VANCOUVER — In the first important Vancouver recital of 2025, pianist Yundi Li performed an all-Mozart program in the Orpheum Theatre on Jan. 14, the first in a planned North American tour that includes dates in Toronto (Jan. 16) and New York (Jan. 19). A projected concert in Los Angeles has understandably been postponed.
Li has played in Vancouver before and has built up a strong local following. While his recent troubles have nothing at all to do with his artistry, it was natural to wonder how they might impact his fan base and their enthusiasm. It would seem not much at all. A substantial crowd gathered for the program, including families with small children and bevies of supporters, many equipped with floral tributes and other offerings.
Li’s program was not brokered by the city’s established piano presenters; the event was targeted at an audience eager to hear a particular performer, not a conventional keyboard recital. The Mozart sonata project is a fine thing for all sorts of reasons, but it may not have been what his Vancouver fans expected.
Other presenters here might have had second thoughts about attempting such a program in the cavernous old Orpheum Theatre, a refurbished 1920s movie palace seating 2,780. While used on occasion for solo recitals, the venue was far from ideal for the intimacies of three Mozart sonatas and the remarkable Fantasy in C minor. Glossy souvenir programs were available for purchase, but the lack of even projected titles and movements left many confused about what was happening next. The ushering staff of Vancouver Civic Theatres, the municipal organization that runs the Orpheum, were hard-pressed to wrangle copious numbers of latecomers and were required to patrol the aisles to squelch unauthorized photos and recordings.
Given all these logistical challenges, it might seem surprising that the recital was as musically satisfying as it proved. When the Vancouver Recital Society presented Mao Fujita in an all-Mozart program in 2023, he had the decided advantage of performing in an intimate hall with a Hamburg Steinway scaled to the space; that Li managed to create an atmosphere of intimacy against seemingly insurmountable odds was no small achievement.
His repertoire choices created a program on the short side, but it was well conceived, exhibiting a cool and intrinsically elegant trajectory. The evening began with the A major Sonata, K. 331, with its sublime set of variations to start and the extroverted “Alla Turca” finale, which proved to be the most popular work on the program. From the opening notes of the theme, Li established a refined, clear-as-crystal sound scaled to the music, not to the latent power of a modern Steinway or the exigencies of the enormous physical space. His passage work was precise and clean; though there were many affecting moments, there was absolutely no sentimentality or indulgent playing to the gallery. The result was limpid, elegant, and poised. Even where the Rondo might have invited a measure of extravagance, Li remained cool and controlled.
The concluding work of the first half was the darker A minor Sonata, K. 310, delivered with the same precision and care — a more serious piece perhaps, and not without pathos and drama. But once more the reading was about scale: There were no proto-Beethovenian outbursts, only another side of Mozart’s ineffable feeling for wonderful lines and exquisite detail.
After a somewhat extended interval, the program resumed with the great Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475, composed in 1785, just a few years after the pair of sonatas in the first half. Here, Li made the most of the improvisatory quality of the music: His stops, starts, pauses, and shifts in dynamics gilded but never distorted the wealth of sometimes contradictory material.
With the conclusion of the fantasy, Li was raring to go directly into the C minor Sonata, K. 457, almost unwilling to acknowledge applause that broke out between the two complementary selections. Anyone anticipating theatrical technical display or emotional heart-on-the-sleeve playing was out of luck: Li’s reading, especially of the quirky finale, was spare, elegant, and enigmatic.
With that, the official program ended, and the post-recital rituals of curtain calls, tributes, and encores began. Once again, Li had his game plan clearly worked out: He was gracious in responding to ovations but refused to disperse the musical spell he had just created. A single encore, a miniature by Chopin, was exactly right; then the house lights came up and a mellifluous voice on the PA system told us the evening had ended, eliciting more than a few disappointed groans from the crowd.
Now in his mid-forties, Li has gone through a number of career avatars: I heard him first in his young contender phase and found him gifted and sincere, yet a bit limited musically. He — or perhaps his advisers — then opted for a matinee-idol stance, including the use of “Yundi” as his stage moniker. Some of the promotional materials for the current tour still hew to that practice — perhaps evidence of an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” marketing stance.
But what we heard on a cold Tuesday night was irrefutable evidence of a third incarnation of Yundi Li — that of a mature artist in mid-career focused on quality repertoire and artistic growth.
I like this version of him by far the best.
