💥FINAL BRACKET 🔥: Favorite Yuzuru Hanyu Program

[Neenah]

Lol, I tossed a coin to make a choice... very easy 

[Henni147]

4 hours ago, Sombreuil said:

But Chopin is forever my personal favourite if you force me to choose one.  Chopin’s music is as difficult and intricate as Yuzuru’s skating, it’s not storytelling, or character driven, but two and a half minutes of pure but strangely serene intensity with no play acting to hide behind .  And he’s done it so beautifully so many times.

 

This is interesting, because for me a complete program has exactly these 3 dimensions:

 

1. Narration dimension: a global concept/motive, then a story with a world/setting around it and a message

2. Music dimension: a music piece that tells this story in rhythm, melody and atmosphere

3. Skating dimension: the skater, who completely dives into this world (PE), translates the music into body movements (IN) and transports the concept/message to the audience (I think, this is part of the CO component).

 

To make clear: I strictly separate intellectual storytelling and mature acting from any kind of plain copycat movements or put-on behavior. Unfortunately the judges seem to be unable to do that, when they score PCS. Best example: You can skate to Carmen music without portraying Carmen at all. There are VERY few skaters, who managed to bring Carmen to life and perfectly catch her character. That requires a certain level of maturity and advanced skating of course.

 

In Seimei my impression is that Yuzu does not simply act or portray Abe no Seimei. Something very spiritual is happening on the ice. As if he summoned Seimei's soul and borrowed his ancient power for the performance. Both in PyeongChang and also at MOI this feeling was very strong.

I actually do believe that Ballade No. 1 has a global concept and a story, too. I'm just not educated enough and don't know, what Frederic wanted to say with that music piece 

[yumeaki]

Seimei. Definitely Seimei. 

But Chopin @ 4CC is my bias wrecker. 

[SitTwizzle]

1 hour ago, Henni147 said:

 

This is interesting, because for me a complete program has exactly these 3 dimensions:

 

1. Narration dimension: a global concept/motive, then a story with a world/setting around it and a message

2. Music dimension: a music piece that tells this story in rhythm, melody and atmosphere

3. Skating dimension: the skater, who completely dives into this world (PE), translates the music into body movements (IN) and transports the concept/message to the audience (I think, this is part of the CO component).

 

To make clear: I strictly separate intellectual storytelling and mature acting from any kind of plain copycat movements or put-on behavior. Unfortunately the judges seem to be unable to do that, when they score PCS. Best example: You can skate to Carmen music without portraying Carmen at all. There are VERY few skaters, who managed to bring Carmen to life and perfectly catch her character. That requires a certain level of maturity and advanced skating of course.

 

In Seimei my impression is that Yuzu does not simply act or portray Abe no Seimei. Something very spiritual is happening on the ice. As if he summoned Seimei's soul and borrowed his ancient power for the performance. Both in PyeongChang and also at MOI this feeling was very strong.

I actually do believe that Ballade No. 1 has a global concept and a story, too. I'm just not educated enough and don't know, what Frederic wanted to say with that music piece 

Rarely did Chopin want to say something. I mean, to say something articulate. It has been widely accepted long, that his Ballads were inspired by Mickiewicz's poems, but now it is known he never said or wrote anything of the sort. Chopin tells the feelings of the moment and their intricacy and evolution. Every time he would play his own works (which he could do only piano or softer because of wounds he got while trying a system to enhance his fingers strength), he would improvise an introduction (a prelude) to relate the mood of the moment he played in, of his friends around, etc, with the mood of the piece itself. The only prelude kept to this day (the Preludes were not preludes in this sense) is, as far as I know, the Andante Spianato, as a prelude to the Grande Polonaise brillante.

So it can be said to be abstract, but I would rather say it is not storytelling, rather feelingtelling. And very expressive. And, if I can say, deeply, richly coloured, but I think this feeling depends on the persons.

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, Henni147 said:

n Seimei my impression is that Yuzu does not simply act or portray Abe no Seimei. Something very spiritual is happening on the ice. As if he summoned Seimei's soul and borrowed his ancient power for the performance. Both in PyeongChang and also at MOI this feeling was very strong.

Yuzu definitely becomes the characters he portrays on the ice. Plus, although my knowledge of Japanese religions is rather shaky, isn't Abe no Seimei a major figure in Shinto? I imagine that for Yuzu, SEIMEI the program might indeed have some underlying spiritual meaning. 

[rockstaryuzu]

14 minutes ago, SitTwizzle said:

ut I would rather say it is not storytelling, rather feelingtelling

which is what makes Chopin an Impressionist composer

[Paskud]

12 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

which is what makes Chopin an Impressionist composer

Chopin died long time before impressionism happened.

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, Paskud said:

Chopin died long time before impressionism happened.

But his music does embody some of their ideals and philosophies. 

[SitTwizzle]

3 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Yuzu definitely becomes the characters he portrays on the ice. Plus, although my knowledge of Japanese religions is rather shaky, isn't Abe no Seimei a major figure in Shinto? I imagine that for Yuzu, SEIMEI the program might indeed have some underlying spiritual meaning. 

From Wikipedia (not a very reliable source on spirituality matters, I'll admit; the Japanese page doesn't say much more, except about its extinction) considers Onmyodo a mix of Taoism (with the Yin-Yang and the Five Elements theories), Buddhism (I don't know which branch; maybe Tantric?) and Shintoism, first practised by Chinese Buddhist monks but later by laymen such as Abe no Seimei, and being then pure technique of divination and somehow astronomy and medicine, not a faith.

BUT Onmyoji (the movie) clearly has a Buddhist apologetic objective, and the Abe no Seimei shrine, where this man was buried and where Yuzuru Hanyu paid a visit, is a Shinto shrine.

And, yes, he said himself that he somehow summoned Abe no Seimei, which, depending on where Abe no Seimei is now, and what Yuzuru Hanyu really did, can be really dangerous, but developing would pass the limits of PlanetHanyu rules (no religion), which I think the previous description did not.

[SitTwizzle]

3 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

which is what makes Chopin an Impressionist composer

I wouldn't say so.

Debussy was an impressionist composer, drawing a picture with little strokes/touches. I find Michelangeli insisted most on this aspect in his interpretation.

I would say Moussorgsky was somehow impressionist in his Pictures of an Exposition, too.

 

I don't think Chopin meant to describe a picture more than to tell a story. Pictures and stories are ways of expressing the feelings of soul, mind, imagination, physical sensations... and music is another way of expressing them. His music does so immediately, contrary to music using the mediation of a story or a picture.

Of course the music is a mean in itself, and Chopin's had there the highest technical quality, if I can permit myself, giving Bach's life (he praised Bach to the skies but added his own too, plus his talent and hardwork, follow my gaze  ) allowing him such expression. And not by little touches. By complex architectures, always feeling natural and showing little of this complexity (by the way, did you notice how Wakabe Higuchi missed the real movement of Yuzuru Hanyu's left arm in Seimei pose? It is hard to notice but it gives depth to Seimei's attitude; I am sure it is from himself, not from the choreograph), and without the least heaviness or redundancy, hence probably Yuzuru Hanyu's feeling of purity when listening to it. And his prelude to Ballade, is these seconds of immobility before starting to skate. I am sure Krystian Zimerman shed a tear.

[holina]

Ok I finally voted - after struggling for 1 day.

 

I rewatched the Skate Forward video and decided to vote for Seimei, because Yuzu has put this as the last program, even though chronologically it shouldn’t be the last (but he put Chopin in its chronological place).  I think Seimei doesn’t only mean something iconic for Yuzu, but it is iconic of him for the Japanese public.  It has a powerful message to his Japanese people.  That’s why I voted for Seimei, even though I also absolutely love Chopin and Olympic Chopin was the one which made me first fell in love with Yuzu.  

[monchan]

I think both deserve different versions to compare. Both have evolved so much during its lifetime that makes it so hard to just simply compare "chopin" and "seimei". I vote chopin simply becuz he skated it clean more. But I'll never forget SEIMEI was the one that made me fall for his skating.