Review: Lang Lang and Yuja Wang at Disney Hall: the piano recital made modern

Lang Lang and Yuja Wang are absolutely our two hottest and trend-setting classical pianists. They gave nearly back-to-back recitals at Walt Disney Live performance Corridor on Sunday and Wednesday nights, respectively, and drew expectably giant, excited crowds.

Comparisons are odious however apparent. Each pianists are Chinese language and of the identical era: Lang Lang is developing on 40, and Wang turned 35 this yr. Each are extremely image-conscious. Each have seemingly superhuman strategies. Each get pleasure from (and encourage) pop-star-style fan bases. Each have tried, with various success, to beat the sniffy fees of flashiness.

The very fact is, they are flashy. However they occur to be distinctive musicians who take themselves very severely. Each are merchandise of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and revere custom. All through their careers, every has sought to work repeatedly with — and study from — a number of the world’s most excellent musicians.

A lot for similarities. Variations imply extra. Neither pianist sounds something like the opposite. They phrase otherwise. Their personalities are dissimilar. Their musical types mesh so little that it’d show splendidly dramatic to listen to them play two-piano repertory.

Lang Lang performed Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations. Wang started the 2 halves of her program with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 31, No. 3, and Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 3. But their concepts about what a proper piano recital could possibly be and the way acquainted repertory may be performed had been radically opposed.

Lang Lang introduced that his night could be Bach’s “Goldbergs,” which may final considerably over an hour (and his lasted considerably longer than that). Nonetheless, for no matter motive, he began with Schumann’s brief “Arabesque.” Maybe he agreeably selected to make life simpler for our photographer, provided that the pianist permits solely the primary couple of minutes of his efficiency to be shot. Or possibly he was in a moon-besotted temper and wished to indicate to what diploma he may milk Schumann of the final dregs of romantic fancy. The consequence was weird but stunning.

All through the variations, Lang Lang sprinted and he stalled. He rushed by contrapuntal thickets, like a rabbit hopping within the woods, and slowed to a snail’s tempo in minor-keyed variations. By the point he reached the “Ouverture,” the center level 16^th variation, it felt like an exhausting hour had handed. The pianist appeared drained. However he had simply begun.

He introduced a hugeness to the “Ouverture” after which went on to create every kind of latest pianistic wonders in passages the place his fingers had been however a blur, and Bach’s convoluted strains proceeded sooner than my mind may course of.

I don’t know the way he did it a lot of the time. I don’t know why he did what he did a number of the time. However these “Goldbergs” had been enthralling for being daringly over-the-top. The dressy crowd, lots of whom could effectively have been drawn by Lang Lang’s superstar, sat in inspirational silence. As soon as the efficiency ended, there was an eruption of coughing simply earlier than the eruption of ovations. Lang Lang clearly created a communal want for silence that impressed suppression of bodily wants.

Wang, for her recital, didn’t announce her program upfront or on the stage. She wished her viewers to pay attention with out expectation. With out asserting it, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which introduced the recital, posted this system on its web site after the actual fact.

After all, there was the expectation that Wang would put on a memorable robe. Sufficient has been stated about her outfits, however now that she guards her picture to the purpose of requiring photograph approval (an unacceptable demand for The Instances or some other accountable information outlet), there might be no displaying why the viewers gasped when she walked out in what appeared like a strikingly revealing formal black unitard.

Her taking part in was, even for her, electrifying, and, after all, she stored everybody guessing. The place Lang Lang is a melodist, Wang is marvel of rhythm. Her Beethoven was brilliant, brittle and marked by dramatic contrasts. Her viewers was extra casual and raucous than Lang Lang’s. Somebody shouted out, sarcastically, “Did you write that?” on the finish of the sonata.

Schoenberg’s Suite, Op. 25, an instance of his early supposedly ungracious 12-tone type, is simply the factor to maintain conventional audiences away. Wang gave it a theatrical hard-metal rhythmic swag that introduced cheers.

In a pair of piano etudes by György Ligeti that adopted, her technical brilliance might need verged on the machinelike, besides that she made it greater than evident {that a} dwelling, respiration human was seated at keyboard. Like Lang Lang, it wasn’t for musical mortals to know the way she did it, however the why was simple. She made Ligeti sound precisely how he will need to have meant his etudes to sound if solely there have been somebody resembling Wang who may make that occur.

For the second half, Wang, in a extra standard robe, performed Scriabin like Vladimir Horowitz’s Scriabin, unfussy however filled with glittery dramatic stress. The brief set ended with a Spanish showpiece from Albèniz’s “Iberia” and two preludes by Nikolai Kapustin, who died in 2020 and is often known as a jazz-inspired Russian composer. He was, nevertheless, born in Horlivka, Ukraine, and like Prokofiev and lots of different Ukrainian artists in the course of the existence of the Soviet Union, wound up in Moscow.

Wang’s six encores wove by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Philip Glass, Michael Tilson Thomas, Arturo Marquez and Kapustin. Right here, she allowed herself to turn out to be excessive. Glass’ Piano Etude No. 6 was distinctive in its dramatic contrasts. Her personal association of Marquez’s “Danzón No. 2,” a Gustavo Dudamel favourite (that runs by the brand new documentary “¡Viva Maestro!”) demonstrated that she has a Horowitzian aptitude for piano writing.

Ultimately, Lang Lang and Wang do have one crucial factor in frequent. They’re, every of their particular person methods, freshening and modernizing the piano recital, attracting a fashionable viewers within the course of. It’s a welcome signal of renewal.