Mozart: The Sonata Project — Salzburg (Warner)
★★★★★
Unlike elements in Beijing who had him arrested on phony morals charges, I have never wavered in my belief that Yundi Li is the most interesting and original pianist to emerge from China.
Winner of the 2000 Chopin Competition in Warsaw when he was just 18, Yundi went through a mono-obsessive phase when he played nothing but Beethoven, mostly to excitable teenaged audiences. He moved on to a blue period of Liszt, then back to Chopin and on to Prokofiev.
Now, in his comeback tours he performs only Mozart, a composer usually associated with lightness and wit. In Yundi’s hands, style and substance are challenged. Yundi plays three sonatas fast and free, scarcely tempting the ear with Turkish imitations and gentle andantes. The manner is near Haydn, or even Clementi, presenting Mozart as one of many recitalists ringing around Vienna in the late 18th century. Solo Mozart on the keyboard was no standout act.
Until you come to the 4th Fantasia, K475, where Yundi plays Mozart as Beethoven might have heard of him — thoughtful, heavy-handed, attempting sounds that were frustratingly unobtainable on keyboards of his time. Yundi transports Mozart from the rigid bars of a printed score into imaginary realms of Beethoven’s Moonlight and beyond — to the very gateway of the Hammerklavier.
In twelve and a half minutes, Yundi gives Mozart a total makeover. This is the most refreshing and innovative Mozart pianism I have heard in years.
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