![\"\"](\"\/cm\/images\/\/yuja-wang376x283.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tYuja Wang<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \n\tIt was late: 8:15. Yuja Wang\u2019s recital at Carnegie Hall was supposed to start at 8\u2014which in New York concert terms means 8:05. Was the young Chinese pianist fashionably late or more like strangely late, or rudely late?<\/p>\n \n\tShe certainly had a great program to play. It would begin with Schubert songs, arranged by Liszt. Then move to one of Schubert\u2019s late, great sonatas: the one in A major, D. 959.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter intermission, we could get a slew of Scriabin pieces, ending with the \u201cBlack Mass\u201d Sonata. To close the program\u2014printed program (not taking encores into account)\u2014would be Balakirev\u2019s delightful, fiendish warhorse, Islamey<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tTwo nights before in this hall, Daniil Trifonov had played his own recital. He and Wang are probably the two most sensational young pianists before the public today. Was it a mere coincidence that their Carnegie recitals were scheduled in such close succession? If so, that was quite a coincidence.<\/p>\n \n\tWang played in this hall last month, too: in partnership with Leonidas Kavakos, the violinist. I\u2019m afraid I left after the first half, unable to take anymore. The playing was shockingly bad. Musical feeling was absent. I address this recital, or half of it, in my next \u201cchronicle,\u201d for the magazine.<\/p>\n \n\tAs the lights dimmed last night, the friend sitting next to me proposed a bet: How short would Yuja\u2019s dress be? I thought hip level, approximately. In other words, scarcely a dress at all. My friend thought ankle length.<\/p>\n \n\tWe both won, in a way: Wang came out in a dress that was long on one side but slit on the other\u2014all the way up. This was the side, naturally, facing the audience, as she played. She was essentially naked onstage. The dress was another example of her \u201cstripper-wear,\u201d as I have called it.<\/p>\n \n\tLet not this failure of taste distract from a fact: the fact of Wang\u2019s greatness.<\/p>\n \n\tHer first Schubert-Liszt song was \u201cLiebesbotschaft,\u201d from Schwanengesang<\/em>. It was rippling and gorgeous. The pianist floated across the keys. She gave a demonstration of pure horizontality. The piano was no longer a percussion instrument.<\/p>\n \n\tHow does she do this? And can anyone else now playing do it? Jean-Yves Thibaudet?<\/p>\n \n\tIn the two other songs, she was much the same. She was crystalline, sensitive, and musical. She was utterly composed, with hands and mind in balance. If there was a fault, it was this: Some phrases required a fuller tone, a tone with more body. Wang was occasionally wispy.<\/p>\n \n\tShe began the sonata\u2014D. 959\u2014deep into the keys. She made a robust, masculine sound, and yet one that was warm. This was exactly the right sound. And she played the rest of the first movement with unwavering intelligence. I thought, \u201cThis is a true Schubertian, a true musician.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI also thought of a game: Say the pianist sitting before us were not a brash girl in stripper-wear but an antique, venerable Austro-German Meister<\/em>. What would we think then? Would we be in awe? Do we mark this pianist down because of her youth and appearance?<\/p>\n \n\tThe second movement, Andantino, was gripping. That is because it was perfectly paced. (At least that is a major reason.) Wang showed impeccable judgment.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd I had this thought: \u201cCameras were onstage to film that joint recital with Kavakos. What a waste. That recital should be allowed to die. But where are they now, those cameras?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSchubert\u2019s third movement is the Scherzo, that sprightly, dancing, leaping thing. Never was it more sprightly than in Wang\u2019s hands. And she can leap in time. What I mean is, her technique is so good, she does not have to alter the rhythm, as she leaps. More mortal pianists make little adjustments to account for their limitations.<\/p>\n \n\tAccuracy is not everything in this movement, or in this sonata. But once you\u2019ve heard it played accurately, you think, \u201cThis is better, now that you mention it. Accurate is better than not.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the final movement, Wang captured Schubert\u2019s Gem\u00fctlichkeit<\/em>, his smile, his peaceableness. And once more, she demonstrated her amazing legato, that seemingly impossible horizontality.<\/p>\n \n\tI have a question, and I mean it in earnest: Piano idols like Kempff, Serkin, and Brendel\u2014did they not employ such a legato because they didn\u2019t want to or because they couldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n \n\tIn her Scriabin, Wang was alert, immaculate, and poetic. She and this composer are pretty much made for each other. Outstanding was \u201cEtranget\u00e9,\u201d the second of Scriabin\u2019s Two Poems<\/em>, Op. 63. It was impish, spiky, and mysterious.<\/p>\n \n\tHow about the \u201cBlack Mass\u201d? I have one main criticism, which applies to some of the rest of Wang\u2019s Scriabin: It would have benefited from more intensity\u2014submerged intensity. Buried intensity. The sense of an underlying anxiety. But, listen, it was awfully good.<\/p>\n \n\tIslamey<\/em>, you have heard many times, probably, and so have I. What was different about Wang\u2019s? Its intricacy, its nimbleness, its clarity. Its freakish accuracy. You could have written the score down from this playing. That\u2019s how clear it was. At the same time, the piece had its due excitement.<\/p>\n \n\tHappily, there was a string of encores, basically Wang\u2019s regulars: the Schubert-Liszt \u201cGretchen am Spinnrade\u201d; the Horowitz Carmen<\/em> Variations; the Tatum version of \u201cTea for Two\u201d; etc. \u201cGretchen\u201d built, movingly. \u201cTea for Two\u201d swung, thrillingly. Has any American ever played it more idiomatically than this Chinese girl, who came to our shores as a teenager?<\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019m not sure I have the courage to say how good this piano recital was. Everyone likes to wait for a safe consensus, even the boldest of us. Far better to hail a pianist when she is old and creaking\u2014or, better yet, dead\u2014than when she is young and brash.<\/p>\n \n\tBut, honestly, the musicality we heard last night was as rare as the technique. I can\u2019t think of a single lapse of taste, in two hours of playing, and the playing of a diversity of music, at that. As I was leaving, a fellow critic said to me, \u201cI never would have believed it if I hadn\u2019t been here.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBelieve it. Yuja Wang is more than a flashy pianist baring her bod. She gave the recital of a pianist with a deep, probably innate understanding of music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_651c536113a8e","label":"Featured Image Credits","name":"featured_image_credits","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":0,"_name":"featured_image_credits","_valid":1}},"enable_paywall":{"simple_value_formatted":"No","value_formatted":false,"value":0,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_66009169342f2","label":"Enable Paywall","name":"enable_paywall","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"true_false","value":null,"menu_order":2,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"message":"","default_value":0,"ui":0,"ui_on_text":"","ui_off_text":"","_name":"enable_paywall","_valid":1}}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Jay Nordlinger","author_link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/author\/jay-nordlinger\/"},"featured_img":null,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Dispatch<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Dispatch<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 11 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 12, 2014","modified":"Updated on June 13, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 12, 2014 2:53 pm","modified":"Updated on June 13, 2023 3:37 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["author_meta","featured_img","jetpack_sharing_enabled","jetpack_featured_media_url","coauthors","tax_additional","comment_count","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","series_order","jetpack-related-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113473,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113472\/revisions\/113473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113472"},{"taxonomy":"dispatch-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dispatch-city?post=113472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}