Considering the all-around excellence of his four DG solo releases, Yundi Li’s concerto debut for the label disappoints. For starters, the engineering conveys a bloated, diffuse orchestral image with muffled timpani, overbalanced brass, metallic string tuttis, and a soloist whose tone sounds ugly, two-dimensional, and dynamically compressed compared to the more colorful, robust sonority I’ve heard Li produce in concert.
Secondly, the performances fall far short of the best available. In the Liszt E-flat, Li pile-drives his way through the bravura octaves and runs, only to tense up in the final section’s dotted rhythms. While the pianist’s instinctive rubato and imaginative voicings flow more idiomatically in the Chopin E minor’s slow movement, he also tends to press ahead in rapid figurations (the Rondo’s main theme, for example) rather than allow them to naturally emerge from what came before. If you need these works on DG, the venerable Argerich/Abbado Liszt and Zimerman/Giulini Chopin editions remain artistically and sonically superior.
