Piano Sonata 3 / Etudes / Nocturnes
This is not your grandfather's Chopin playing! Chinese pianist Yundi Li won the 2000 Warsaw International Chopin Competition at the age of 18. His debut album comes with a small portfolio of hi-tech androgynous fashion photos of the pianist. Li's playing is hi-tech, too. He handles the most difficult music in this recital (like the finale of the Third Sonata and the Grande Polonaise) with disarming ease, tossing off complex passagework with apparent ease. Interpretively, Li is definitely a modern Chopinist, de-emphasizing the poetic aspects of the music in favor of momentum and structure--although his tone is always pleasing, never edgy. Listeners used to the more traditional Chopin styles of Rubinstein and Cortot may find this disconcerting. For those accustomed to Argerich or Pollini in Chopin, Li merely takes their styles a step further. Even if we wind up retreating eventually to the Rubinstein tradition, Li offers a perspective that many will find bracing, and he is extremely well presented by DG's realistic recording.--Leslie Gerber