I want to write a review of the magnificent concert I saw on Tuesday, 4 October 2011, of Yuja Wang. While I never doubted her abilities as a musician as opposed to just a flashy technician, last night DEFINITELY extinguished any inklings of the sort. She opened with a both transcendental and orchestrally interpreted Beethoven Sonata that's not often performed - op. 27 no. 1, quasi una fantasia. Her pacing, her intimacy, and her command made this performance for me equally a composition lesson and a piano lesson.
Following the Beethoven was an impassioned performance of 3 Etudes-Tableux of Rachmaninoff, and an Elegie (op. 3 no. 1) that is full of anxiety and consternation, as well as a lot of notes! With my feeling of knocking on heaven's door during the Beethoven, I was immediately thrust into a breathlessness of which I've never experienced before in a piano recital - a state of awe combined with a deep appreciation for what Rachmaninoff accomplished in terms of pianism and composition.
She traveled from Bonn to Russia to Spain for her next set. Opening with Albeniz's Triana from Iberia, her control over this disastrously difficult piece was mind-bending. After hearing this piece performed live a couple of times, it was Yuja's performance that made me finally understand this work in its complex and immense melodic and accompanimental layerings - both elements which require seamless maneuvering and switching responsibilities between the hands, bringing out notes within difficult contexts, chords and jumps that are extreme, and a dynamic control for clarity. She moved on to a piece of which I am not fond but was delightfully executed - Evening in Grenada by Debussy (from Estampes), and concluded the first half with a riveting, yet deliciously enticing performance of Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso from Mirroirs. What clean repeated notes, and what a sense of Spanish "joie de vivre!" I was immediately thrust back into Madrid, in the middle of a crowd waiting to see a futbal match at the Real Madrid, eating my torreja de leche!
After the intermission, during which I purchased her Grammaphone debut CD for her to sign after the concert, she concluded the evening with a trajectory of Scriabin. Begining with 3 Preludes, from op. 11 and op. 13, she magnificently displayed a more traditionally impassioned side of this russian master. The Etude showed a development in Scriabin's compositional struggle, yielding this extraordinary other-world quality of his Poeme in F minor, which Yuja mastered with extreme delicateness and a depth of understanding that matches the greatest pianist of history. She concluded the "programmed" set with Scriabin's Sonata No. 5, a one-movement Poeme Fantasy that is similar in aesthetic to the smaller Poeme she played earlier, but excacerbated in scope and emotion. It begins with a riveting, whimsical, mysterious ascent, leading to a the Poeme gesture. Through iterations of tristess and longing, and struggling to find the right notes, Scriabin succombs to ending the work exactly like the beginning, creating this sense of timelessness, endlessness, yet in the context of a deep, intellectual and emotional struggle. What a work - and WHAT A PERFORMANCE!
After enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation, she played three encores: the Liszt transcription of Gretchen am Spinnrade by Schubert, the Prokofiev Toccata, and then a gorgeous, minor, yet light work, Gluck-Sgambati Melody from Orfeo ed Euridice. All magnificent. While the recital was overall dark and impassioned, it was nonetheless awe-inspiring, and impressive from someone who is only 24 years old.
Before leaving, I received her autograph on the leaflet of her CD. I thanked her and told her to "keep on wearing what she wears". She laughed, and it completed the evening.
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