Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

greetings & kind regards

a few random thoughts :

taste is a matter of taste . always of interest what others consider pleasing and of quality . 

when a child i heard Elvis Presly on the house radio the size of a small refrigerator and decided to myself i will never choose to listen to such common music . it seems i was born a snob .

it perhaps may be of scientific / psychological / sociological interest to note traditional Japanese music in particular Kabuki is not accepted in West however the opposite is not true as Beethoven etc. are there listened to or so i assume .

re/ taste i can not not listen to Chopin Preludes . also first few Chicago albums all day long baby .

as for pianists i inquire of @audio-b-dog your thoughts on the incomparable Yuja Wang as you are obviously more knowledgeable than myself . i myself laugh out loud in astonishment at her pyrotechniques . .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVpnr8dI_50

unfortunately i have attended few live concerts . Beethoven V Chicago Symphony front row seats . Beethoven IX Des Moines Symphony . Cat Stevens balcony seats . Drake University Orchestra balcony seats unfortunately i do not recall piece other than it was Classical . i relate this to note the most enjoyable by far was the Drake University Orchestra performance so much so i stood and shouted "Bravo !" by coincidence one of the violists was a student of another grad student and upon conversation stated re/ prior evenings’ performance  "Someone in attendance shouted Bravo." . i confessed to her doing so . it seems to me youthful presentation ore imbued w/ a certain quality also in the visual arts which i are regularly organized and presented near former home in Chicago .

cheers

It is impossible not to admire and love her...

as for pianists i inquire of @audio-b-dog your thoughts on the incomparable Yuja Wang as you are obviously more knowledgeable than myself . i myself laugh out loud in astonishment at her pyrotechniques . .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVpnr8dI_50

I admire and love her for sure...

Once this is said  his virtuosity takes all the place and this maybe a problem. I like  as much if not more some other pianists which are not so technically gifted...

But my observation is not intended to be a critic of her genius, just to remark that virtuosity can put a veil sometimes on the music ...

But she is the most talented pianist i heard these last years ...

Music is not about walking fast or slow in the right tracks but about breathing...

@mahgister 

I have seen Yuja Wang live several times and I will see her again soon. I met a violinist in the L.A. Phil the first time I saw her in a short, sexy dress. The violinist said that they don't talk about what piece they're playing when she performs. They talk about what dress she's wearing.He also said that the orchestra had a lot of trouble keeping up with her.

Yuja Wang is a petite woman, but she is one of the most powerful pianists I have heard. My impression of her is that her technical brilliance has been what shines when she plays. I have a few of her CDs. One of her playing Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. I like her playing of that. She uses nuance.

For now, I like Mitsuko Uchida, Martha Argerich, and some younger pianists, Fazil Say and Igor Levitt more than Yuja Wang. Yet, I think she is young, extremely talented and as she learns to pull back on speed and power and gets more into nuance, she will be as good as the pianists I have mentioned above. 

I think you might listen to Fazil Say and Igor Levit. They are into deconstructing pieces and putting them back together in very interesting ways. I would recommend listening to Fazil Say's recordings of Mozart's piano sonatas. I compared them to Maria Joao Pires's pristine recordings and it almost had me laughing to listen to how Say has deconstructed those sonatas and plays them so differently than Pires. I also think that Igor Levit has very interesting and modern interpretations of Beethoven's piano sonatas. 

I heard a live concert of the Phil. with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting with a woman violinist whose name I've forgotten. They played Tchaikovsky's Violin Conceto, and talk about deconstructing! In the places where a violinist like Itzak Perleman would play bold sweet lines, these women played small, almost satiric passages. I came away saying that only women could forgo large sweet passages with small, internal interpretations. I love listening to the new, young performers playing these old, classic pieces. And I will go to watch Yuja Wang perform whenever I get a chance. Now that I mention it, I will stream her and hear recordings I have not heard. Hopefully later recordings.

@bernadie5317 

Apologies. The above long answer about pianists should have been to you. When I have extra time on my hands, I try to compare pianists playing the same piece. Listening to Schubert's Impromptus, especially D899, is when I realized I like Mitsuko Uchida so much. I have listened to that Impromptu by Alfred Brendel, Andras Schiff, Vladmir Horowitz, Artur Schnabel and others, and her fingers seem to possess so much more subtlety on that piece.

I do not, however, think that she is best on all pieces. She specializes in Mozart and I have heard pianists I like better than her on certain piano concertos. I think I would recommend Geza Anda as my overall favorite on Mozart's piano concertos. I think that was because he was conducting the orchestra as well as playing piano. I have a recording of Mitsuko Uchida also conducting the orchestra while she plays two Mosart piano cincertos and I liked thos a lot better than when Jeffery Tate conducts while she plays. 

@audio-b-dog

thank you kindly for recommendations . i look forward to investigating .

cheers