Yuja Wang(pf) のCarnegie Hall debut 評

24歳の若き天才ピアニスト，Yuja Wang は，先日，ハリウッドでミニドレスで演奏して話題になりましたが，実はCarnegie Hall bebut を済ませていなかったようで，やっと先週，それを果たしたそうです．

The New York Times のANTHONY TOMMASINI は好意的な評論を書いています．タイトルの　Flaunting Virtuosity (and More) だけでもその意は尽くされているといえます．

The 24-year-old Chinese pianist Yuja Wang is not above flaunting her uncanny virtuosity. A video of her effortless performance of a seemingly impossible transcription of “Flight of the Bumblebee” has gone viral on YouTube. And though she comes across onstage as somewhat shy, Ms. Wang has a flair for fashion.

since she first emerged, Ms. Wang has proved herself a sensitive and probing artist. At Carnegie Hall on Thursday night she gave her much-anticipated New York recital debut. From the opening piece, an early Scriabin prelude, Ms. Wang played this Chopinesque music, all rippling left-hand figures and dreamy melodic lines, with a delicacy, poetic grace and attention to inner musical details that commanded respect. This was the first of five diverse and wondrously performed Scriabin selections.

After intermission she offered a rhapsodic, uncommonly nuanced account of the formidable Liszt Sonata in B minor. But the most revealing performance came in Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6 in A. Completed in 1940, this nearly 30-minute work channels some barbaric, propulsive, harmonically brittle outbursts into a formal four-movement sonata structure. In most readings, intriguing tension results from hearing music of such aggressive modernism reined in by Neo-Classical constraints.
Ms. Wang reconciled these conflicting elements through a performance of impressive clarity and detail.

まだ続いていますが，いわゆる新世代の天才ピアニストと呼ばれる少数の秀でたピアニストに対する好意的な評論を，あとはご自由に，ご渉猟下さい．
今年，3月5日に紀尾井ホールで彼女を聴く機会が持てたのは今から思えばたいへんラッキーでした．来年も，是非，来日して欲しいモノです．

 

Music Review

Flaunting Virtuosity (and More)

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published: October 21, 2011

 

The 24-year-old Chinese pianist Yuja Wang is not above flaunting her uncanny virtuosity. A video of her effortless performance of a seemingly impossible transcription of “Flight of the Bumblebee” has gone viral on YouTube. And though she comes across onstage as somewhat shy, Ms. Wang has a flair for fashion.

Ruby Washington/The New York Times　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Yuja Wang The 24-year-old performed works by Scriabin, Prokofiev and Liszt at Carnegie Hall.

Still, since she first emerged, Ms. Wang has proved herself a sensitive and probing artist. At Carnegie Hall on Thursday night she gave her much-anticipated New York recital debut. From the opening piece, an early Scriabin prelude, Ms. Wang played this Chopinesque music, all rippling left-hand figures and dreamy melodic lines, with a delicacy, poetic grace and attention to inner musical details that commanded respect. This was the first of five diverse and wondrously performed Scriabin selections.

After intermission she offered a rhapsodic, uncommonly nuanced account of the formidable Liszt Sonata in B minor. But the most revealing performance came in Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 6 in A. Completed in 1940, this nearly 30-minute work channels some barbaric, propulsive, harmonically brittle outbursts into a formal four-movement sonata structure. In most readings, intriguing tension results from hearing music of such aggressive modernism reined in by Neo-Classical constraints.

Ms. Wang reconciled these conflicting elements through a performance of impressive clarity and detail. The first movement begins with a hard-driving theme, like some pumped-up march that trumpets the dissonances embedded into its diatonic harmonies. Though the small-framed Ms. Wang did not have a particularly big sound at the piano, she turned this into a virtue by playing with crystalline tone and myriad rich shadings. In the mysterious second theme, which unfolds in wandering parallel octaves, she brought out subtleties that often slip by in other performances. The marchlike Allegretto had sardonic humor, with its theme in sly staccato chords over a galumphing bass line. She shaped the languid, waltzing slow movement beautifully and dispatched the finale as if it were music Prokofiev had written for a chase scene in a silent film, a fresh and enjoyable approach.

That Ms. Wang played the Liszt work with such technical authority was no surprise. I have heard other accounts that better conveyed the ingenious, if elusive, design of this 30-minute multisectional, single-movement score. But Ms. Wang’s magisterial and dazzling performance made the most of every moment.

There were four encores, all transcriptions, including Ms. Wang’s arrangement of Dukas’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” brilliantly realized.

So what did she wear? Ms. Wang had raised expectations on this question by some of her past choices of attire. Last summer she sported a tight, short orange dress for a performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, provoking comment among critics and fashionistas. But that was Hollywood. For august Carnegie Hall, Ms. Wang looked striking in a simple, elegant black dress, though her shiny stiletto heels were a daring touch. I think she would want it reported that for the second half she changed into a more revealing velvety dress, slit open at the side.

In any event, she is a lovely young woman. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. What matters is that Ms. Wang has got it as a pianist.