UKH

I must confess I hadn’t heard of Yuja Wang until I put the TV on for a Prom concert earlier this week. The first jaw dropping moment was when she appeared on the stage in the most extraordinary dress I have ever seen for a classical performance. Then the music started. More dropping of jaws. She performed Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. It must have been a world record and about 5 minutes faster than the previous best. Does there seem to be a trend towards playing everything at breakneck speed, or is it just my perception? Last week we went to a performance by the Chiaroscuro String Quartet. The programme notes included ”Beethoven as you’ve never heard it before”. Among other things they played Razumovsky 2. The 1st and 4th movements brought whole new meanings to allegro and presto. A rather staid looking lady next to me didn’t clap at all at the end, while a lot of the audience were ecstatic.

I didn’t really know what to think about either of these high speed performances, but couldn’t help but admire the technique and they were both memorable. As was Yuja Wang’s dress. I cannot begin to describe it - you’ll just have to get on to Iplayer, as will I for a reprise.

Yes, she is one of the top, if the top, piano virtuosos in the world today. The combination of her technical ability, IQ and Rachmaninov's genius produces something special. When she plays fast, one can't really see what she is doing - almost like sleight-of-hand conjuring than piano playing. But she also plays the slow passages with great feeling.

Just shy of 23 minutes which is about the same length as Ashkenazy's 1987 recording with the LSO, which is the one I'm most familiar with, and also Rubinstein's with Chicago. Fabulous performance, but not atypically fast.

She's a demon. Really loved this performance of Chopin's 24 Preludes:

youtube.com/watch?v=pSpf9bKK_Zk&

Last year I had the honour of watching Professor Leslie Howard perform a 1 hour recital of various Liszt pieces from a distance of approximately 1.8 metres. At times, his fingers were moving so quickly that they started to create a similar optical effect to that seen in movies shot on film where the frame rate can't keep up with the real motion. But this was with my own eyes. I've never experienced that elsewhere...yet.

The Guardian styled her megastar pianist and “elfin, spiky-haired fashionista”. Seems pretty spot on.

I too have not heard her before and was very impressed; lightness of touch, elegance and simplicity, lots of emotion, and power aplenty when required.

The sound quality of the iplayer recording was superb. Things have come on a bit since the days of Ashkenazy and Previn.

One thing that somewhat annoys me with lesser players is that they have to be the soloist all the time, and in Rachmaninov sometimes it's very important to let the orchestra do their 'washing waves of sound' thing and just be an accompanist. On the telly, it's next to impossible to see if the soloist is doing that well or not, because someone is likely to be fiddling with sliders in a back room!

Apparently she's done a critically acclaimed Hammerklavier - must try and find that somewhere. In other news, apparently Mäkelä is her boyfriend

I am confused, what you quote reads (to me at least) as somewhat pejorative, making a point of instantly taking about the playing. But the rest of your post is very praiseworthy 

Yuja Wang has been coming to the proms, for a few years (I'm a season ticket holder, and stand in the arena). She has always been a show-person. She has never been the very best pianist. I would say that title fits with people like Charles Owen, Benjamin Grosvenor and Leif Ove Andsnes. There are lots of brilliant women in the past, but they are fading a little, such as the Labeque sisters.

Actually, Yuja was less glamorous this year (I was stood about 2.5 metres from her), but her piano technique was far better than on previous occasions.

There are up and ascending further pianists, such as Isata Kanneh-Mason, and Jan Lisiecki, and the young winner of the Leeds piano festival, whose name escapes me, who stood in with 48 hours notice, to do Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto at the RAH.

The Chiaroscuro quartet are great, and have done a lot of Haydn quartet recording.

Their violinist Alina Ibragimova, is a wonderful violinist. You won't get much better than them. She was previously married to Radio3 presenter, Tom Service.

Re the Chiaroscura Quartet: when I looked at the programme I recognised Ibragimova’s name and realised I had seen her perform before, maybe as much as a decade ago. For a few years PC there was the somewhat pompously titled Ulverston International Music Festival and she had performed a gig with a pianist whose name eludes me. I can, however, remember being entranced by her playing and particularly her performance of the second Ravel sonata, the one with jazz blues idiom. I’m guessing she wouldn’t be attracted to play at such a low key (but still delightful) venue as the Coro in Ulverston now. But the quartet did play at Lake District Summer Music this year, in the parish church at Ambleside (population 1,500). We are truly blessed musically in this area.

Sorry for typos and general gibberish there! I meant to say that the Guardian quote is strongly NOT about the playing (I am maybe lacking some context). Anyway, never mind me

Well perhaps you feel that serious concert pianists shouldn't dress up like elfin spiky haired fashionistas, but I'm afraid to say that the audience at the Prom who had queued for hours did not agree with you!

I don't have a strong view as I'm more interested in the playing, but it made for a great show, and what's not to like?

E2A: our posts crossed! Np.

As I’m sure you know, a performance is part musical interpretation and part show. Ms Wang is only the latest of pianist/performers - from far back as Liszt and probably before - to put on a spectacle as well as playing the notes. They don’t all have to be Alfred Brendel (who I love but I’m glad not all pianists are like him). 
 

I enjoyed the show and the playing although I was really there for the Walton in the second half!

for my last recital at a piano summer school I dressed up as discount superhero Lidl Man

The Walton Belshazzar's Feast, was brilliant. 

I loved the antiphonal effects with the brass near the end.

There's a similarly named Stamford International music festival....

Yet before that, the Chiaroscura Quartet played at Stamford Arts Centre, which only seats about 150-200 people, in a lovely ballroom. So we all got their autographs, and spent a fair amount of time talking to them, and to Tom Service. 

We, like you, are strangely well served musically, just in Stamford. (Steven Hough, and Angela Hewitt have played here, as well as some of the smaller orchestral setups, and people like Fretwork).

I think that Alina Ibragimova plays quite a bit with another Russian pianist: I saw them in the past at the Wigmore Hall. I too cannot remember his name.

This has been an experience! Here is the Hammerklavier:

youtube.com/watch?v=iQ5qJrtxWzs&

There is also a lengthy review / interview / profile by Janet Malcolm in the New Yorker published at the same time - well worth a read.

It's not a piece I would want to listen to everyday, but the somewhat increased tempo she picks for the first movement creates drama and excitement which she carries through the rest of the piece.

Thanks for posting this Rog.

She goes out with the conductor, Klaus Makela. IIRC, he conducted at the proms last year, and my Father In Law was with us and he didn’t like the performance because he said: “he’s just too fast, he often is.” He’s 85 and has dementia but can remember stuff.  And she does seem to really go for it, and even a minuscule change in speed can make it better or worse. For me, it felt almost too fast. Impressive and enjoyable though. 

Klaus Makela was the conductor of the BBC symphony orchestra that was cited originally by the OP on the night of Friday 4th August. He is the young Finnish conductor, whom I saw conducting Finlandia last year, in charge of the Oslo symphony orchestra. I totally disagree about it being too fast.

I think that he is great, and I'm not one to adopt a young musician as a favourite very readily. I bought his album of all of Sibelius' symphonies. It is a wonderful recording. My favourite of those works. 

I did wonder about their relationship, on the night of the concert. She is a little older than him.

Ooh! Your prejudices are showing!

Well, just to clarify, she is 36, and 9 years older than him.

To put you in my picture, when I was just a little older than him, I had a girlfriend, who was 16 years older than me, and she was lovely, and brilliant. But an end comes to all good things sometimes....

I read this as "Huge Wang" 

Is it a comedy name.  

Aka Biggus Dickus.

I'm glad someone finally had the courage to ask!

One thing I learnt in my teaching career was NEVER make fun of people’s names, even if they’re called Tanya Hyde or Annette Curtin.

Nice story. Sorry, I’m an inveterate leg puller. As was the message of The Graduate, a young man can learn a lot from an older woman 

Or Ivor Hardon,  or Genna Taylor

My Ex-Wife's mother apparently knew someone called Ophelia Fanny Cox...

Sara Cox named her son Isaac, a particularly cruel move, I thought.