Short program masterpieces (Men Edition) | Golden Skate

Short program masterpieces (Men Edition)

Of course, Alexei Yagudin's Winter.

But also:

Stephane Lambiel, Spanish Caravan
I can watch his step sequences in this program over and over again (and I have). The expression, the abandon, the joy...magnificent.

Ilia Kulik, Faust
The version at 1997 Worlds was even better, but I can't find a high-quality version on Youtube.

Jeffrey Buttle, Adios Nonino
Since someone else posted his Rachmaninoff, I'll nominate Buttle's Adios Nonino.

Alexei Yagudin, techno Revolutionary Etude
A masterpiece due to the way he performed it. "Heart and guts" indeed.
 
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Alexei Yagudin's Winter was my first love :love:, but I must admit lately I've been watching Jeremy Abbott's A Day in the Life more often.

Sorry for the link, the sound will glitch a bit during one of his step sequences, but I thought it's better than another video where someone is almost constantly talking through his whole performance and blocking out the music. :disapp:
 
The first two listed (Yagudin Winter and Takahashi Swan Lake) were also the first to come to my mind. Great programs. Yagudin's racing one was also quite good.
 
evangeline said:
Of course, Alexei Yagudin's Winter.

But also:

Stephane Lambiel, Spanish Caravan
I can watch his step sequences in this program over and over again (and I have). The expression, the abandon, the joy...magnificent.

Ilia Kulik, Faust
The version at 1997 Worlds was even better, but I can't find a high-quality version on Youtube.

Jeffrey Buttle, Adios Nonino
Since someone else posted his Rachmaninoff, I'll nominate Buttle's Adios Nonino.

Alexei Yagudin, techno Revolutionary Etude
A masterpiece due to the way he performed it. "Heart and guts" indeed.
Click to expand...

Everything that people have suggested so far is wonderful, but this bunch is especially stupendous. The Lambiel makes me hope that this guy has a long and fruitful professional career, all of it documented by YouTube. By the time I got to Yagudin's Chopin program, my hair was standing on end. Yagudin's footwork is simply unbelievable, and it's so beautifully wedded to the music--ardent and rapid, like a heartbeat, right when the music is also. So often, skaters put their fast footwork in a section of music that isn't fast--Buttle's Rachmaninoff (supplied by Amateur) is an example, though his works pretty much--but I prefer footwork to echo the rhythm of the music, and Yagudin's does so here.

Back to the Buttle Rachmaninoff, though (in Amateur's post): it's gorgeous, and to all the people listening to us Rach lovers complain this season about the orchestration Mao used for her long program, this is the real Prelude in C Minor. Buttle uses both the slow, dirgelike section and the fast bridge section, and his program is much the better for the variation in mood and tempo. Can you imagine what Asada would have achieved if she had just used this version?

Just because Browning and Wylie should be in here: Here's Paul Wylie's 1992 Olympic short program, which is lovely, though his real masterpiece is of course his long program that week, to Henry V.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfEF_0GeDwc

Here's a short of Browning's from 1991, one of his World Champion years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oywo2GOJUvg&feature=related

I prefer his pro career work, because it's more innovative, but the guy had lightning footwork even as an eligible skater, and his jumps are to die for.
 
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GREAT choices miki88 and evangeline. Yagudin has so many amazing skates to his name (he is IMO the best total package up to date), but Revolutionary Etude is the one I never get tired of watching. It's a triumphant moment, oozing of emotion and energy. He had a bad season with disappointing losses to the up and coming Plushenko (including GPF, Euros and Russians Natls) and a foot injury putting him in great pain. This is one of the skates I look up on Youtube when I seek performances that exhibit transcendence. He's pure 24k champion material.
 
It's great to see Yagudin's Revolutionary Etude get some love--I still remember how blown away I was when I first watched it several years ago. Pure transcendence indeed.

In fact, I think Yagudin's 2000-2001 programs (Revolutionary Etude and Gladiator) are as great as--if not better than--Winter and Man in the Iron Mask. It's a pity that Yagudin's injury kept him from winning any major titles that season, because those were truly magnificent programs that deserve to be preserved for posterity.
 
A couple of my favorites from the dim past:

Boitano, Les Patineurs, US Nationals 1988
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah3Fmy7hAn0

Galindo, Pachelbel's Canon, US Nationals 1996 (only the Worlds version is on youtube. It is not as good-the 3A2t was a 3A3t at Nationals)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4t0hPUlMkY

Orser 1988 Olympics Sing Sing Sing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8lQGAxH4VY

Victor Petrenko 1990 See Ya Later Alligator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QimoBJwAdbE

Petr Barna Europeans 1989 Amadeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiCaXo5dxs

and I don't have a link to it, but Ryan Bradley's Happy Birthday Polka SP, as skated at Skate America.
 
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evangeline said:
Of course, Alexei Yagudin's Winter.

But also:

Stephane Lambiel, Spanish Caravan
I can watch his step sequences in this program over and over again (and I have). The expression, the abandon, the joy...magnificent.

Ilia Kulik, Faust
The version at 1997 Worlds was even better, but I can't find a high-quality version on Youtube.

Jeffrey Buttle, Adios Nonino
Since someone else posted his Rachmaninoff, I'll nominate Buttle's Adios Nonino.

Alexei Yagudin, techno Revolutionary Etude
A masterpiece due to the way he performed it. "Heart and guts" indeed.
Click to expand...

Beautiful choices............
Yagudin's Revolution Etude SP remains one of my all time favourites, and that performance at Worlds 2001 was electrifying in every sense of the word. The footwork probably would be too simple and repetitive by today's standard, but the musicality and passion that Alexei skated with was just incredible. And I got to see it live!!

Lambiel's Caravan SP makes me feel nostalgic. What I loved the most about the young Lambiel, like you said, was his musicality and the absolute abandon and joy he skated with. When the Yagudin/Plushenko rivalry ended, Stephane arrived. He was such a revelation - so unique and different (even his nationality), and skated like no one else before him. It's been such a joy witnessing his development from a promising young talent into one of the greatest artists of all time. It's been an incredible journey.
I will always feel a little sad though that by the time he reached his full artistic maturity injuries had taken a toll on him, and he was past his athletic prime.

Ilia Kulik is one of the most gifted skaters we have ever seen. One born for the ice. He embodied everything that the Russian mens skating should be. Why can't all these young skaters coming up from Russia try to imitate him instead of Plushenko?

Buttle is not my favourite skater, but he and David Wilson together really have created one of the most impressive bodies of work of all time.

And for the pure creativity and inventiveness I have to add this one to the list -
Dmitri Dmitrenko's 1995 SP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgE7_WmCkUU
 
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evangeline said:
It's great to see Yagudin's Revolutionary Etude get some love--I still remember how blown away I was when I first watched it several years ago. Pure transcendence indeed.

In fact, I think Yagudin's 2000-2001 programs (Revolutionary Etude and Gladiator) are as great as--if not better than--Winter and Man in the Iron Mask. It's a pity that Yagudin's injury kept him from winning any major titles that season, because those were truly magnificent programs that deserve to be preserved for posterity.
Click to expand...

Yagudin should have won the SP at 2001 Worlds. Plushenko only won because he had beaten Yagudin all season and it wasn't an Olympic year. "Gladiator" at that competition was even better. The amount of soul and passion and unique choreography was stunning. The backward slide move he does, with his blades so deep he is nearly laying on the ice and his arm stretched forward as if reaching out for life itself, is one of the most impressive choreographic highlights of all time. I would link the program but I'm posting from my phone right now and don't have time.
 
Blades of Passion said:
Yagudin should have won the SP at 2001 Worlds. Plushenko only won because he had beaten Yagudin all season and it wasn't an Olympic year. "Gladiator" at that competition was even better. The amount of soul and passion and unique choreography was stunning. The backward slide move he does, with his blades so deep he is nearly laying on the ice and his arm stretched forward as if reaching out for life itself, is one of the most impressive choreographic highlights of all time. I would link the program but I'm posting from my phone right now and don't have time.
Click to expand...

Oh, definitely--it's maddening how Yagudin's Revolutionary Etude placed behind Plushenko's fairly pedestrian Bolero. I believe Yagudin bombing the QR really influenced the judges' perception of him at 2001 as well.

As for Gladiator--it's definitely my favourite Yagudin LP ever and I know exactly what move you're talking about--it's the one at 4:26 here, no (the video I linked to is my favourite Gladiator performance, at 2000 Trophee Lalique)? I know that I am one of those probably-annoying Canadians who insist on spreading the gospel of CoP everywhere, but it's moments like these that make me miss 6.0, just a little bit--that is, having transitions not simply for the sake of having transitions per se, but ones that may be simple, but brilliantly highlight the music of the program, that convey a mood.

So, yeah, to conclude...Alexei Yagudin: great skater, or greatest skater?
 
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shine said:
Beautiful choices............
Yagudin's Revolution Etude SP remains one of my all time favourites, and that performance at Worlds 2001 was electrifying in every sense of the word. The footwork probably would be too simple and repetitive by today's standard, but the musicality and passion that Alexei skated with was just incredible. And I got to see it live!!

Lambiel's Caravan SP makes me feel nostalgic. What I loved the most about the young Lambiel, like you said, was his musicality and the absolute abandon and joy he skated with. When the Yagudin/Plushenko rivalry ended, Stephane arrived. He was such a revelation - so unique and different (even his nationality), and skated like no one else before him. It's been such a joy witnessing his development from a promising young talent into one of the greatest artists of all time. It's been an incredible journey.
I will always feel a little sad though that by the time he reached his full artistic maturity injuries had taken a toll on him, and he was past his athletic prime.

Ilia Kulik is one of the most gifted skaters we have ever seen. One born for the ice. He embodied everything that the Russian mens skating should be. Why can't all these young skaters coming up from Russia try to imitate him instead of Plushenko?

Buttle is not my favourite skater, but he and David Wilson together really have created one of the most impressive bodies of work of all time.

And for the pure creativity and inventiveness I have to add this one to the list -
Dmitri Dmitrenko's 1995 SP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgE7_WmCkUU
Click to expand...

Cool SP by Dmitrenko, I've never seen that before! Love the spread eagle into the final spin, the quirkiness--are those bird calls in his music?

I think young Russian skaters tend to look up to Plushenko because he is one of the most dominant and decorated skaters ever. Even if I am not the biggest fan of his style, I admit that there are qualities Plushenko has that all skaters can look up to--his consistency and his competitive mettle, for instance. Imagine Plushenko's consistency and competitive mettle combined with Ilia Kulik's brilliant jumping talent mixed in with Alexei Yagudin's musicality, passion and soul--what a skater that would be!

I loved your description of Lambiel bursting into the elite skating scene. He really is a breath of fresh air, truly a dancer who happens to be wearing skates.
 
I see what you mean, Evangeline. I admire Plushenko, but I love Yagudin. There's an immediacy and simplicity to Yagudin's skating: nothing fussy, no feverish arm movements. This shows off his flow and technical power.

We've been very lucky in men's skating in the past decade, with Yagudin, Plushenko, Lambiel, and Takahashi and Oda. I'm so glad we have this thread, so we can revisit their programs and those of other skaters.
 
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