Pianist Yuja Wang last appeared in Davies Symphony Hall this past January, when she performed as concerto soloist with Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) conducting the San Francisco Symphony. Over the quarter-century of following Wang’s concert appearances, I had found her to be one of the most consistently satisfying performers I had encountered. Sadly, that consistency was shattered by a slam-bang approach to Franz Liszt’s first piano concerto in E-flat major for which Wang and MTT were partners in crime.
Last night I returned to Davies for Wang’s solo recital, and I regret to report that the listening experience was equally dissatisfying. This was more than a little ironic in light of the imaginative attention that went into the program she prepared. Each half of the program consisted of three compositions, the first from the nineteenth century, followed by two from the twentieth. Furthermore, the nineteenth-century offerings were stretched across a wide distance, with the third of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 31 sonatas in E-flat major, composed in 1802, at one end and Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 23 (third) piano sonata in F-sharp minor, composed in 1898, at the other. The twentieth-century composers in the first half were Arnold Schoenberg and György Ligeti, and those in the second half were Isaac Albéniz and Nikolai Kapustin.
The Scriabin sonata was probably the one selection that offered more than a few glimpses of sensitivity. This is the only four-movement piano sonata that Scriabin composed, and there was no break in the transition between the third and fourth movements. (After the fourth sonata, Opus 30 in F-sharp major, the remaining six sonatas were all single-movement without key specification.) Wang was not shy in approaching the intensity of Scriabin’s rhetoric, but there was a sense of keen focus on the music guiding her interpretation that made this an absorbing and satisfying listening experience.
Sadly, the rest of the program tended to be dominated by dispositions at their most extreme, more often than not overshadowing any expressiveness residing in the marks on paper (or, in Wang’s case, images on the screen). Where the Beethoven sonata was concerned, one might have been able to imagine that the composer himself may also have exaggerated expressiveness in his own interpretation for performance. Indeed, as deafness began to overcome him, such exaggeration may have been his only remaining connection to the music. What motivated Wang to pursue similar extremes is anyone’s guess.
The work on the program that probably suffered the most was Schoenberg’s Opus 25 suite, which is probably one of the better examples of the composer’s most disciplined approach to his twelve-tone technique. However, as Virgil Thomson once observed in an article for The New York Review of Books, the real music in Schoenberg’s compositions emerged from his rhythms, rather than his pitch selections. Opus 25 is an excellent case in point, since it reflects on those dance forms that were so familiar to Johann Sebastian Bach in his suites. Sadly, there was no sense of expressive rhythm in Wang’s performance, let alone any suggestion that most of the movement titles referred to dance forms. Her focus seemed to be entirely one of which keys were depressed at which times; and, as might be guessed, any sense of emotional dispositions had vanished entirely.
The closest those dispositions had come to the surface were best found in the final work on the program, two of the movements from Kapustin’s Opus 53, entitled 24 Preludes in the Jazz Style. This was clearly also a nod at Bach. However, there was more than enough expressive rhythm in Kapustin’s “jazz style” to blow away the dust that had accumulated over Wang’s approach to Schoenberg. One could also tell from her physical disposition that she was much more “at home” with Kapustin than she had been with Schoenberg; and, in that comfort zone, she even allowed a few shadows of Bach to be cast over her keyboard.
Almost as engaging was her approach to two of the études selected from the set composed by Ligeti. Her intense focus on getting every note in its proper place was appropriate for her second selection, “L’escalier du diable” (the devil’s staircase, an imaginative attempt to turn an optical illusion into music). On the other hand, the “Automne à Varsovie” (autumn in Warsaw) movement was far more expressive in Ligeti’s conception; but Wang seemed to care about little more than making sure that every note was in its proper place. Nevertheless, her account of Ligeti’s Polish impressions was more convincing than the Spanish sentiments found in the “Lavapiés” (named after a neighborhood in Madrid) movement from Albéniz’ Iberia collection.
I must confess that I lost count of the number of encores Wang took. None were announced. My guess is that, except for one of the Philip Glass études, all of the selections were bravura arrangements of familiar sources. The one for the final movement (Badinerie) of Bach’s BWV 1067 orchestral suite may have deserved a price for “furthest over the top;” but it was quickly lost in the shuffle through the other encores.
Nevertheless, Wang played to a full house. The majority of the attendees seemed to have loved every minute of it. Who am I to complain?
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