Transformation

To say that there are a lot of talented young pianists vying for the attention of listeners just now is an understatement. Yet Yuja Wang has already attracted particular praise (including last year's Gramophone Young Artist Award) and on this latest album she more than justifies it.

Not for Yuja Wang the mandatory selection of Chopin preludes and ballades; instead, she's chosen a theme, Transformation, here realised in various forms: most obviously, Brahms' famously tortuous Variations on a Theme by Paganini, but also Ravel's deconstruction of the waltz in La Valse, and most impressively, the gradual humanisation of the puppet in Stravinsky's Petrushka (and its subsequent reversion to wood). Wang's command and artistry is never in doubt right from the opening Allegro Giusto section, described in delicate little left-hand runs against a pointilliste upper-register, the combination lifting the piece in a weightless, dizzying dance.

Stravinsky’s 'Trois Mouvements de ‘Pétrouchka', Brahms’s 'Paganini Variations', and Ravel’s 'La Valse' are all fearsome challenges, requiring pinpoint control of every corner of the keyboard and finger independence that borders on the impossible. When so much of the artist’s attention has to be on accuracy, rhythm, and clarity, there’s little room left over for musical imagination and only the greatest can emerge with a real profile; here Wang shows herself to be among the elite.

It’s extremely unlikely that the piece has been written that Yuja Wang can’t play. For her, there is no repertoire too steep to conquer. The technique is simply off the charts.