Yuya Wang review.

[ChopinBroccoli]

As a 30 year old, I feel this post is intended to provoke me into anger.

1. "the tendency to "look at me" rather than hear the music"
What do you call Karajan?? Let alone "look at me" artists like Horowitz etc. who place themselves before the composers.

2. The word "exhibitionist" now connotes a person who enjoys having, ahem, "adult relations" in front of other people. Not a person who is fashionable.

3. "pouting narcissism" uhhh what pouting?

4. Ultimately, your little rant boils down to your conviction that people should not wear what they want, and should instead wear what you want. I'm glad they ignore you.

This^

[milk]

As a 30 year old, I feel this post is intended to provoke me into anger.

1. "the tendency to "look at me" rather than hear the music"
What do you call Karajan?? Let alone "look at me" artists like Horowitz etc. who place themselves before the composers.

2. The word "exhibitionist" now connotes a person who enjoys having, ahem, "adult relations" in front of other people. Not a person who is fashionable.

3. "pouting narcissism" uhhh what pouting?

4. Ultimately, your little rant boils down to your conviction that people should not wear what they want, and should instead wear what you want. I'm glad they ignore you.

Was Gould's humming considered exhibitionist? Or something like Tourette Syndrome that he couldn't control?
Isn't there a legitimate gripe against Wang if she really denied the audience an encore? Though I think humanity is heading downhill, it's unfair to disparage a whole generation for sure.
On the other hand, it's a bit of a straw man to say the criticism is about what she wore. It seems like the substance is a question about other things.

[San Antone]

I think y'all who are critical are missing the point.  It doesn't really matter what the name of a piece is or even who composed it.  If you would just sit there and listen, Wang would have taken you on a very wonderful journey.

Getting hung up on programs and works in a certain order, even being hung up on knowing what work you are supposed to be listening to is silly IMO.

All that stuff is an obstacle to actually hearing the music.

If you were to turn off your analytical brain and just listen to the music, there is no doubt in my mind her concert would have been a wonderful experience.

[Mandryka]

I think y'all who are critical are missing the point.  It doesn't really matter what the name of a piece is or even who composed it.  If you would just sit there and listen, Wang would have taken you on a very wonderful journey.

Getting hung up on programs and works in a certain order, even being hung up on knowing what work you are supposed to be listening to is silly IMO.

All that stuff is an obstacle to actually hearing the music.

If you were to turn off your analytical brain and just listen to the music, there is no doubt in my mind her concert would have been a wonderful experience.

How you getting on with putting 250 Liszt sonata recordings in order from best to worst?

[San Antone]

How you getting on with putting 250 Liszt sonata recordings in order from best to worst?

LOL.       That project is on hiatus; I keep thinking I will get back to it whenever I notice a new recording, but can't bring myself to the task.  Who knows, maybe one day.

[Herman]

Was Gould's humming considered exhibitionist?

Yes it was

[Ratliff]

I think y'all who are critical are missing the point.  It doesn't really matter what the name of a piece is or even who composed it.  If you would just sit there and listen, Wang would have taken you on a very wonderful journey.

Getting hung up on programs and works in a certain order, even being hung up on knowing what work you are supposed to be listening to is silly IMO.

All that stuff is an obstacle to actually hearing the music.

If you were to turn off your analytical brain and just listen to the music, there is no doubt in my mind her concert would have been a wonderful experience.

Yes, but what if one piece captures you and you struggle to figure out what it was? Maybe the best approach would have been to announce the piece after it was played. Aside from that, I don't take it for granted that having expectations before hearing a piece of music is necessarily bad.

[some guy]

In my own experience, expectations have always been bad, though I don't know if they were necessarily so. Just that--for me--they were always bad.

Having said that, I have also noticed that expectations are also inevitable. Perhaps Wang's actions in this concert could have gone towards undercutting expectations, and would thus have been good, but, of course, there's always the expectation that concerts give information about composers and pieces, so any attempt to undercut one set of expectations will fail at being confronted by this expectation.

My solution, for myself, is to try to undercut my own expectations. I can rarely do that before hearing a piece for the first time, so I have to make my attempt by ignoring my expectation-ridden responses and listening to pieces I dislike again and again.

After all, life is too short to waste it listening only to pieces one has liked from the first hearing.

[San Antone]

Back when I was living in New York City I was walking down Broadway on the Upper West Side, going towards my loft on 29th and 7th.  I was debating whether I should jump on the subway or not when I noticed that I was approaching Lincoln Center.  It was about 2:00 in the afternoon and saw a poster for afternoon performance at Avery Fisher Hall about to start.

I didn't know what was programmed, and more to the point, didn't care.  I bought a ticket, anywhere, and took my seat just as the conductor was mounting the podium.  I laid my head back on the seat and listened without any knowledge of the work or composer, and enjoyed it very much.

I found out later it was The Poem of Ecstasy by Scriabin.

[milk]

I think a great performer can transcend such obstacles as the audience being confused by not knowing the order.

[Iota]

Depending on my mood at the event, I could like or dislike such a thing, but would generally support an artist being experimental. The music has after all, often come from similar beginnings.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Can someone recommend Yuja Wang recordings to the collector who has a ton of piano recordings already? Which of her recordings are must-haves?

[aukhawk]

She's a natural for Prokofiev IMHO. And I like her Ravel concertos.

[Mookalafalas]

Someone mentioned her wearing sunglasses in a concert and refusing to play an encore as a sign of ...something. As I understood it at the time, she wore sunglasses because her eyes were red and puffy from crying in rage and humiliation after an experience coming into the US and being grilled in customs about being a carrier of the corona virus. Was she so upset because she was racially profiled and generally disrespected, or because she was an offended prima donna? I can't say, but her wearing sunglasses and hurrying out was based on reasons other than pure willfulness.
   I saw her play a Chopin Concerto. She gave signs to the conductor that she was really embarrassed and confused by the audience cheering and making her come back for an encore. That seemed a bit odd to me. She's hardly a novice.   I am not a great judge, but must admit I wasn't particularly impressed by the performance, not that it was bad or anything.