Just finished watching the final episode. I genuinely thought all of them were amazing. Lucy is truly incredible and what a great thing for her to be recognised like that.
It still blows my mind that she can learn such complex pieces and perform them absolutely beautifully. What an amazing young woman. I loved that she was naming the other performers etc while playing, like they were all an important part of the experience for her too.
I think both Lang Lang and Mika were genuinely in awe of Lucy and scarcely knew what to say. It was also amazing how she affected the other three. I know “stunned” and “stunning” are sadly overused words, but those boys looked genuinely stunned and trying hard not to cry as well. I don’t know what makes this event so emotionally affecting but I just can’t stop thinking about it.
It seems unlikely that there’s anyone reading this who is unaware of what we’re talking about, but you can see the Final and the rest of The Piano on Channel 4 catchup.
I've not seen the show, but I heard a bit about her on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon. A chap who works with kids with needs and tries to bring them out and introduce them to music.
Her piece that they played as an intro and outro was beautiful.
If I've got it wrong, then I'll slink away to another thread
> It seems unlikely that there’s anyone reading this who is unaware of what we’re talking about, but you can see the Final and the rest of The Piano on Channel 4 catchup.
Well I had to look it up. Slightly annoying OP for that reason (I assume that it explains the dislikes). Shall watch later.
> It seems unlikely that there’s anyone reading this who is unaware of what we’re talking about, but you can see the Final and the rest of The Piano on Channel 4 catchup.
The programme attracted 1m viewers and around 5m social media watches, so it seems likely that at least 90% of people will be unaware what you are talking about.
It was Debussy’s Arabesque No 1. As you say, a sublime piece of music. It is apparently a difficult piece to pull off. I have a friend who is very good amateur player who plays it very well, but he confesses it pushes him.
> It was Debussy’s Arabesque No 1. As you say, a sublime piece of music. It is apparently a difficult piece to pull off. I have a friend who is very good amateur player who plays it very well, but he confesses it pushes him.
It's all relative, I suppose, and arguably any piece is difficult to pull off to a high standard, but FWIW Arabesque 1 is pretty approachable compared to much of Debussy's piano music.
> If you saw/heard Lucy, what did you think of the performance purely in itself, regardless of the performer?
Interesting question. I thought the performance was quirky, a bit "non-standard" compared to, say, current recordings of the piece, but none the less for that, and completely engaging.
As I've said before her teacher is my partners nephew. Daniel is very talented guy who seeks nothing for himself. It's all about the music. Channel 4 are now making a programme about him and his teaching methods.
That's really good. I'll look out for it. As you say, he seems a really wonderful guy, who tried his best to keep out of the limelight during The Piano filming, all the more to gets us focused on Lucy (as if we weren't all mesmerised by her anyway!)
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