Deutsche Grammophon’s latest young keyboard discovery, 21-year-old Yuja Wang, offers a debut program designed for listeners to perceive conceptual and emotional interconnections between sonatas by Chopin (B-flat minor), Scriabin (G-sharp minor), and Liszt (B minor), with two Ligeti etudes thrown in for contrasting palette cleansers.
The Scriabin and Ligeti selections stand out. Wang grasps the full measure of Scriabin’s over-the-top rhetoric and lush textures, and flawlessly aligns Ligeti’s chattering asymmetrical patterns so that each color, each balance, and each accent occurs precisely as the pianist wishes. However, her Chopin and Liszt prove less persuasive.
What is the reference tempo for the rubatos in the Chopin first-movement/second-subject? By contrast, Wang tosses off the following triplet chords in a glib, uninflected manner. The pianist’s large hands grasp the Scherzo’s outer sections with full-bodied assurance (what decisive, accurate leaps!), yet the Trio’s affected de-synchronized melody/accompaniment alignment and slightly meandering pulse come off like a modern pianist trying to be a romantic pianist, and not quite cutting the mustard. However, the Funeral March’s dominant tolling left-hand chords and delicate lyrical shaping justify Wang’s basic slow tempo. Some of the finale’s “wind over the grave” unisons blur to a fault, and the concluding B-flat minor chord is not loud enough to register surprise or the shock of finality.
In the Liszt sonata Wang’s microscopic focus on detail often pulls attention from the music’s organic, paragraphic sweep. Cases in point: her mannered elongation of the repeated-note motive (Arrau pulls this off more sincerely and musically); overarticulated accompanimental figurations; and a sagging, lyrical D major theme. The fughetta is expertly voiced yet slightly safe and studio-bound next to the supple fury that Leon Fleisher generates, to give but one example. And although Wang navigates the difficult octave passages with the utmost ease, I miss Argerich’s demonic risk-taking, Arrau’s tonal majesty, or, among recent favorites, Yundi Li’s incisive glitter. Still, Wang obviously is a thinking virtuoso with tremendous potential, and I look forward to hearing more of her work.
