Original: Shi Qi, Teacher Yu Music History, May 30
Yu Yu's words: This is the article I recently taught Shi Qi. Another high school student. From the Wang YuJiali she wrote, I still see expectation and hope. Youth is invincible, it's good. Push here to encourage.
i. grave - double movement王羽佳 - sonatas & etudes
Wang Yujia's beauty is different.
Her short, lean hair, combined with four-inch-plus heels and a brightly vibrant miniskirt, makes her stand out in the classical music scene. Her face is typical of asian girls, and she smiles more than almost anyone, with a faint lip gloss on her lips and bright eyes. She is slender and thin, but she is famous for her exquisite finger skills. On stage, we can always see her playful grin and the trademark rapid deep bow. The latter is like her playing, agile and sharp, without dragging mud and water...
It is not easy to be a maverick in any field, let alone the classical music industry, which is known for its tradition, conservatism and rules. Wang Yujia's stage style has unsurprisingly caused great controversy.
In 2011, Wang Yujia's opening performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles once triggered a pen war in the music critic circle because her skirt was too short. People lashed out at classical music on the grounds that it was a great disrespect to it. The most typical is that Mark Sway, a music critic at the Los Angeles Times, wrote of her skinny orange dress that night, "The clothes could not have been worn less, otherwise the amphitheatre might have been forced to ban any music lover under the age of 18 who was not accompanied by an adult." Chary Nordlinger even said that her "superskirt barely covers her hips" is like "the dress of a stripper." Strictly speaking, Mr. Nordlinger is a personal attack, which is not common in the field of classical music. It is gratifying that for the criticism that comes to the face, Yu Jia shows the calm and persistence that a first-class artist should have, and for wavering, "On the stage, I can play as much as I want, how I want to wear it, I will not deliberately do anything, and there is always no good end." Who in life wears that kind of long dress for a show? I have been in elementary school music, music and my life are inseparable, you have to be able to accept me, can not accept me is not my business. ”
Isn't that right? Shouldn't art be the most individualistic area? A musician who hides in life, only promises, what else can we expect her to bring us in music? Isn't the miniskirt that Yu Jia loves, like her music, actually part of her personality, a symbol of her self-expression? I remember that Tian Yimiao once mentioned in an article about Agridge: "People say that character determines destiny, but in fact, character also determines a large part of a person's talent." Musicians can't break through themselves, sometimes because of the rigidity and conservatism of personality. "Isn't Wang Yujia's greatest character advantage precisely the frankness and self-confidence of her naked soul and thoughts?"
In my opinion, fashion and classicism are never opposed to Yu jia. She has turned her art into life, purified life into art. So the more she understands life, the closer she actually gets to art. Anyone who has seen her documentary "The Life of pianist Wang Yujia" (or even a short backstage tidbit) will know that even if she gives up playing the piano one day, it will not hinder her status as a musician in the slightest, because the makeup tools, mirrors, and hangers used in the girl's life will become her instruments in her hands.
On stage, she is widely known for her near-perfect control of the keyboard, the first of course is the natural skill of her playing skills, but more perhaps it is the natural willfulness and heroism of the young people she shows. Her playing style is just like herself, so enthusiastic, so free. Her tone is tough, and the fast running finger section is naturally her strong point of strength — it's simply eye-popping to double the speed — but the lyrical section is not to be outdone, always containing an understanding of the composer and a communication with the depths of their souls. As she herself said, "I never deliberately practice memorized pieces." I let them breathe on their own so that there is plenty of curiosity and freshness in every performance. "It is true that Wang Yujia has never repeated a piece of music similarly, and she brings us new discoveries and surprises in each concert. We listen to her play the piano like seeing the world with a child's eyes, always with curiosity.
I especially liked her performance of Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor. At that time, Liszt turned the piano into a solo instrument and began a solo "I am music" tour in Europe alone - Wang Yujia was very much like him, one person to a band, playing a tragic heroism and epic symphonic sound on the piano. The Piano Sonata in B minor is a landmark work in the literature of piano music. Like Liszt's symphonic poems, it departs from the multi-movement tradition of sonatas, but greatly expands the connotation of sonatas within a single movement, with difficult techniques and complex musical thoughts. In such a dazzling single-movement work, Yu Jia's performance rampages and is full of charming youth. Watching her sit on the piano bench, like a female warrior, she was playing, but dazzling and unmistakable smashing into the huge nine-foot Steinway piano, creating a powerful sound. Her miniskirt, at this moment, also comes in handy - we can clearly see her strength erupting from the inside out, unlike Li Yundi's brow locked and sweating, on the contrary, on the surface, it looks a little handy, but in fact it is sonorous and powerful, and it is loud, especially in Liszt's most difficult octave frenzy, she uses the strength of her whole body to completely liberate her fingers, and she also has unlimited possibilities...
Today, Wang Yujia has become one of the best pianists in the world. She was able to get to this position, obviously not only by the skill of playing music fast, but certainly not by a miniskirt. It comes from Wang Yujia's ever-enriching musical connotation, from something behind the piano. Throughout the history of music, we have reason to believe that the professionalism of performing artists is inseparable from their humanistic qualities. And Wang Yujia is one of the few polymaths among many young pianists today. She was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a "very well-rounded genius," and her interests and hobbies were unbelievably wide—music, fine arts, literature, science, philosophy, and in any respect not just superficial, but deeply studied. She finished reading Faust to play the Piano Sonata in B minor; she deliberately studied logic in order to play the long lines of the Russians; and more recently, she read George Bernard Shaw's English works and Ke Youhui's Thinking Like a Jew. She said, "I finished reading John Christophe (Romain Rolland was based on Beethoven), but I found that I didn't like biographies, I wasn't interested in the life of a composer. On the contrary, I love the books of music scholar Charles Rosen, who has a deep understanding of music. "This kind of reading taste is really a clear stream in the pianist."
She reads people, lives, the world. Music is her window into the world, and the piano is the carrier, and they add it together and take the audience along to explore the world together—she's one of my favorite musicians, and she should be called a full artist in the true sense of the word.