Teaching Lang Lang & Yuja Wang

The radically different styles of Yuja and Lang speak wonders to his teaching ability. A truly fantastic teacher brings out the best in his students (not carbon copying each student and providing identical models), and the difference between Lang and Yuja is evidence that this is exactly the kind of person he is.

the Horowitz / Yuja overlay at the end was great

In one week I enjoyed the concerts of the two best pianists in the world in Prague. 24.4. Yuja Wang at 30.4.2022 Lang Lang. Fantastic experience.

Yuja's Prokofiev 2 with Berlin Philharmonic stands as the greatest performance of a concerto I have ever witnessed in my life. At the end, I panicked -- I didn't know if I was going to cry or freak out, or have a mental breakdown. The technical level of her playing was Earth shattering to me -- but her Mozart encore settled me down. Really lucky to be alive to witness her type of playing. It doesn't suit ALL concertos for sure -- but to witness such technical prowess, it is like witnessing the birth of a nano-supercomputer -- at that level of like, this is crazy stuff. And within it, her interpretation and the level of revelation for that concerto -- it made it my favorite concerto of all time instantaneously...

The real teacher of these pianists are the teachers who taught them from scratch. That’s where the real work goes in.

Gary Graffman has another student from China, Haochen Zhang, the Cliburn winner. Zhang is more reserved, but very talented as well. Although Zhang still gets to play with top orchestras such as Philadelphia, Boston, NY Phil, Berlin and Scala, he deserves better visibility. He needs a better agent for sure.

I LOVE THIS !!!...To Think that this One man has molded the 2 Greatest Piano GENIUSES of the 21st century is MIND-BOGGLING !!!...Not Since Bach taught some of His Children , Has one man had so great an impact on classical music !!!...

She was an old lady 👵🏻 she was already 15!!! 😂

Amazing.... they each have their own style of play and that is one remarkable teacher to be able to teach two different personalities of play.

Two talent meet great mentor = super star Journey began✌

I love Yuga Wang, she has strong fingers and speed, very powerful.

My god, Yuja plays the Elliott Carter sonate?!? I'd love to hear that.

Gary Graffman/George Szell performing Prokofiev Piano Concerto 1&3 has been one of my favorite albums for over 30 years. This guy is amazing.

I tear up watching Yuja. Can't help it.

Yuja definitely has the goods (no pun intended). I heard her in Carnegie around 10 years ago. I was sitting on the balcony and hence wasn't influenced by the visual impression she makes on stage. What I remember from that recital are two things: 1. Her sound projection is truly outstanding. Even from way back, everything is very clear and articulated. 2. I found her performance of Schubert's D.959 to be one of the most memorable performances I'd had the privilege of hearing live. I haven't heard Lang Lang in recital but his technical abilities are outstanding. The Don Juan from his Carnegie debut (I think it was his debut) is jaw-dropping.

When Curtis basically creams off the best of the best via their uitra-selective audition process, it becomes far easier for their star faculty members to help create and promote future performing luminaries. I'd like to think that phenomenally gifted pianists like Lang Lang and Yuja Wang would have still achieved their pre-eminent positions had they studied at any other of a handful of highly ranked musical institutions.

More important than performing as fast as possible by avoiding "wrong notes" is a high knowledge of the art of composition itself, the meaning of it, the comprehension of it and tons of poetry, lyrics, literature, politics and history. Arthur Rubinstein communicated in 8 foreign languages and was familiar with paintings, books and different cultures. That's the difference compared to our entire times.

They are the BEST.

I was blown away when I heard YW play Mendelssohn's G minor concerto. Granted Thiabauld's version is perhaps more correct stylistically but he doesn't have her vivacity, correct interpretation or not, it doesn't matter. As for LL, I dissed him a longtime ago as a charlatan but, lately, I noted that his musicianship had improved tremendously, to first rate status even, from his earlier days. I remember a video somewhere that YW said that she needed someone (like Graffman) to not so much to coach her on the musical details but to give her an overall opinion of her form and structure.

what a blessing…🥂💫 🪖