Yuja Wang

Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 5/8/24

Yuja Wang (piano)

Last year’s Festival presented Chinese pianistic superstar Yuja Wang with the Oslo Philharmonic under Klaus Mäkelä playing both of Ravel’s piano concerti in the same concert to a packed Usher Hall.  This year she was back, playing an eclectic programme of virtuoso solo masterpieces (unpublicised prior to the concert) to the same venue, sold out with even the choir balcony full.  The mysteriously (and deliberately) vague advance publicity promised a programme “encompassing the genres of classical, Romantic, impressionist and contemporary”.  As a description of the core programme, works by Chopin, Shostakovich and Barber, this was somewhat flawed.  Nobody would dispute that Chopin was a Romantic composer, but where is the classical repertoire or, for that matter, the impressionist? As for ‘contemporary’, Shostakovich died nearly half a century ago; Barber followed him half a decade later – neither can be validly described as ‘contemporary’. That is the full extent of any negative criticism from me, amounting to little more than impatience with programme secrecy.  Everything else about the concert surpassed my (already very high) expectations of excellence.

Following the announcement of a (very sensible) rearrangement of the programme, the concert opened with two Chopin Ballades, No.1 in G minor, Op.23, followed by No.2 in F major Op.38.  Apart from the flawless articulation and the ebb and flow of expressive phrasing with perfectly judged rubato and tenuto, what struck me immediately was the way in which the marvellous acoustic of the Usher Hall was Miss Wang’s devoted ally. The listener was drawn into admiration of every detail and nuance of the music, with a sense of an enfolding narrative. The more tempestuous episodes received passionate playing. From the off, she held the audience in the palm of her hand.

A selection of 8 of Shostakovich’s preludes from the Op.34 and Op.87 sets, two with their associated fugues, followed.  As with so much of Shostakovich’s music, these can be seen as ironic.  A surface reading of the preludes detects a benumbed sardonic insouciance, with hints of very Russian poetic ennui and occasional flashes of gentle humour, while the fugues are similar but with a veneer of academic neo-classical contrapuntal rigour and discipline that one cannot help feeling is, despite its mastery, self-subverting to a degree.  It can be seen as music that is more about ‘what is not said’.  Yuja Wang caught the essence of this enigmatic music perfectly. The 6 ‘lone’ preludes were brief and aphoristic. The Prelude and Fugue op.87, no.15, which closed the set, was a substantial waltz-like prelude followed by a fast, chase-like complex fugue.  Very well received by the enthusiastic audience.

When Miss Wang reappeared after the interval, her signature side-slitted frock had changed from black to white.  Barber’s 1949 Sonata is a substantial 4-movement work and it was a first hearing for me. The modernism of the Piano Concerto (which I love) was present, especially in the first movement and the wild fugal finale, but there was also some jazz influence (with some Mendelssohnian lightness) in the Scherzo. and more than a hint of Bartók in the elegiac melancholic nocturne slow movement. Yuja Wang gave it a persuasive performance of the utmost advocacy and certainly convinced me of its worth.

Two more Chopin Ballades rounded off the printed programme, No.3 in A flat major op.47 and No.4 in F minor op.52.  The same persuasive musicality that had opened the concert delivered a colourful and dramatic realisation of these two masterpieces. The Usher Hall erupted in rapturous applause. 

The encores then just kept coming, not stopping until they numbered no fewer than 8 pieces. A minimalist Philip Glass number, the 6th of his Études, was followed by the phenomenally technically demanding Precipitato finale of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata no.7, an obsessive 3-note insistent figure in the left hand refusing to be swamped by the hectic septuple time headlong dash of the right - played with astounding virtuosity and apparent facility.  Mendelssohn’s ‘Song Without Words’ Op.67, No.2 segued seamlessly into Earl Wild’s arrangement of the ‘Dance of the Four Swans’ from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’, performed as if the two were a single Liszt piano transcription – scrumptious.  The Latin rhythms of Arturo Márquez’ ‘Danzón no.2’ were followed by the jazzy syncopation of Nikolai Kapustin’s Toccatina the 3rd of his ‘Eight Concert Studies for Piano’.  A serenely sweet idyllic Chinese melody, A Young Shepherd with a Flute’ provided an oasis of calm before the violent barbarism of the 2nd movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.8, in a first hearing for me of a piano arrangement, was both shocking and thrilling. These pieces were all performed, not only with virtuosity, but with consummate and revelatory musicality.  Absolutely superb.

It is entirely possible that my first concert attended at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival may turn out to be my personal highlight.

Photo credit: Andrew Perry