I have been listening to Yundi Li's (or Li3Yun2Di2 for Chinese people) Liszt CD for a while now. Included in this all-Liszt recital is the Sonata in b minor, La Campanella, Liszt's Transcription of Schumann's Liebslied: Widmung, the oh-so-cheesy Liebstraum No. 3, Tarantella, and a transcription from Rigoletto.

Li's rendition of the b minor is without a doubt one of the best I've ever heard, and could rapidly become my personal favorite. The emotional depth of the b minor is balanced out quite evenly by the other show pieces such as La Campanella. Besides the technical achievements of such a program (no small task), Li also excels at elegance. This elegance is perhaps most evident ,ironically, in La Campanella. There is real thinking here. I have never heard La Campanella played so convincingly in both an academic sense and a visceral sense. Structurally, all the B sections transform, one after another, from elegant, to assertive, to a torrent of explosive sound, giving the piece a kind of coherence which I've never heard. Li's dynamic and expressive range, while we're at it, may be his most impressive skill. In every piece, especially the b minor, he uses his full range to spectacular effect. Never a dull moment.

Listen to La Campanella [Yundi Li - La Campanella.mp3 | 4.30MB]

At $13.49 at Amazon (right here), it's a pretty good price for a perfect Liszt recital. Li was also the first "First Prize" winner of the international Chopin competition in many many years (25 maybe?). His program is on this 2-disc CD. It contains the powerhouse pieces of Chopin...The two piano concerti, piano sonata 3, some mazurkas, Winter Wind etude, Andante Spianato, a ballade (4th), a waltz, and a nocturne (big one, c minor).

The other pianist from China, Lang Lang, is much more popular in terms of concertizing right now. I got a CD of his recently too which I'll review at some point. Though Lang Lang is a good pianist in his own way, I much much *much* prefer Yundi Li. To me, Li is 20 years ahead of Lang Lang in maturity, elegance, thoughtfulness, and intelligence. Lang Lang is like the child prodigy who can dazzle everyone with how much of himself he puts into the music (too much I think). Yundi Li is the child prodigy who is like a mature master pianist in a child's body (they're both younger than me!). I think that Li may very well become one of the most revered pianist out there in due time...just give him a while.