The Chinese pianist Yundi Li, popularly known simply as Yundi, let his hands drop dramatically from the keyboard after a powerful passage toward the end of Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F Minor.
The virtuoso-like flourish inadvertently signaled the end of the piece, prompting a burst of disruptive applause from an enthusiastic Walt Disney Concert Hall audience — even though the piece called for an otherworldly silence to follow and five delicately voiced chords leading into an even more explosive coda.
For a while, it was that kind of evening.
See more of Entertainment’s top stories on Facebook >>
But it was understandable. Yundi, 33, enjoys rock star-like fame, especially since becoming the youngest first-prize winner (he was 18) at the Chopin International Piano Competition.
During his Los Angeles recital Sunday, it was heartening to see so many of his young fans taking advantage of photo ops inside and outside the hall (and even while he was performing).
Notwithstanding his one major look-at-me lapse in the fourth Ballade, Yundi was on his best behavior in a mostly satisfying concert of Chopin’s four Ballades and 24 Preludes, among the most challenging works in the pianist’s repertoire.
He sat quietly at the piano, without feeling compelled to make moony, pseudo-Romantic looks skyward. At his best, as he was on Sunday, he let his fingers do the expressing. Maybe that’s why Yundi has been called the “anti-Lang Lang.”
The pianist gave a wisely paced — careful but always musical — account of the Ballade No. 1. Other pianists may go for a more visceral quality, but Yundi conveyed a powerful sense of struggle. A few missed notes and one smudged passage became part of the drama of this daunting piece. His fast legato octaves still gave off sparks, and if the 11 pedal notes and three unaccompanied bass chords didn’t quite send chills up the spine in the demonic final presto, this remained an admirable account.
1/28
When the Mariinsky Ballet performed “Cinderella” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Oct. 8, even the wondrous Diana Vishneva as Cinderella couldn’t bring unity to the movement, but she danced with flawless, fearless authority. Read more >>
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 2/28
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins leaves a rehearsal of his play “Appropriate,” opening Oct. 4 at the Mark Taper Forum, to eat first with a reporter, then later with his agent and some unspecified Hollywood people, who presumably hope to lure him away from the field and city where he has experienced meteoric success in the last five years. Read more >>
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 3/28
Soprano Abigail Fischer performs Oct. 7 in the opera “Songs from the Uproar” at REDCAT in Los Angeles.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 4/28
Moisés Kaufman’s muscular revival of “Bent,” which played at the Mark Taper Forum, opening on July 26, renders what many had written off as a parochial drama about the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany into a gripping tale of love, courage and identity. Read review >>
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 5/28
Malaviki Sarukkai performing at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica on July 19, 2015. Sarukkai is the best-known exponent of South Indian classical dance.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 6/28
Bramwell Tovey conducts the L.A. Phil with pianist Garrick Ohlsson in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the Hollywood Bowl on July 14, 2015.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 7/28
Argentine dancer Herman Cornejo performs in the West Coast premiere of “Tango y Yo” as part of the Latin portion of BalletNow.
(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) 8/28
Jake Shears plays Greta in Martin Sherman’s play “Bent” at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles through Aug. 23, 2015.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 9/28
Dancers rehearse a one-night-only performance choregraphed by Raiford Rogers, one of L.A.’s most-noted choreographers. This year the dance will be to a new original score by Czech composer Zbynek Mateju.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 10/28
Oscar-winning actor Ben Kingsley in Los Angeles on July 9, 2015.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 11/28
Mia Sinclair Jenness, left, Mabel Tyler and Gabby Gutierrez alternate playing the title role in the musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” at the Ahmanson Theatre. The three are shown during a day at Santa Monica Pier on June 16, 2015.
(Christina House / For The Times) 12/28
American Contemporary Ballet Company members Zsolt Banki and Cleo Magill perform a dance routine originally done by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This performance was presented as part of “Music + Dance: L.A.” on Friday, June 19, 2015.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 13/28
Miguel, a Grammy-winning guitarist, producer, singer and lyricist, is photographed in San Pedro on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. His new album “Wildheart,” explores L.A.’s “weird mix of hope and desperation.”
(Christina House / For The Times) 14/28
Los Angeles-born artist Mark Bradford is photographed in front of “The Next Hot Line.” This piece is part of his show “Scorched Earth,” installed at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, June 11, 2015.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 15/28
Paige Faure, center, plays Ella in “
Cinderella,” which opened at the Ahmanson Theater on March 18.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 16/28
The Los Angeles Opera concluded its season with “The Marriage of Figaro,” with Roberto Tagliavini as Figaro and Pretty Yende as Susanna, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 17/28
“Trinket,” a monumental installation by Newark-born, Chicago-based artist William Pope.L, features an American flag that is 16 feet tall and 45 feet long. The work is on display at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA through June 28.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 18/28
Conductor
Gustavo Dudamel’s contract with the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been extended to mid-2022.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 19/28
Alex Knox, from left, Carolyn Ratteray, Lynn Milgrim and Paige Lindsey White in “Pygmalion” in spring 2015 at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Mariah Tauger / For The Times) 20/28
On March 17, Google celebrated the addition of more than 5,000 images to its Google Street Art project with a launch party at the Container Yard in downtown Los Angeles.
(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) 21/28
Los Angeles architect Jon Jerde, who was outspoken about his opinions on the
state of public space, died on
Feb. 9. The CityWalk at Universal Studios is among his famous designs.
(Christina House / For The Times) 22/28
Diana Vishneva as Princess Aurora in
American Ballet Theatre‘s production of “
Sleeping Beauty” that premiered at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in March.
(Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times) 23/28
Los Angeles Philharmonic assistant conductor
Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla leads the orchestra in her first L.A. Phil subscription concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall on March 1 in a program of Mozart, Beethoven and Stravinsky.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 24/28
Rachele Gilmore as Alice and Christopher Lemmings as Mouse with supernumeraries in “
Alice in Wonderland.” Susanna Malkki conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in this collaboration with the L.A. Opera at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 25/28
Marcia Rodd, left, and Dick Cavett reprise their roles in “
Hellman v. McCarthy,” a play inspired by actual events on “The Dick Cavett Show,” at Theatre 40 in February. The production starred Cavett as himself and Rodd as literary celebrity Mary McCarthy.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 26/28
Irish playwright
Conor McPherson‘s latest play, “
The Night Alive,” ran at the Geffen Playhouse from Feb. 11 through March 15.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 27/28
Ric Salinas, left, Herbert Siguenza and Richard Montoya, of the three-man Latino theater group Culture Clash, brought their “Chavez Ravine: An L.A. Revival” to the Kirk Douglas Theatre to mark the group’s 30th anniversary. The play ran from Feb. 4 through March 1.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Also persuasive were his renditions of the less-demanding second and third Ballades, well phrased and pedaled.
His rendition of the fourth Ballade, however, was another story, literally. Pianist Stephen Hough once cited the narrative quality of the four Ballades, calling them “operas in miniature.” This is true of the first Ballade, and especially of the last, one of Chopin’s greatest achievements.
Though the applause before the end didn’t help, Yundi’s discursive account failed to generate and sustain necessary cohesion and power.
After intermission, Yundi’s reading of Chopin’s 24 Preludes gathered focus and energy as they unfolded. His soft-spoken Chopin still found plenty of contrast and poetry.
The pianist, at his finest conveying the introspective melancholy in the famous (and longest) Prelude No. 15 (“Raindrop”), also smartly headed off applause by diving right into the next one.
Yundi returned with a delightful encore: Ren Guang’s “Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon,” a sensitively embellished pentatonic Chinese folk melody.
