Accepting that the recording quality is not the greatest, her performance nonetheless is the best of the Zoltan Kocsis-version transcriptions on RUclips. It's marvelous how she brings out the many different voices in the closing section (with the running filigree of notes), which you don't hear on any of the other performances -- this is phenomenally difficult to achieve (I know because I have the score and have been trying to emulate her!)
This wonderful performance shows Yuja's complete mastery of her instrument and ability to render the emotion within the music clearly and compellingly to her audience.
Only Rachmaninow had such a transparent and clear sound, but he avoided that deep emotions. Yuja playes it intelligent AND with deep emotions! The best!
how funny. Shes playing Kocsis's version in this video, yet she plays it better than Kocsis himself. at 2:30 theres supposed to have 4 voices going on: the bass, the theme melody, the counter melody of theme, and the glistening high notes. Yuja nails it. She plays those voices clearly and perfectly. However, even Kocsis is the arranger, in his recording you can only hear the 3 voices instead of 4, you cant even hear the counter melody
Sigue adelante YUJA!!! Ya eres una de las mejores pianistas de esta época. Con tu talento sabes bien que llegarás a lugares inimaginables para mí. Bravo!!! Vocalise!
@Tursunzore And comparing your post graduate pomposity and pseudo-analysis to actual valid critique is like comparing Ernest Newman to Justin Beiber! Says more of your musical 'opinion' than this fine young artists performance.Outside of the Gilels fanatic-fine as he was-who the hell cares to critique this in such a wrongheaded way? She is musical here--and grows apace! Post in future on more congenial pianistic obsessions where it is welcomed and not superfluous and crass...
this is ABSOLUTELY beautiful. i can listen to it over and over and i won't get tired of it. oh yeah Bret6464, music is not about playing the "right" notes. you should not leave comments because you don't really belong here. sorry. why not try a video like "music for amateurs"
@Tursunzore Sorry Beckmesser, pompous misrepresentation of this. Perhaps the acoustic fools you-tho' I believe it IS a pre-determined bias-most certain a patronizing pretension! 2:40 is YOUR opinion of that moment-my ears, and the ears of the vast majority of the unprejudiced here, are fine! Yuja has become a major pianist, and her art will grow apace...but your monomaniacal analysis of this old effort, while couched in 'reason', is simply mad fantasy. Clear out some of the wax..
I disagree to other comments, here. This is one of the worst things I have heard from Yuja. Generally she is quite strong technically, but poetically she usually lack a lot. let us see how she develops at this area in the future.
Not really the best of Yuja; rather woolly in conception & execution. The transcription is neither richly sophisticote, (à la Wild),nor pure & faithful, just somewhere between. She should rework the idea, or adopt one of the more distinguished versions.
@Bret6464 I WOULD be interested--when next you contact the Rachmaninoff from 'beyond the veil' out there in CA-what his feeling are on digital media--much more valuable for us than any insight you have shared from your 'channeling' of him thus far. :-)
@Tursunzore I wonder if the lesson took-or what it does to validate your 'better ears'? As Gary Graffman at Curtis once said to us--best when faced with critique, unfair or ridiculous, to adopt Hugo Wolf's phrase when asked to comment on some inferior artist or other,(I will apply a bit more to Bret6464 than you), Wolf would borrow a line from a Goethe Mignon song "Heiss mich nicht reden, heiss mich schweigen" I shall try to adopt the same toward your "superior" rejoinders..:-)
@Tursunzore You simply don't like the transcription or how she plays it--Bravo...sad that so many others do. (Plebeians!) I will give you benefit of the doubt calling Bret6464 "intelligent'-you don't know him. But rather telling, a prerequisite for THAT is opinion in line with your own "superior", musical understanding! Obvious and laughable! At least you give Yuja some credit for 'talent'! But what a bunch of wrong-headed bile on a 2006 performance-update you thinking Beckmesser...
@Tursunzore Hmmm-not sure what can be said to such prejudiced comment. When did your artistic template, Gilels, play this transcription by Kocsis? Do you know the score of it (I have it in front of me)? What we really have here is a total canard you attempt to pass as serious pianistic truth. There is NO left pedal issue-no problem at 2:40 (quite the contrary). Is that dismissal of your spurious points 'objective' enough?
@Tursunzore Nor does it make you correct or veracious. I was not talking about your obsessive left pedal at that moment either--and your judgment of her 'focusing on her right hand' is your own hearing of it and merest platitude--or monomania on how it "should" be played. But, hey, I know your kind of person. Astronomers royal who cannot see spots on their own suns....
@Tursunzore Since your 'better ears' pomposity was posted here for all to see before some intelligence countered it-it puts me in mind of another Churchill quote "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
@Tursunzore Well--a couple of slightly missed chords aside--Gilels play his particular transcription well. But it is hard to have any rational dialogue with two myrmidons of the God Rachmaninoff and his prophet Gilels! So frustrating some of us are a bit 'apostate' toward them being the be all and end all of musical worship. But light your candles and burn your incense with joy....:-))
@Tursunzore Actually, I find the Gilels fine but not perfection! I am not a 'worshiper'! Yet, as is pointed out, what relevance does HE have to this particular performance? Fanatic of Gilels 'genius' as you are-- "Just because tho' art virtuous does not mean there will be no cakes and ale!" You don't like her version here--great. But to try to fool the unwary with mythical points of 'technique' and bogus comparison sans objective truth is simply raw, subjective pomposity....
@Bret6464 :-)) What a good thing you are not a musician! Saves anyone the trouble of taking anything you write seriously--tho' they can with a good degree of puzzlement and hilarity....:-))
@Bret6464 Like or dislike Yuja--whatever this student effort does to float your musically backward boat or not--it must be difficult for your obsequious Gilels monomania to know that he was more balanced in his understanding than you will ever be? Perhaps that was part of his genius-to have the latitudinous of mind to appreciate the many paths to musical satisfaction--and NO-ONE ever achieves 'exclusive' artistic perfection... .
I see a lot of opinionated music school dropouts cruised this video. Nice to see how much yuja has improved in the intervening time. No doubt she will continue to improve and will continue to make beautiful music.
@Tursunzore I AM glad you get the Wagner allusion--Wikipedia is helpful, isn't it! And you are sure not to miss why I use it in relation to what you reveal of your 'thinking' here--Beckmesser.....:-)
@Tursunzore It would be interesting to hear what credentials you have to make such comments. As I said before and I not another leared gentleman stated several decades of experience AND by a Russian would be afair comparison ? Frankly in the up and comming younger pianists I think this girl is better than Valentina Lisista, she is certainly more musical. Watch he playing Mendelson 3rd movement of concerto, true virtuos but she is smiling and singing away enjoying it, remarkable
@Tursunzore Wow--how could he have recorded such pieces after having heard your definitive playing of them!? Then again-perhaps that's the point--he heard you show how they 'could' be played-helping him define how they 'should' be played??
@Tursunzore It would be good if you could advise us of your credentials. Well the fact is the person who often frequents the conserv and made the comments is Vladimir Ashkanazy but doubtless you have not heard of him or will have some skillfull words of his negatives in music :)
@bourbonchrist I could not have put it better, she is truly remarkable and another 2 decades of playing would be interesting to compare her to gilels then. My teacher at the conserv stated she had a wonderful young interpretation of many pieces and technically perfect. There has always got to be some arse wanting to knock down the tall poppies to boost their own miserable inconsequential personality !
@bachpiano1 So, you are pianist, i think. Please post your interpretation of this piece to know what do you mean, because im not understand why you said that... Regards.
@bloodgrss WOW, I wish I had thought of that analogy lol. The best I could come up with is Einstein with Julius Sumner Miller lol. What morons there are to criticise what is obviously a remarkable talent, a view shared by some of the worlds most famous critics, I dont think this gooses opinion is worth diddly squat !
@Tursunzore I did not say he held a teaching post, he is musical director of the Sydney Opera House which is a stones throw from the conservatorium. What lesson did he teach you, ? How to play the fool:)
People talking about versions from Ashkenazy and Kocsis, neither of which is good. Gilels is BOSS on this, the transcription of Rachmaninov's Vocalise (which he did not write for piano)
@Tursunzore I did not say that, you can interpre all you like. I raised yuja with my professor and Vladimir was present and they both agreed she was extrordinarily talented and not the machine you refer to in your typical uncomplimentary manner.
@Kris9kris: Thanks for pointing out the Ashkenazy and Kocsis performances. I agree with you -- the Ashkenazy rendition "plods" along, with little lyricism. Listening to him and Yuja, I realize they both added some notes to the closing section (with the running filigree of notes) to create voices that Rachmaninoff had in his original but which Kocsis omitted in his transcription.
My daughter was in band. One year, the band director died in a car crash. I found my daughter sitting in her room crying & listening to this piece. She told me "This is the saddest song in the world." I think she is right, and Yuja plays it with such sensitivity.
![Yuja Wang: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NsqXCO0ADwM/mqdefault.jpg)
![Yuja Wang: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 [HD]](/img/tr.png)
Accepting that the recording quality is not the greatest, her performance nonetheless is the best of the Zoltan Kocsis-version transcriptions on RUclips. It's marvelous how she brings out the many different voices in the closing section (with the running filigree of notes), which you don't hear on any of the other performances -- this is phenomenally difficult to achieve (I know because I have the score and have been trying to emulate her!)
This wonderful performance shows Yuja's complete mastery of her instrument and ability to render the emotion within the music clearly and compellingly to her audience.
Gorgeous playing - wonderful interpretation - deeply emotional - beautifully rendered. Thank you for posting.
Only Rachmaninow had such a transparent and clear sound, but he avoided that deep emotions. Yuja playes it intelligent AND with deep emotions! The best!
how funny. Shes playing Kocsis's version in this video, yet she plays it better than Kocsis himself. at 2:30 theres supposed to have 4 voices going on: the bass, the theme melody, the counter melody of theme, and the glistening high notes. Yuja nails it. She plays those voices clearly and perfectly. However, even Kocsis is the arranger, in his recording you can only hear the 3 voices instead of 4, you cant even hear the counter melody
I realize it's quite randomly asking but does anyone know a good site to stream new movies online?
@Antonio Judson try Flixzone. You can find it on google :)
@Pierce Jonah Yea, I have been using InstaFlixxer for months myself :)
Yuja is my idol
Sigue adelante YUJA!!! Ya eres una de las mejores pianistas de esta época. Con tu talento sabes bien que llegarás a lugares inimaginables para mí. Bravo!!! Vocalise!
@Tursunzore And comparing your post graduate pomposity and pseudo-analysis to actual valid critique is like comparing Ernest Newman to Justin Beiber! Says more of your musical 'opinion' than this fine young artists performance.Outside of the Gilels fanatic-fine as he was-who the hell cares to critique this in such a wrongheaded way? She is musical here--and grows apace! Post in future on more congenial pianistic obsessions where it is welcomed and not superfluous and crass...
this is ABSOLUTELY beautiful. i can listen to it over and over and i won't get tired of it. oh yeah Bret6464, music is not about playing the "right" notes. you should not leave comments because you don't really belong here. sorry. why not try a video like "music for amateurs"
i hope her talent is not destroyed by stupid marketing people that only want to make fast cash
omg..its so beautifull!!:))
@Tursunzore Sorry Beckmesser, pompous misrepresentation of this. Perhaps the acoustic fools you-tho' I believe it IS a pre-determined bias-most certain a patronizing pretension! 2:40 is YOUR opinion of that moment-my ears, and the ears of the vast majority of the unprejudiced here, are fine! Yuja has become a major pianist, and her art will grow apace...but your monomaniacal analysis of this old effort, while couched in 'reason', is simply mad fantasy. Clear out some of the wax..
Beauty...as always, dear Yuja!
I disagree to other comments, here. This is one of the worst things I have heard from Yuja. Generally she is quite strong technically, but poetically she usually lack a lot. let us see how she develops at this area in the future.
Not really the best of Yuja; rather woolly in conception & execution. The transcription is neither richly sophisticote, (à la Wild),nor pure & faithful, just somewhere between. She should rework the idea, or adopt one of the more distinguished versions.
brilliance and beauty, I bow before you in admiration, but I stand up straight in inspiration :)
Very beautiful. I feel so touched. I hear a sensitive heart crying silently inside.
@Bret6464 I WOULD be interested--when next you contact the Rachmaninoff from 'beyond the veil' out there in CA-what his feeling are on digital media--much more valuable for us than any insight you have shared from your 'channeling' of him thus far. :-)
But Kocsis keeps all the repeats :-)
so poetic!
@Tursunzore I wonder if the lesson took-or what it does to validate your 'better ears'? As Gary Graffman at Curtis once said to us--best when faced with critique, unfair or ridiculous, to adopt Hugo Wolf's phrase when asked to comment on some inferior artist or other,(I will apply a bit more to Bret6464 than you), Wolf would borrow a line from a Goethe Mignon song "Heiss mich nicht reden, heiss mich schweigen" I shall try to adopt the same toward your "superior" rejoinders..:-)
@Tursunzore You simply don't like the transcription or how she plays it--Bravo...sad that so many others do. (Plebeians!) I will give you benefit of the doubt calling Bret6464 "intelligent'-you don't know him. But rather telling, a prerequisite for THAT is opinion in line with your own "superior", musical understanding! Obvious and laughable! At least you give Yuja some credit for 'talent'! But what a bunch of wrong-headed bile on a 2006 performance-update you thinking Beckmesser...
@Tursunzore Hmmm-not sure what can be said to such prejudiced comment. When did your artistic template, Gilels, play this transcription by Kocsis? Do you know the score of it (I have it in front of me)? What we really have here is a total canard you attempt to pass as serious pianistic truth. There is NO left pedal issue-no problem at 2:40 (quite the contrary). Is that dismissal of your spurious points 'objective' enough?
@Tursunzore Nor does it make you correct or veracious. I was not talking about your obsessive left pedal at that moment either--and your judgment of her 'focusing on her right hand' is your own hearing of it and merest platitude--or monomania on how it "should" be played. But, hey, I know your kind of person. Astronomers royal who cannot see spots on their own suns....
@Tursunzore Since your 'better ears' pomposity was posted here for all to see before some intelligence countered it-it puts me in mind of another Churchill quote "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
@Tursunzore Well--a couple of slightly missed chords aside--Gilels play his particular transcription well. But it is hard to have any rational dialogue with two myrmidons of the God Rachmaninoff and his prophet Gilels! So frustrating some of us are a bit 'apostate' toward them being the be all and end all of musical worship. But light your candles and burn your incense with joy....:-))
@Tursunzore Actually, I find the Gilels fine but not perfection! I am not a 'worshiper'! Yet, as is pointed out, what relevance does HE have to this particular performance? Fanatic of Gilels 'genius' as you are-- "Just because tho' art virtuous does not mean there will be no cakes and ale!" You don't like her version here--great. But to try to fool the unwary with mythical points of 'technique' and bogus comparison sans objective truth is simply raw, subjective pomposity....
@Bret6464 :-)) What a good thing you are not a musician! Saves anyone the trouble of taking anything you write seriously--tho' they can with a good degree of puzzlement and hilarity....:-))
@Bret6464 Like or dislike Yuja--whatever this student effort does to float your musically backward boat or not--it must be difficult for your obsequious Gilels monomania to know that he was more balanced in his understanding than you will ever be? Perhaps that was part of his genius-to have the latitudinous of mind to appreciate the many paths to musical satisfaction--and NO-ONE ever achieves 'exclusive' artistic perfection...
.
@Tursunzore Gilels? Yeah I guess a couple of decades of playing wouldn't have anything to do with anything. And you play with which symphony?
I see a lot of opinionated music school dropouts cruised this video. Nice to see how much yuja has improved in the intervening time. No doubt she will continue to improve and will continue to make beautiful music.
@Tursunzore I AM glad you get the Wagner allusion--Wikipedia is helpful, isn't it! And you are sure not to miss why I use it in relation to what you reveal of your 'thinking' here--Beckmesser.....:-)
@Tursunzore It would be interesting to hear what credentials you have to make such comments. As I said before and I not another leared gentleman stated several decades of experience AND by a Russian would be afair comparison ? Frankly in the up and comming younger pianists I think this girl is better than Valentina Lisista, she is certainly more musical. Watch he playing Mendelson 3rd movement of concerto, true virtuos but she is smiling and singing away enjoying it, remarkable
@Kris9kris Yeah I bet she skillfully uses them.
@Tursunzore Wow--how could he have recorded such pieces after having heard your definitive playing of them!? Then again-perhaps that's the point--he heard you show how they 'could' be played-helping him define how they 'should' be played??
@Tursunzore It would be good if you could advise us of your credentials. Well the fact is the person who often frequents the conserv and made the comments is Vladimir Ashkanazy but doubtless you have not heard of him or will have some skillfull words of his negatives in music :)
@bourbonchrist I could not have put it better, she is truly remarkable and another 2 decades of playing would be interesting to compare her to gilels then. My teacher at the conserv stated she had a wonderful young interpretation of many pieces and technically perfect. There has always got to be some arse wanting to knock down the tall poppies to boost their own miserable inconsequential personality !
@bachpiano1 So, you are pianist, i think. Please post your interpretation of this piece to know what do you mean, because im not understand why you said that... Regards.
@bloodgrss WOW, I wish I had thought of that analogy lol. The best I could come up with is Einstein with Julius Sumner Miller lol. What morons there are to criticise what is obviously a remarkable talent, a view shared by some of the worlds most famous critics, I dont think this gooses opinion is worth diddly squat !
@Tursunzore I did not say he held a teaching post, he is musical director of the Sydney Opera House which is a stones throw from the conservatorium. What lesson did he teach you, ? How to play the fool:)
People talking about versions from Ashkenazy and Kocsis, neither of which is good. Gilels is BOSS on this, the transcription of Rachmaninov's Vocalise (which he did not write for piano)
@Tursunzore I did not say that, you can interpre all you like. I raised yuja with my professor and Vladimir was present and they both agreed she was extrordinarily talented and not the machine you refer to in your typical uncomplimentary manner.
@Kris9kris: Thanks for pointing out the Ashkenazy and Kocsis performances. I agree with you -- the Ashkenazy rendition "plods" along, with little lyricism. Listening to him and Yuja, I realize they both added some notes to the closing section (with the running filigree of notes) to create voices that Rachmaninoff had in his original but which Kocsis omitted in his transcription.
My daughter was in band. One year, the band director died in a car crash. I found my daughter sitting in her room crying & listening to this piece. She told me "This is the saddest song in the world." I think she is right, and Yuja plays it with such sensitivity.
she's NOT quite there yet, she's got a long way to go. but she COULD be there, if not spoiled or interfered by all the unnecessary attention.
Does anyone know, who transcribed this piece to a piano-only version?
Doesn't any body have the sheets to exactly this piece?!
That's Koksis' vocalise transcription. Gilels plays Richardson's transcription. And they are quite different.
please someone can send me the Sheet music to piano of this ?? :((((( !!!
I don't have any problem with thie Yuja Wang's performance. Good enough! Ok?
Meravigliosa musica...suonata dalla meravigliosa Yuja Wang...pianista "excellent"
how old was Gilels then? incorrect comparison
where is the 1st Ballade ? )))))):
looks like Curtis Institute of music
@hymnofashes Okay, response the right one.
Gilels??? that's what that is
which college did she study piano?
I think you are being far to kind my friend
...brava Yuja ....excellent....
Richardson's transcription
@Tursunzore TOTAL RUBBISH
Gilels.
Yuja Wang... One MusicWoMan!
@principessadolce22 curtis
@NOSEhow2LIV agreed.
Your English?
BRAVA!
Gilels plays this piece with his blood from the heart. at the sames time he fights for the sound
Bellisimo!
sehr schön
KOCSIS Zoltán.
bad tuned piano for her
Bad. Wrong tempo, voice doesn't emerge at all.
ما هذا الشعور المرهف لعازفه فنانه تعيش كل نغمه تلمسها اصابعها الذهبيه المليئه بالاحساس .
Not good
Superficial, annoying mannerism. Typical Yuja Wang treatment of a treasure .
It seems you are in a minority of one. As the saying goes "there's one in every crowd"