YUJA WANG, the orange minidress pianist who stirred a turbulence in the conservative classical musicians' world has eventually reached the stage of the Carnegie Hall. My excitement for this recital has made my dreadful weeks passed-by very delightfully.
The tiers and ground hall were very much crowded and the anticipating audiences were very respectful of her appearance. They hold their cough (as well as breath I believe) while she performed and relieved the itches in between the movements, in between pieces- as my students and I did.
Scriabin Preludes in B Major, B Minor, G # Minor, Etude in G# Minor, and Poeme in F # Major
Her Scriabin were all very breathtaking. Scriabin's musical style has so many scattered motifs and lyrical. It is so hard to interpret his music. Yuja performed them with great ease and assurance. I especially like the last one (Poeme in F # Major, op. 32, No. 1). Very natural. Very lyrical. The phrasing was so delicate. She managed to phrase different layers of sounds at different levels that were going on at the same time. What is the word to describe this? Poetic. Em, Natural. Em, lyrical, breathtaking! These pieces by Scriabin exposed the other side of bravura Wang. She could be touchy feel-y dreamy when she needs to.
Prokofiev Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op 82
Her Prokofiev was very amazing. The phrases, the big sounds, the atmosphere she created with the tone combinations. She did not push the tempo like other crazily speed-obsessed pianists in this one. Instead, she focused on crafting the piece out with a strategic structure and tone colors. I.e, there are build up to climax, climax, contrasting to intensity, etc. And yes, you can do tone colors in Prokofiev's No 6 Sonata. Yuja just showed us. But still tone colors is Yundi Li's Game. Yuja's strengths are big sound, power and speed. Being a very skillful pianist, sometimes I feel that she went to the next thing too soon. She could build the anticipation towards certain surprises in the piece by giving it a couple milliseconds wait, lingering the audiences' ears towards the next musical motif.
Liszt Sonata in B Minor
After the intermission, Yuja returned to stage with a more gothic gown. It is a brilliant choice for Liszt's B Minor Sonata. As we all know Liszt had a thing for composing devilish, dark, scary music. Sonata in B Minor is one of them. And this is my favorite out of the whole program. The recurring, cyclic theme can get stuck in anyone's mind so easily. Of course, as usual, in Liszt's pieces, a pianist would need to exploit all the pianistic techniques that s/he has learnt. But more than usual, Yuja's speedy rotations all over places, making very (really) scary sounds as the piece demands. She managed certain parts with eerie tone combinations that Liszt would want. That reminds me of Halloween approaching. (Of course I knew that.) In my opinion, she has more tone colors in this 30 min long sonata. It is very enjoyable and refreshing to listen to her unique interpretations. However, she seemed to have a little problem making big sounds on higher range of the piano. Maybe she was injured? I read that she had to cancel some performance plans due to injury recently. It must be her right hand. Towards the end, she concluded the excitements and intensities with short peaceful phrases and then -silence.
Her encores.
Due to the enduring applaud, she had to give as many as 4 encores. Of course being her big fan, I had already heard all of her encores from Youtube. So, they were no surprises to me. However, these pieces were very appealing to my students as they are all flashy, exciting, and easier to grasp.
I did realized that she seemed to have just recovered from arm injuries as she couldn't make certain big sounds that she usually did. But the standard of the performances is perfected to highly professional level as Yuja is always very sure of herself. She is very sure of what kind of sound she wanted, where she is going in the music, how she make the sounds, etc. She must have gone through a great discipline to reach these accomplishments at her young age. She has become the inspiration of my students who went to the recital with me tonight. I bet they are so pumped up to practice right when they hit homes.
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