Valentina Lisitsa: YouTube Sensation Debuts at Royal Albert Hall
Top 5 of Best YouTube Clips
Valentina Lisitsa has earned positive reviews following her debut at the Royal Albert Hall Tuesday evening, London time.
Lisitsa, 39, successfully promoted her talent on her own YouTube channel. She has nearly 54,000 subscribers and her videos have drawn about 44 million views.
Ukraine-born Lisitsa delivers intense and emotionally charged music that takes her listeners to epic journeys. YouTube viewers who stumble into her videos come back for more and spread the word about her music.
"In everything she does, there seems to be a special combination of utterly self-assured virtuosity and real lyricism," wrote Tom Service of the Guardian.
Reviewing Lisitsa's Albert Hall debut, Telegraph's Ivan Hewett wrote she "played these with urgent intensity and a feeling for their sudden moments of pathos."
"It soon became clear Lisitsa is a serious artist. She'd chosen a hugely taxing programme, book-ended with two Liszt showpieces," Hewett noted.
Stephen Smoliar, Examiner's classical music connoisseur, notes that Lisitsa "certainly managed to cover a broad expanse of music history, from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's K. 475 C minor fantasia all the way into the twentieth-century works of Sergei Rachmaninoff."
While praising Lisitsa's talent, Smoliar noted Lisitsa "may need to cultivate some appreciation for the proposition that there can be too much of a good thing," hinting that the program may have been too long for "even the most persistent listener."
In contrast to Smoliar's observation, some of those who claim to have watched live hinted the audience remained captivated by Lisitsa through "several encores."
"She certainly charmed the audience verbally with her candor (telling with gratitude the story of how she came to be performing here), and more importantly with her expression of deep musical feeling and stunning virtuosity. This includes not only the more intense pieces like Liszt's Totentanz, but in many slow, clearly heartfelt gentle pieces in the program and e.g. first encore," a Telegraph reader commented.
The entire concert was recorded, and classical music enthusiasts could get in on Amazon. The concert CD will be released on July 24.
Here are Top 5 of Valentina Lisitsa's Best YouTube Clips
5. Beethoven Sonata Op 57 "Appassionata"
4. Rachmaninoff Prelude in g minor op. 23 #5
3. Rachmaninoff Etude Op. 39 No. 6 "Little Red Riding Hood"
2. Beethoven "Für Elise"
1. Beethoven "Moonlight" Sonata