10 encores at sensational Yuja Wang London recital
NewsWe’ve received wildly excited responses from Yuja Wang‘s Festival Hall recital last night.
Our man on the spot confides: ‘She played Beethoven’s Op 31/3 with impish humour, Schoenberg’s Op.25 Piano Suite marked a new departure and allowed her to show both musicianship and virtuosity. The Ligeti was out of this world. His ethereal harmonies were wonderful at the beginning of Etude No. 6 and at the end of of No. 13 her hands were at either end of the keyboard and as her hands were removed she sustained the final chord on the pedals. It was a moment of brilliance.
‘After encore no. 4 she indicated there would be one more, but in fact thete were 6 more, including the third movement of Prokofiev’s 7th sonata and Schubert/Liszt’s Elf King.’
I was there; a truly unforgettable recital. Rarely have I attended a concert with such little knowledge of the pieces. Yuja made me think I knew them intimately- pure genius.
Come back soon please !!
OK, so musically it was fantastic. Never doubted it would be. Now, the real questions: what was she wearing and what was everyone looking at?
“Been Here Before” (see above) detected cellulite. Meow! I didn’t see any at Carnegie Hall the other day……….
When there are so many encores, doesn’t it almost become a part of the main recital, making the idea of encores somewhat redundant?
The most effective encores I’ve heard have also been some of the shortest. For example, Mitsuko Uchida’s encore after Schubert’s G major sonata – the 2nd of Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, a sort of a 50 second haiku loosely based around the tonality of G major. I admire Yuja Wang’s playing but I’m pretty sure Uchida said a lot more in those 50 seconds than in the multiple encore extravaganzas I’ve experienced at Wang’s concerts.
I was at a Uchida recital in Maryland with the exact program and encore. I agree it’s an otherworldly Schubert with no encore needed. But my question is why you think everyone and every concert shall be the same? Why “classical music” listeners are always looking for some benchmark uniformity? Don’t they know great music, great musicians and great performances have infinite possibilities and come in all varieties on all levant ?
Dear Fan,
The most intelligent, relevant comment in this thread!! Thank you!
Well said: each of us have our likes and dislikes, and these develop and are informed by the performances we are lucky enough to attend. Each to our own. If i could play like ANY of these artists I would be over the moon!
Your “man on the spot” mustn’t be very reliable in his account if he can’t tell “Elf King” from “Gretchen am Spinnrade”. I wouldn’t trust any single man at RFH last night, honestly, especially the guy that from the choir seats shouted “Yuja, I love you!”, true emotional highlight of the entire recital. And the encores were 9, anyway.
She is one of the brightest stars in our musical firmament.
But what was she wearing?
If she didn’t want you to ask that question she would have tailored her livery accordingly.
It was dazzling. She has changed not just her frock at half-time but what a piano recital can mean. No one else comes close. I have no idea how she can maintain stamina and artistry. She expects so much of herself and gives so much of herself. I think I was most astonished by the series of different mainly modernist sound worlds she created, one after the other, from filigree to thunder. It’s hypnotic. She grips tighter than the fuchsia dress of part 2 (which I may not be allowed to say but Norman would so I’ll leave it). She didn’t leave the stage between piano pieces to recuperate (and lower tension). No water, no handkerchief, no tics; it’s relentless but in a remarkable way. I fear that her tendency to bow so low will lead to her hitting her head on the keyboard one day. I counted 9 encores (over 40 minutes). Chicago only got 8 apparently. She has also added a 2nd Albeniz (Malaga) to the expected programme published almost at the last minute.
It wasn’t sold out. Lots of seat rear stalls. You could easily have got in and you missed out. One of the greatest concerts I’ve witnessed. It surely could be argued that all by herself and with so many notes and colours and so much virtuosity, talent, strength and drive she has out-deaded the Grateful Dead and out-springsteened Springsteen. She should keep a bit more of herself to herself. How do you come down, as a performer, after a concert like the one last night at the RFH? And how many encores will she be doing at the end of this surely record-breaking tour?
Great concert, I thought the Scriabin was particularly outstanding but maybe the Beethoven needed to settle down a bit.
An epic series of encores, I think they were as below but am willing to be corrected! I don’t think she played Erlkönig but did play the Gretchen am Spinnrade.
PHILIP GLASS Etude No 6
BACH Badinerie from Orchestral Suite No 2
BRAHMS Intermezzo in C sharp minor, Op 117 No 3
BIZET (arr. HOROWITZ) Carmen Variations
PROKOFIEV Precipitato from Sonata No 7
SCHUBERT (arr LISZT) Gretchen am Spinnrade
TCHAIKOVSKY Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake
ARTURO MÁRQUEZ Danzón No 2
GLUCK (arr SGAMBATI) Melodie from Orfeo ed Euridice
I am glad to read this.
The Prokofiev “encore” is on YT already.
I shall put Richter aside for a while…not my usual habit though!
I was there and was not impressed. Went to hear what the fuss was all about. I have heard great pianists and she doesn’t come even close.
She did play many encores and the audience was ecstatic, but about half of them also clapped between movements of the Beethoven Sonata, which tells all you need to know.
Her technique is brilliant, but there is not much musical depth. She still has a lot to learn and grow artistically. The lady didn’t even bother to memorize the music.
The recital was dedicated to Radu Lupu. The genuine respect for the great man would be better shown by following his artistic example than name dropping.
For those interested in extra-musical aspects – in the second part she wore a tacky pink gown which revealed her entire thigh and a lot of cellulite. As cheap as it gets.
Last night was not pleasure either for ears or eyes. Definitely not a fan.
Cellulite? On Yuja? Say it ain’t so! She’s too young. Did she play any of the music from memory?
If you read that chap’s comment, the answer is no Yuja didn’t play from memory.
What appalling misogynist claptrap.
Maybe the audience applauded because they enjoyed the performance?
I wonder why you bought a ticket?
You try memorizing the Schoenberg and Ligeti!
It is quite normal to play some 20th (and 21st) century pieces using the music, especially if they’re very complex like the Ligeti, and I’m sure the Schoenberg had loads if notes too.
But standard repertoire should be memorised by professional concert pianists.
I’m just an amateur (although very keen) pianist and I’ve played Beethoven sonata op 31 no 3 from memory myself.
One slight comment on this criticism: “She still has a lot to learn and grow artistically. The lady didn’t even bother to memorize the music.”
Many years ago – heck, many decades ago, it was the early 1970s — the excellent pianist Soulima Stravinsky came to the university I attended and gave a recital entirely of his father’s compositions, most of which Igor had composed for his son to play. The only exception was Soulima’s own arrangement for solo piano of Firebird excerpts, a real virtuoso showpiece. (As a composer Soulima is mostly known for his concerto cadenzas.) There were not 9 encores but there were encores.
Soulima played every piece with the music open in front of him. The music faculty was upset and astounded since this contradicted everything they’d been insisting HAD to be done (and Lord only knows I’d endured plenty of memory slips at their pupil’s recitals, not to mention their own recitals).
The next day, following a masterclass, Soulima had a public Q&A session. Since I knew none of the music majors had the guts to ask this in front of the faculty, I asked about playing from the music. He did not take offense. He simply said he’d been playing these pieces since the day they were written, over 40 years in some cases, and could write them all out on music paper entirely from memory and in fact he always practiced them from memory. But he had long ago decided that when playing in public, if having the music in front of him, even if he never turned a page, gave him a fraction of an ounce more comfort and ease and one less thing to think about or be tense about he was going to do it. It was his personal decision for his own reasons.
This is OT but he also told a funny story about traveling on the same plane as Liberace and seeing all the fuss that was made about Liberace when they arrived, versus not one bit of attention to him, not that he expected any. He said he knew what he himself could do on the piano and had a good notion of what Liberace could do, and he just shrugged his shoulders (wide ones, like his father’s) and smiled.
I agree with playing from the music if it makes one feel.more comfortable during the performance.
However playing or two of the encores from memory would have been nice. I’m referring more to Yuja Wang than to Soulima Stravinsky.
Was this in Champaign- Urbana by any chance?
Didn’t even bother to memorize the music? Shows us how MUCH YOU KNOW!
Playing from memory is not a must. Nowadays that stigma has been well and truly been broken.
Musicians today are far busier than their predecessors. Playing from memory is a trick and doesn’t indicate intimate knowledge of the music.
Playing with the music allows the musician to broaden their repotraire significantly as well. Many great pianists of the past played the same concerti and sonatas over and over again. The modern audience likes variety.
Before everyone drops the hate for this comment, let’s be fair. I, too, went to a Carnegie Hall recital to see/hear for myself. Liebermann “Gargoyles” = brilliant. Haydn Sonata = brilliant fingers and engaging playing, but not much depth or stylistic playing the slow movement. Scriabin Sonata No. 2 = some lovely music making in the first movement but I wanted to hear more form and levels of sound, mostly fingers in the 2nd movement – yes, it is fingers, but you can build an architecture and a real sense of drama as well. Rachmaninoff Sonata No. 2 = brilliant fingers again, but the form and harmonic tension were lost, and the melodic line crunched in the 2nd movement. 5 encores = some of them really wonderful, some not so much. I envy her ability to play anything and everything with seeming effortlessness, and congratulations to her on her career. She is terrific in certain repertoire. To each their own. And it doesn’t bother me at all if someone plays with the score.
This is exactly what I imagine a mediocre pianist would sound like commenting on another pianist’s performance. Let’s hope audience recordings exist and they surface in great numbers. Given the venue involved I’m sure they do.
I’m sure it was either Yuja or Helene Grimaud who played the Berg Sonata with the score in 2011 when I saw them both at the Wiener Konzerthaus. No probs.
“Her technique is brilliant, but there is not much musical depth.”
I don’t want to be uncharitable, but……
Is it possible that a program of unfamiliar pieces by Schoenberg, Ligeti, Albéniz, and Kapustin is simply a bit too hard for you?
Please we are not interested in your extra musical comments on the pianist’s thigh. As to playing with the music I can remember hearing a Mozart concerto played by the great Clifford Curzon at the RFH many years ago. Guess what? He played from the music with a page turner! But according to you that made him rubbish?
>>”about half of them also clapped between movements of the Beethoven Sonata, which tells all you need to know.”
Beethoven would have been surprised if they _didn’t_ clap between movements.
So bad that you persisted to the end?
Memorizing the music is an excellent tool, but not an indispensable one. In his last decades, Sviatoslav Richter had a score in front of him.
We’ve worked and toured with Yuja many times. And the respect she gets from hard bitten pros is extraordinary. Because she is extraordinary! Encores such as the Elf King, are literally churned out like a very expensive killing machine, which happens to have musical taste, instinct, magic and never boring.
Yes, her concert wear is rather controversial, but what a breath of fresh air Yuja brings to the profession. Work with her, then criticise!
..but most of “hard bitten” pros are left-anterior-insula-less narcissistic grotesque circus acts themselves.
It would be nice if the practice of playing from memory disappeared entirely. There’s no necessary connection between freedom from memory faults and musical excellence. Playing from memory is comparable to an acrobatic feet that audiences have been conditioned to see. It has no relation to the quality of the playing. Electronic tablets have made it possible for great pianists like Angela Hewitt to play from a score even in very standard repertoire. The use of a score is not a sign that she is unfamiliar with the music she is playing
If playing from a score leads to inferior performances, do you find all orchestral and chamber music concerts unsatisfactory? Are you upset that recordings are not accompanied by a guarantee that no scores were used in their production?
“I was there and was not impressed”
So wasted your money… right? Ha.. ha..
“a lot of cellulite”
If you ever wonder why you are a lonely angry man, just show your comment to anyone’s daughter and you know why…
I was not there but I’m sure you’re probably right. Yes, a musically informed audience would not clap between movements of a sonata.
A pity she seemed to dedicate her concert to the great pianist Radu Lapu more for the sake of name dropping.
I thought that the Ligeti was brilliantly played, according to Norman Lebrecht.
Meant to add that I upvoted your answer to counteract so many thumbs down!
I had no idea that stating the obvious would be met with so much hostility. My comment must have contained at least a grain of truth, for if it were a complete nonsense it would have simply been ignored.
Just over the last couple of years, recitals by Kissin, Trifonov, Ohlsson and Hamelin left me in awe, levels above anything I have heard on Wednesday. And going farther back, YW is a little mouse compared to Pogorelich in his heyday.
Concerning memorization, I can give her a pass for Schoenberg and Ligeti, but for everything else I would expect a pianist at that level not to play with the score.
I am not a misogynist. I love and admire women. Compare YW’s style to Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, Eva Green or Queen Rania and the difference is obvious. Heck, even Melania Trump has more class.
To all the people out there who think I am an ignoramus – drop by the Wigmore Hall sometimes. Less flash, better music. There are many world class artists who deserve more public attention than YW.
And to those who will come after me for not mentioning any female artists…
Several weeks ago Mitsuko Uchida performed Beethoveen 4 with Jurowski and the London Philharmonic – a true masterclass in the art of the great composer.
And just before the lockdown, in February ’20, if I remember well, Beatrice Rana presented a recital at the Wigmore Hall. The works by Albeniz and Stravinsky she played after the intermission were of equal or perhaps even higher difficulty than anything on YW’s program. And yep, she played everything from memory.
At the reception in the Green Room afterwards, Rana looked as relaxed as if she just returned from a stroll. I also overheard her saying that Stravinsky was a bit too intellectual for her.
These are women I love and admire.
No need for that! Sounds like a, circus. Do your Programme, offer one encore, not a second piano recital, and then go home!!
Daniel Barenboim gave 8 encores last time I heard his recital at Carnegie Hall a few years ago. Piano recitals CAN be entertainment! Mozart, Beethoven Liszt all knew this.
FWIW IMO there are a number of better pianists than Barenboim, but when it comes to a live recital, Barenboim was almost unbeatable in his heyday – with the sole exception of Pollini playing 3 Movements from Petrushka. (I’ve only seen Trifonov playing concerti so far.)
So did Richter in Leipzig nov 1963-not 8 but close to that number.
Andras Schiff simply wouldn’t leave the stage when I saw him a decade ago at the Wiener Konzerthaus!! The audience was departing while he was still on a 3rd or 4th encore.
I think up to 3 encores is fine, if the audience are really shouting for one, but not 9. I wasn’t there though.
Hooray!
Well, now I feel hard done by as we only got 6 encores at Carnegie Hall! Nevertheless, it was a concert of stunning virtuosity and Yuja Wang was her usual charming self. I have never seen an artist take one bow and then “just get on with it” like this. Of course the audience was full of fans and would have applauded so much it would have added 15 minutes to the overall timing of the concert. However, a 2 hour piano recital is generous. Some “thorny” repertoire too. Her Scriabin sonata made me want her to record the Debussy preludes – pronto Ms Wang please!
So many encores! Surely, less is more!
No, more is more, and don’t call me Shirley!
Meanwhile, in San Francisco earlier this year, we got a grand total of zero encores even after 3 curtain calls. Mood?
Does anyone know who wrote that Bach transcription encore? Thanks
The “Badinerie” trinscraption is probably based on Cyprien Katsaris’ jazzy take, itself rather leaning on Volodos-type figuration. Yuja usually adds her own sauce to any encore, so…..
With nine encores you’re looking at an All You Can Eat recital.
Wow, what a stunning assessment of her performance!! Wish I’d been there. The woman has extraordinary gifts.
I trained as a classical pianist from a young age. I always felt having the score in front of me during performance was a barrier. There is you, the instrument and the audience. Why add anything additional? Pollini played the Boulez sonatas from memory.
Interesting info, all this seems refreshingly different. Is there some kind of Yuja renaissance happening at the moment? Lots of new energy and inspiration? I certainly hope so….