Saturday, January 30, 2010
Yes I'm fully aware that I haven't updated this dead blog for ages. Nothing really worth blogging about these few days, except that irresponsible toddler of a piano teacher has taken flight and Peiwei and I are left stranded without a piano teacher. Some stupid hypocrite he is -.- how dare he condemn Li Yundi for 'playing like shit' and 'not having any good areas. At all.' while he can't even meet the basics of being a piano teacher, which is to manage his students' pianistic education with duty and responsibility? Fine he has financial problems but he should at least tell us when he's going off and where to - even if he doesn't want to teach us anymore. Or rather, tell us if he doesn't want to teach us anymore before disappearing off to God knows where.
Anyway this is a rather old topic. The main topic is as stated above -.-
Peiwei and I went to watch Dang Thai Son's concert today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEE. For those of you who don't know (which is sadly a majority), Dang Thai Son is a first-prize winner of the International Chopin Competition held in Warsaw - one of the most prestigious competitions in the world (of all time). It's like - OH MY GOSH MANNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHAHAHAHAHA. WE GOT HIS TICKETS HEH!
Started with Singapore Symphony Orchestra playing Schumann's Manfred Overture. Quite a refreshing rendition. However there was some disparity among the volumes of the instruments and insufficient balance between the tones. I have frankly never been able to tell much between the interpretations of different conductors and orchestras and if they are good or not. But this much I know. ANYWAY. The ugly problem reared its head around here. For some reason, there seems to be a LOT of people whose throats simply have to express opinions and kept coughing. CONSPICUOUSLY.
The worst was when Dang Thai Son played. No I mean that Dang Thai Son played wonderfully. He played Chopin's Piano Concerto no. 1 in E Minor op. 11. It was a very personal interpretation and it is very much intriguing to see how interpretations can vary from individual to individual. Actually I've only heard Li Yundi's interpretation properly - Lang Lang simply puts me off somehow. It's like, he's using his facial expressions to pull up his music instead of allowing music to be the factor behind his expressions. It's like a totally wrong reversal of roles. His facial expressions make me... want to slap him. -.- Sorry no other words can express what I want to say. Except wringing his neck, probably. I have a certain fondness for wringing people's necks. Li Yundi's one was more beautiful, with intricate expression and meticulously-crafted tone - with
some of the heroism of Beethoven and the idealistic fantastical personality of Mozart. Sounds too Classical O.o but no other composers can truly represent such extremes (Prokofiev is too extreme), except Chopin himself of course. Oh ya my sister bought 4 pieces of clothing at Takashimaya today for CNY. Anyway,
Dang Thai Son's interpretation was more passionate and majestic. And more traditional, if I may add. He didn't dare to take much rubato, perhaps in order to adhere to Chopin's direction of "Allegro Maestoso" for the first movement (meaning "fast and majestic"). This was apparent straight away from the beginning from the cadenza-like solo piano passage. After playing the first E-minor-tonality arpeggios, he didn't pause much to allow the audience time to react to the passage before proceeding to the descending passage. And after the descending passage again, he didn't pause much before going on to the A-minor-tonality arpeggios. I think that if he paused more it would be more impactful and adhere more to the performance direction of "allegro maestoso". Anyway, in the more lyrical moments of the first movement, Dang Thai Son proceeded to execute them with considerable passion and heroism, a notable contrast from Li Yundi's execution of delicacy and refinement. By the way, I have a feeling that Dang Thai Son didn't really put his heart into today's concert. He played some very lame wrong notes which even I could have played correctly -.- and when the orchestra was playing, he appeared rather distracted at parts. Still better than Wang Laoshi, definitely. That guy was obviously totally sian-ed to the max when the orchestra was playing long tutti sections -.- Dang Thai Son's playing seemed slightly mechanical at parts (not that I could have played it better of course), perhaps due to his strict abiding of tempo. I always feel that the pianists who play this concerto don't use rubato at parts where they should (personal opinion of course - I like to use rubato a lot. To make myself seem less hypocritical, wang laoshi said I have a gift in performing rubato). The chair I'm sitting on seems like it has only three legs out of the four -.- Somehow I feel that Dang Thai Son's playing didn't touch me as deeply as Li Yundi's does - probably because he played more manly-ly. Hahaha. I feel that the more 'man' you are, the easier you are to predict. Seriously men are such simple creatures. Anyway Dang Thai Son's first movement didn't impress me particularly much. I mean, it was nice, definitely. But it could have been more personal. But on the other hand, he probably isn't a very personal person so to make the music personal to him it has to be not personal. No sense. Never mind.
His second movement gave me some mixed feelings about him. He is able to produce a tone equal to Li Yundi's if he wants to, but why doesn't he do it all the time? The second movement was passionate and beautiful at the same time. But somehow I feel that his passion is a bit... forced. Not very genuine. Perhaps because I've been rather tired today, so I find it a little harder to put myself into the music with my heart and soul totally. However, the part where the piano does a solo (beguiling notes in the high registers flitting capriciously here and there) was served with elegance, poise and heavenly innocence. And probably because we're a little far from the stage, SSO overpowered Dang Thai Son at times and the flute was drowned out and it sounded almost like it was drowning - when it managed to penetrate through the orchestra there was a strange gurgling quality to it (some curious vibrato and nasal tone) and sounded like a drowning person clamouring for help, compared to the sweet refined tone I'm used to. But it was pulled off relatively well on the whole. Somehow SSO didn't complement Dang Thai Son very well.
Third movement was along the same line so I shan't talk much about it.
