handle the left hand. she is simply not among the "great" pianists.
It isn't her best effort, but it's kind of absurd to claim she lacks the technique to play this piece, which isn't especially challenging compared to moments in other Prok sonatas, let along the astounding performances she has given of the second concerto... as well as Scarbo, the Prok Toccata, and much else. Her left hand is particularly superb, actually, if you check out her other videos and recordings.
I understand modern pianists have to find the balance between interpreting and impressing the wide public.... But this is not music, this is speed type-writing with hammer fingers. An insult to Prokofiev.
Interesting analogy. I have also listened to Sviatoslav Richter's performance from 1960 and find his sonata not necessary slower but rather more contemplative if not exquisite as Yuja Wang's sounds high-tech and almost industrial. I also believe that technology, the way performances are recorded today, is superb and doesn't offer the same experience as performances recorded in 60s or before that.
She is simply one of the most gifted musicians to come along in many years. She can play with nuance and feeling as well as passion and fire. I have seen her perform numerous times and it is always amazing. She tends to knock the crowd out when she is on her game, which she usually is. The sniping criticisms of her are actually amusing, no doubt coming from people with limited, if any, abilities.
The amount of debate about an artist's performances is a testament to their stature. If Yuja were not so incredibly good there would be little if any debate about her. This performance is just another example of her extraordinary talent.
A superb performance! Bravo! Yuja Wang is one of her generation's most talented Prokofiev interpreters. She understands Prokofiev; she gets it! She plays the closing chords perfectly: they are a variation on the four-note main theme and must sound Armageddon-like. In her hands, they do. Magnificent!
This is really beautiful. I hope she sees these comments. Thank you for a wonderful experience listening to and watching this.
Tremendous scope, versatility and genius with a soul.....bravo!!
Fantastic then,2009 and after seeing her now,2022, Ms Wang is still fantastic and better.
A wonderful soul sharing her virtuosity throughout the planet with music and love 👏🏼🎼🫶🏼
Unbelievable. It's the best touch for a prokofiev. I want to hear at the concert hall. BRAVA!!!!
Prokofiev is the most interesting and unique composer. I always love listening to his music.
I love this interpretation I have listened much more than several times. Astounding. Really. Thak you Yuja.
The spirit of prokofiev has a big smile 😀 on his face
She is very good. Sometimes tends to the technical but is gifted with strong, large hands for a female which many female performers do not have. She has passion which helps. I like her performance. It is hard not to contrast her with Evgeny Kissin but each performer is unique and she deserves very much praise.
Rare pianist who seems to play not for applauses but for 😊 fun
Omg!! This is really AWESOME!! I was so speechless from the start..
I got the impression from this video that her hands are enormous structures attached to very slender wrists. It reminded me of my grandmother's hands. She spent the bulk of her life hand milking cows on the family farm. I would bet that Yuja could one hand a basketball. That said, for me she is the most exciting thing on RUclips.
Simply extraordinary....brava Yuja!
Such disruptive genius.. it isn't possible just to hear her playing in the background whilst one is working on something else elsewhere! She demands eyeball attention.
Warmest congratulations to Yuja for this very difficult piece of piano so nicely and rightly performed
I cannot imagine this bettered! Quite wonderful!
i shall never regrets watching her performance!!!
Absolutely fascinating.Along with Richter's rendition....difficult to choose!!She really loves Prokofiev!!
Yuja Wang gives always the best interpretations on Prokofiev! Amazing! Just sad that she has no recordings from the Prokofiev Sonatas and piano concertos respectively.
This is fantastic. I read someone dissing this performance on Richter's video (which is, of course, also fantastic), so I had to come check it out. I was very surprised to instead find a performance simmering with that beautiful imaginative sarcasm of Profokiev that weaves in and out of the colourful and the colourless, magnetises harmonies, cuts themes in half, stitches them together, makes silence heavy and bass comic. Brilliantly done, Ms. Wang.
I enjoy this performance! Perhaps it doesn't languish exorbitantly in or launch wildly into the moments of pure apocalyptic insanity (RICHTER!), but it's definitely more than just empty showmanship or even worse "bleeding it dry."
I have a decent ticket to see her performing this sonata (as well as Liszt B Minor) at Carnegie Hall in a little more than a week... Can't wait!
.....wonderful.....
brava Yuja...sei grande!!
No kidding: Yuja Wang is a PHENOMENAL talent and pianist!!
Although a collegue from Antwerp calls her " 'n driedagsvlieg", I would listen hours a day to her playing, if music was still appealing to me.
G. Dehoux, ex music addict.
Mind bloowing perfomans
This is my favorite interpretation. It makes me think of the backround music in a silent film . Action filled and exiting.
There is a Lucerne Festival DVD from 2009 featuring Yuja and Claudio Abbado playing the Prokofiev concerto No.3 in C major, Op. 26 along with the Mahler Symphony No 1. A fine performance with excellent sound and video. Itcan be found on Amazon.
@demosj Since when does winning any of those competitions make you a BETTER musician? Wang remains a fenominal talent. Period.
Have you ever met another Sky God....? For Pop Corn...? Excellent piano work and play over AFRICA.
Buennisimo una genio¡¡¡¡
Virtuosa y hermosa
I guess no one really knows by now this is the pianist of the century!!!!!
my brain stopped working. overload of awesomeness...
She s very inteligent!!! It s extremly rare for a woman.....Ihhihh Great
FANTASTIC!!!! =)
Matti Raekallio also played the Prokofiev sonatas, including the 8th, and he did it wonderfully.
You are great performer
Michael the Greek modern classical music composer
I
How many people alive can play this piece? We know Prokofiev could, he wrote it. Argerich certainly. Did Horowitz and Rubinstein record it? Don't know. As far as I'm concerned this trash talk about Yuja's abilities and maturity are just that.
好強....
I heard things in her performance of this piece that I've never heard before, especially in the lower register. She just keeps going on her merry way impressing the world.
wow!!!! wowwwwwwwwww.................................
NEREUS BOND Exactly ;)
at last! a good video of this sonata
@th3wing3dpaint3r I never said you weren't entitled to an opinion, but thanks? And you're right, why start a coparison when, clearly, there is none. Yuja rocks (Y).
Mind blowing but she got so fast and heavy coherency of the work became lost.
and she is very pretty, too!
@rblcoles I'm just as entitled to an opinion as anyone on this page. The comments don't all have to be "Yuja is the best". I admire her dexterity & i really like that she's not as ostentatious about it as other pianists, but her Prokofiev sounds rather bland.
I did not start the comparison and don't really see any grounds for one. But i'll pitch in my opinion anyway, and you'll learn to live with it :)
OOPS!!!! She is my favorite.....
Fabulous!!!
2:13 goosebumps
she will be another martha argerich of her generation.
EXCELLENT!!
@The43rdOnchan It's in A minor, and it modulates a little to F Sharp Minor I think.
@demosj Seeing as she already has a recording contract with DG and a busy concert schedule, I can't imagine why she'd end up entering any competitions.
abolustley awesome
andrei gavrilov est aussi interessant à écouter! j'aime bien sa vision .c'est pêchu very good
love Her!!!
○ ○ IN GENERAL:
○ ○ She's One Of The Kind!!
Mad prokofiev!
5 stars
I can't even imagine how is the sheet of music from this piece!, must be a nightmare, or worst.
I am in Heaven
@demosj ""Argerich remains more accomplished than Wang."" - 46 years does give a little room for extra accomplishment!
@demosj As far as I recall, Argerich was not that much more accomplished at 23. She only won the Chopin competition when she was 24. I am a big fan of Argerich, but we must just compare apples with apples here.
both hands are totally equal ... how does she do this ?
Klasse!
I believe that paragons need a temporal range, the terms of paragon must be not properly coeval, but in an acceptable subset of elements. Many pianists are old or dead for a possible paragon, was she 20 here? Give her time to mature: a long time course.
Hey, was it in the "Salle Pleyel", in Paris ?? 'Cause I was there, and she was so great, especially during that piece.
@Kaimo1 Yes u r...
escucha a Sergei Yerokhin, incomparable
Who?
nice tan Yujia
@hawaiilaw "She's already outshone Argerich" How exactly? Let's say both are playing Prokofiev3 in adjacent halls. Are you naive enough to think people would go listen to Yuja over Argerich? :D
Dear Yuja , I love you , but that is too violent for you .....
I can't figure out what key she's in. Is she modulating? Because it kinda sounds like it.
Was this in Oviedo, Spain?
Escucha la versión de Sergei Yerokhin
Was this the Madrid performance in December 2009?
The new Martha
isso foi em São Paulo?
I'm too much of a Richter fanboy to appreciate this. Sorry, guys.
Euh, je viens de voir que tu étais français(e), donc pas besoin de passer en mode je-suis-trop-bilingue...!
nice playing but a pity about the poor - rather echoey - recording
@ChrisWatch wtf?
delicious...bite her ??? ..hehehhee!!!!!!!
yes she is a very attractive pianist and quite accomplished too!!
@penguinshin lol
Great passion and technique. I still stand unconvinced though, for me this movement is all about machines, dreariness, and compaction. She only gets 1 of the 3.
Perhaps it's the acoustics, but it's way too wet here, and I don't like her use of pedal (when I can tell she is holding it down). It isn't very haunting either. At first I thought it was better than young Kissin, but I went back to him and changed my mind. I like him better. IMO, they both don't hold a candle to Richter's best.
++++++++
@th3wing3dpaint3r How arrogant of you to come to a video where clearly some people favor this pianist and tell them they are wrong? If any, you should be humbled to know a pianist you like was compared to Yuja! Grow up.
1:11- 1:22 is off of the anime midori days i think
This is a typewriter. This is not culture, definitely not.
Как странно - великих композиторов так мало и в большинстве своем они из России. Не знаю, к сожалению, ни китайских, ни японских, ни корейских композиторов. Восток не создавал великих творцов музыки? Или я просто не просвещенная?
@ Aleksandrova, kindly, I have to disagree with U...Have U heard of Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Wagner, Chopin, Bellini, Donizetti, Massenat, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Handel etc? The Russians are great, but they've never dominate in classical music in composition. They did dominate the piano virtuoso for well over 100 years. But today, they are replaced by the Asians, who may have 5 of the 6 best piano virtuosos in the World and almost equally impressive in the violin virtuosos.
Ваш вопрос надо переформулировать.....1).Развелось столько азиатов, уродующих великую русскую (и другую) музыку, что это поистине чума 21 века. 2) Не знаю ни одного достойного азиатского исполнителя, которому нельзя было бы запретить подходить к русской музыке и близко, тем более промовировать,раскручивать и нести в мир этот музыкантский и человеческий и культурный неадекват, 3) Так мало великих пианистов, но много очень хороших, и все- и великие, и хорошие- родом из России.
Aldona Aldona You are being very ethnocentric. Russia does not own the classical World. They are important, of course. But great non-Russian composers include Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, the list goes on and on.
No-Russian pianist who are great includes Hofmann, Pollini, Wild, Schnabel, Lizst, Chopin, Mozart, Brendel, Argerich, Zimmerman, Yuja, Barenboim, Uchida, Perahia, and Yundi. The list goes on and on...
+Vette gaddia I am curious if you're even a musician or just an obsessed fan. nobody is "replaced by the Asians". if you see music as some kind of sport, maybe yes. I will tell you there are also some good Asian MUSICIANS -- Di Wu, for example -- but there is an equal, if not bigger, number of talented Russian and European musicians simply because their schools pay more attention to serious music study (have you ever heard of Moscow Conservatory, for example?). it's just most of them are largely unknown to people like you because you're only interested in those overhyped "5 (...) best piano virtuosos" (let me guess: among them Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, right?). your comment is a sad proof of our current musical situation.
+Vette gaddia what a strange list! Yundi and Yuja among "Liszt, Chopin, Mozart, Brendel, Argerich"? don't make me laugh, please.
What a bad recording--in audio terms, I mean. Mikes far too distant.
I thought it sounded creepy because she is not interested in connecting with the music and does it like finger exercises.
In my opinion, she is one of the very few pianists who CAN connect with this piece. Yuja is peerless when it comes to Prokofiev. This sonata, composed during world war 2, is intended to evoke the feelings of that time. The dissonance makes it less accessible than some of Prokofiev's other works, but Yuja does a great job of reflecting the composer's intentions.
@@timothybolshaw "Yuja is peerless when it comes to Prokofiev" -- ABSOLUTELY!!!
honestly, this performance isn't good. her tone is far from perfect. plus it might be interesting to know that Prokofiev actually marked dynamics in the score, which she completely ignores (mainly because of a lack of technique -- her tone simply isn't full enough). around 4:28, for example, she plays mp instead of f. as soon as there is an easier passage, her tempo is getting faster so she can bang out the notes. then at 6:11, she slows down again because she cannot handle the left hand. she is simply not among the "great" pianists.
It isn't her best effort, but it's kind of absurd to claim she lacks the technique to play this piece, which isn't especially challenging compared to moments in other Prok sonatas, let along the astounding performances she has given of the second concerto... as well as Scarbo, the Prok Toccata, and much else. Her left hand is particularly superb, actually, if you check out her other videos and recordings.
ignorance is a bitch, whoever says she lacks techniques is obviously retarded
pathetic critics!
@@fredfeinberg3995 "her left land is particularly superb, actually" -- YES! I cannot agree more!!
I understand modern pianists have to find the balance between interpreting and impressing the wide public.... But this is not music, this is speed type-writing with hammer fingers. An insult to Prokofiev.
Interesting analogy. I have also listened to Sviatoslav Richter's performance from 1960 and find his sonata not necessary slower but rather more contemplative if not exquisite as Yuja Wang's sounds high-tech and almost industrial. I also believe that technology, the way performances are recorded today, is superb and doesn't offer the same experience as performances recorded in 60s or before that.
seems that Prokofiev was criticized similarly for his playing and his music; plus the "type-writing" analogy is a bit hackneyed
supernatural power, and very very sexy