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Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Distler, and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  recordings.
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  Well, I hope it's friendly, at least friendly enough.
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  I wrote the booklet notes to a release that came out on Deutsche Grammophon that contains
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  the pianist Yu-Ju Wang's 2022 Vienna recital.
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  Because I wrote the notes, I couldn't review it anywhere, but I can certainly talk about
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  this release.
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  There are a few small details that need to be addressed, because the recital on disc
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  is billed as a concert from the Konzerthaus in Vienna.
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  But the album deviates from the original program in several ways.
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  For example, she played the Suite for Piano Opus 25 by Arnold Schoenberg, but it's not
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  on this disc.
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  And that's a pity, because I would have given anything to hear how such a gifted pianist
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  as Yu-Ju Wang would approach such repertoire.
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  And the piece Lava Pies from Iberia by Albanias actually closed the recital, but it appears
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  at the halfway mark on this disc, as I will be talking about pretty soon.
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  And she played 10 encores on the recital, but only four of them are represented on this
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  disc.
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  But still, the contents are typical of the kind of eclectic and wide-ranging programs
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  that have generally made up Yu-Ju Wang solo releases.
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  She doesn't seem to be a pianist from whom we'd expect, say, an all Schumann disc or
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  a disc of only Schubert sonatas.
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  She likes to mix things up.
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  And I think that's really great.
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  So let's just go through this disc in running order.
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  She opens with Malaga from Iberia of Albanias, and it's very beautifully played, very transparent.
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  I really like this performance a lot.
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  Next is the Skriopin III piano sonata.
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  You can't deny Yu-Ju Wang's flair for tone color, and her soft playing is really gorgeous,
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  and it really holds your attention.
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  I am a little bothered by how she futzes around with the pulse and the allegretto.
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  And the concluding presto con fuoco movement to my ears lacks something of a heroic edge.
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  I usually prefer more driving and forthright interpretations that are more of one piece.
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  Let's say the Vladimir Ashkenazi recording is a good example of what I mean, or the old
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  Horowitz mono recording.
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  She plays two preludes by Nikolai Kapustin, who was a composer who was famous for his
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  written out jazz, all of his compositions, or at least most of the compositions that
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  are known, especially those for piano, sound like wonderful jazz improvisations, except
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  they're through composed.
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  She plays these pieces very idiomatically.
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  If I were her, I would give a little more oomph to the bass lines, because then that
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  would be even more idiomatic.
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  And then we have the Lavapiess from Iberia.
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  And it's a good performance, although I think some of the accents are a little fey and
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  a little mincing.
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  I guess the word cutesy comes to mind.
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  But speaking of cute, I can kind of tolerate the playfulness and the little bits of overphrasing
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  and attention getting accents in the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata in E flat,
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  opus 31, number three.
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  Yu Jiwang's transitions in this movement are not exactly subtle, but she does play those
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  rapid runs exactly in tempo without any adjustment, and that's rather thrilling to hear.
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  Maybe it's less of an interpretation than a titillation.
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  I don't know.
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  Yu Jiwang delights in distending some of the scherzo's dotted rhythms, and she actually
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  starts this movement out at a faster tempo, and she very, very slightly slows down as
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  the performance progresses.
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  That's not a criticism, it's an observation.
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  The minuet is appropriately grattioso, and there are a few little arch phrasings that
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  draw more attention to Yu Jiwang than Ludwig van Beethoven.
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  Now given her amazing virtuosity, I would have expected the presto confuoco finale to
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  go like a bat out of hell, but surprisingly she really doesn't push the music.
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  If you want to hear this movement foam at the mouth and go to the races, then you have
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  to hear Sviatoslav Richter, especially in his live Prague recording from 1965.
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  That's like a horse with blinders on.
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  Whoa, baby.
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  It's a great performance.
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  Next, we have two etudes of Ligeti, the Autumn of Varsovie and Lescalier du Diable, and
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  Yu Jiwang is an incredible Ligeti player.
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  She gets through these etudes with absolutely no effort, and with the utmost suppleness
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  and multi-dimensional textural variety.
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  She has played other Ligeti etudes on disc before, either in the studio or live, and
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  all of these are absolutely world-class performances, and I hope that she will eventually get through
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  all of the Ligeti etudes, because if she does and she maintains this level of playing, they
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  would become the version of reference for sure.
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  She also plays a piece called D'un son n°2 by Arturo Marquez, and I don't find this
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  piece very interesting at all.
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  I do find interesting her interpretation of the C minor inter mezzo, opus 117, n°3, of
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  Brahms, because on one hand it's a serious and grounded performance, but then there are
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  these romantic touches such as arpeggiating chords that are not supposed to be arpeggiated,
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  and there are diminuendos on certain phrases where Brahms did not write diminuendos.
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  It's a more melody-oriented performance than, let's say, what you would hear from Emmanuel
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  Axe, who builds Brahms textures from the bottom up with more attention to bass lines.
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  But this kind of melody-oriented Brahms I think is very valid, and Vladimir Horowitz
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  played Brahms this way.
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  Horowitz did not play this piece, but he did record the opus 117, n°2.
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  There's a live performance of that, and I would put Yu-Ju Wang and Horowitz in the same
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  category as far as the Brahms opus 117.
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  The final piece on the disc is the melody from Gluck's Orfeo et Iuredice.
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  It's in the famous Scambatti transcription.
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  You can't fault Yu-Ju Wang's amazing ability to separate melody and accompaniment, as if
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  these elements are stemming from two different instruments, but I do find her tempo a little
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  too fast, and there's kind of a restlessness about her phrasing.
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  For instance, when the accompaniment continues without a melody over it, she tends to hustle
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  the accompaniment along, like putting it a little bit on fast forward.
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  And I think you need to be more patient and more expansive.
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  Just listen to that old recording of this transcription by Agon Petrie on 78s.
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  You can find it reissued on the APR label.
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  Listen to Agon Petrie, and you are in a whole other world.
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  What is that telephone doing ringing in the background?
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  I'm not going to pick it up.
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  I think it's a sales call.
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  It's certainly not a listener of this podcast.
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  Okay, please stop telephone.
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  Are you going to stop?
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  Thank you.
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  Anyway, on the whole, there are a lot of wonderful things about Yuja Wong and her Vienna recital.
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  She still strikes me as an unpredictable musician, but as a pianist, she is abundantly, abundantly
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  gifted, and she can do whatever she wants at the piano.
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  And when she's on her greatest form, she is just sensational.
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  This is Jed Dissler for the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  Thank you for tuning in, and I wish you happy listening.