Watch/listen for young pianist Wang Yuja
Apr 21 '07
The Bottom Line see title
Born in Beijing in 1987, Wang Yuja began studying music at the age of six. She studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with Professors Ling Yuan and Zhou Guangren. Ms. Wang has studied with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She has won a number of prizes and received the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Award.
She made her western professional debut in 2003 with David Zinman conducting the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich. Last month she stepped in when the Queen of Canceling Engagements, Martha Argerich canceled performances with the Boston Symphony. Directed by Charles Dutoit, she played the First Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto to enraptured audiences. (Dutoit is music director of the NHK Symphony, and is shepherding her debut there.)
This weekend Dutoit is guest-conducting the San Francisco Symphony with Wang making the first-written (but second-published) Beethoven piano concerto sound considerably more interesting than I had previously thought. (Wang and Dutoit are also playing the Beethoven second piano concerto with the New York Philharmonic this month.)
I was especially impressed with the strength of her left hand. Although the piano concerti were showpieces for Beethoven himself, the Second is far from being his flashiest work for demonstrating virtuosity. However, as our local paper's music reviewer (Joshua Kosman) put it, she tore through the potentially clattery scales and arpeggios of the first movement as though they carried some urgent dramatic message -- and making a listener believe it in the process."
Although I thought that Dutoit should have muted the orchestra more in the Adagio, Wang provided the most beautifully lyrical interpretation of it that I have ever heard (in concert or on disc).
The first two movements seem more "Mozartian" than "Beethovian"--Beethoven before he became "Beethoven." The final movement, a Rondo that lovely, lovely Ludwig von dashed off a few days before the premiere of the piece March 29, 1795 in Venice, is not the most memorable part just because it is what one who has listened to the concerto has heard most recently. Playing the Rondo, Wang showed how powerfully (by which I don't just mean loud) she can play.
At the age of 25 Beethoven was still developing when he wrote and played the concerto. If Wang is still developing, it is scary! Her dexterity, which is extremely impressive, is matched by impressive interpretive gifts that usually develop later than the ability to play many notes in a short span of time.
Although I couldn't see any evidence that Dutoit was imposing tempi--he seemed entirely to be following her--perhaps he and the orchestra steadied her. Her two very flashy encores seemed just a bit rushed--showing off what she can do beyond the demands of the Beethoven Second. That had already demonstrated the full dynamic range of the instrument and an unfussy precision.
I was not nearly as impressed by Midori when she was a young violin prodigy, or by any other celebrated youngster, but as far as I'm concern until Wang is completely booked, Martha Argerich can stay home. (I don't understand why anyone contracts her or why she pretends she is going to play anywhere!)
Although not as yet having any recorded discs, her website (http://www.yujawang.com/listening-room.html) allows one to hear her a range of samples of her playing (a less 19th-century repertoire than one might expect from the list of concerti she has performed):
Prokofiev - Toccata in D Minor Op. 11
Rachmaninoff - Polka de W.R. in Ab Major (one of the encores from last night)
Haydn - Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:50
Rachmaninoff - Vocalise in C# Minor Op. 34
Ravel - La Valse
Scarlatti - Sonatas K491, K466, K141
Ligeti - Etudes
Ravel - Jeux d'eau
Watch for her in a concert hall near you! She's The Real Thing! And not at all hard on the eyes, either.
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