Yuja Wang The Vienna Recital, Albéniz, Scriabin, Kapustin, Beethoven, Ligeti (2024)

The star pianist Yuja Wang releases her latest album with the live recording of her concert from April 2022 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The eclectic program displays once more Wang’s fiery virtuosity, musical imagination and mature musicality in both lesser known and recognised masterpieces by Albéniz, Beethoven, Ligeti and Scriabin. The pianist commented on the selection: “I believe that every program should have its own life and reflect my current feelings.”

Yuja Wang is one of the most technically astounding pianists of our time, with a command of the keyboard matched by sheer muscular strength. Here she turns her attention to Russia and some of its leading pianist-composers. The Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-Tableaux are rich and swirl with passion, while Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata, a work of mystical imaginings, seethes with dangerous life under her fingers. Briefly looking further afield, a group of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s tiny Études diverts the attention magically before Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, his masterpiece in the form, which Wang characterizes with genuine originality and imagination.

Yuja Wang is one of the most technically astounding pianists of our time, with a command of the keyboard matched by sheer muscular strength. Here she turns her attention to Russia and some of its leading pianist-composers. The Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-Tableaux are rich and swirl with passion, while Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata, a work of mystical imaginings, seethes with dangerous life under her fingers. Briefly looking further afield, a group of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s tiny Études diverts the attention magically before Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, his masterpiece in the form, which Wang characterizes with genuine originality and imagination.

Pianist Yuja Wang and composer/conductor Teddy Abrams were classmates at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and had long wanted to work together. The sympathy shows in this 2023 Deutsche Grammophon release, which perhaps turned out even better than the performers had hoped. Abrams' 11-movement Piano Concerto is a standout among the jazz-flavored works that crowd American concert programs (and increasingly those beyond) every year. The work is neither simply swing jazz transferred to an orchestral medium nor a classical piece that uses jazz as a flavoring.