Wang Dang Doodle, part 2

We return to the subject of Yuja Wang and her slinky mini. We are honored to have a comment by the pianist Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont. He is an Internet buddy of mine. Here he is playing Janacek's beautiful "In the Mists."



That goes great with coffee at 6:15 a.m., I will say that! That pretty much sums up my reality.

Speaking of which, I caught myself writing "In a Mist" and then I corrected myself to "In the Mists." Then I sat there staring at it, thinking, wait, I thought it was "In a Mist," not plural.

Then I realize "In a Mist" is by Bix Beiderbecke.



That is a pretty piece! Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont should play it. Bix does a nice job with it there. I did not know Bix Beiderbecke played piano as well as cornet, you know? That is a great Heinie name by the way. Bix was short for Bismarck.

And there was his sidekick, the great saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. They did this great laid-back record which I love. Lester Young used to love it too. He carried it around in his car trunk everywhere he went. I read that once.



Where am I? Now I am really in a mist. In the mists. How did I get here?

I was talking about Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont!

This will teach me to write on my Web log before I have finished my first cup of coffee.

Pierre-Arnaud is a great Blog-o-Land buddy because he is a pianist out there now, operating, and he knows a thing or two about how the world works. I am more expert about the piano world before I was born than I am about the one we actually live in now.

Monsieur Dablemont reminds me that we discussed sort of business once before, on his Web log, which we did. And he makes the point in a comment on the post that perhaps it is not up to Miss Wang what she wears.

I had not thought about that and perhaps it is true.

Perhaps her management made her wear that mini.

"But I do not want to wear it!"

"Wear it!"

Perhaps her management also made her wear that Russian fur hat for her Rachmaninoff album, pictured above. I am sorry but I find that picture so obnoxious! I would rather she just wore a mini.

You know what, I do not even know how I even got onto all this. It is hardly news any more when someone walks out on stage practically naked. There are so many young women musicians out there being marketed in pretty much the same way. It is getting almost impossible to stand out from the pack and if Yuja Wang's promoters did indeed make her wear that mini that must have been their objective.

Speaking of which, if it was, they have really succeeded, you know?

Look at all this ink!

Yuja Wang dang doodle

As a music critic who is a woman I feel I must weigh in on this tempest in a teacup going on about pianist Yuja Wang.

Wang apparently played the Rachmaninoff Third at the Hollywood bowl wearing a minidress.

Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote about the situation. Anne Midgett of the Washington Post takes issue with him.,

I like both critics but I go with Swed on this one.

My belief is, if you want to play the Rachmaninoff Third wearing a micro-mini, go right ahead. It's not as if it is surprising or anything, especially in the case of Yuja Wang whose out-of-the-gate-running CDs have already proven her to be something of a show-off. We will be seeing more of this kind of look with the proliferation of young beautiful skinny classical musicians. Anyway, there will be nothing we can do to stop it.

If you want to play Rachmaninoff in your underwear, I guess it is still a free country despite the efforts of certain people, and I am not so naive as to think anything I am going to say is going to make any difference.

Just do not be surprised if someone comments on it.

I read once where Liberace ...

... said, "Go ahead! Stare! I didn't dress like this to go unnoticed."

Yuja Wang could say the same thing.

I think she should.