Yuja Wang's Second Recital Album Transformation Available April 13th by Deutsche Grammophon

By -

Album Includes Works by Stravinsky, Scarlatti, Brahms and Ravel

Yuja Wang's debut CD, "Sonatas & Etudes": The more you listen to it the more stunning her performance becomes; these amazing pieces become absolutely breath-taking. - Interchanging Idioms

Pianist Yuja Wang's highly anticipated second solo recital recording, Transformation, will be released by Deutsche Grammophon on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. The album comprises three movements from Pétrouchka by Stravinsky; Scarlatti's Sonata in E major K. 380, Andante comodo and Sonata in F minor/C major K. 466, Andante moderato; Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Paganini op. 35, Books I & II; and Maurice Ravel's La Valse. The album follows Yuja's critically acclaimed debut recording, Sonatas & Etudes, which was nominated for a Grammy® Award in the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra) category and named Best Debut Album of 2009 by International Piano magazine.

For her second recital album Yuja chose a program of piano transcriptions of works written for either a different instrument or for symphony orchestra. This idea of taking a work and re-working it for the piano fits with Yuja's musical ideals: "For me, conveying the music through the piano is more important than the instrument itself. The music is what interests and intrigues me."

The concept of the album is further explained in the recording's liner notes by Michael Church: "Yuja Wang's title for her recording reflects the Buddhist idea that life consists of constant change, and she finds its musical rationale in Brahms transforming his theme 27 times, Ravel transforming the waltz by testing it to destruction, and Stravinsky's puppet Petrushka being temporarily transformed into a human being before finally reverting to puppethood."

Transformation opens with Stravinsky's own adaptation of three movements from his ballet, Pétrouchka. Rather than simply transcribe the orchestral version, Stravinsky sought to compose purely pianistic music. The finished score, some of the most difficult in the solo piano repertoire, was written for Arthur Rubinstein and gives the pianist ample opportunities to showcase technical virtuosity. Ravel also transcribed his own orchestral work La Valse for solo piano, but without the overt purpose of providing a technical showpiece. His re-interpretation of the Viennese waltz for piano is a work of immense instrumental color and ambience. The Brahms Variations on a Theme of Paganini is a similarly technically difficult, but emotionally rich, score allowing the pianist to demonstrate many aspects of playing. The work presents a simple theme (that of Paganini's famous Caprice No. 24 in A minor for solo violin) and then proceeds to present variations of that theme, varying in difficultly and character. Yuja follows the sequence of variations by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a pianist she greatly admires. Between the larger dramatic works, Yuja presents two Scarlatti one-movement sonatas. Though not without technical challenges, these works are two of the Scarlatti's most sweetly expressive sonatas.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Acclaimed Fauré Quartett returns to Deutsche Grammophon with their first recording of Brahms

By -
Image
The Fauré Quartett continues to add authoritative recordings to the chamber music catalog with their new recording of two Brahms quartets, available from Deutsche Grammophon on January 12, 2010. These large, some say symphonic, works test the limits of technical and musical capabilities, and the Fauré Quartett once again proves why they are one of the most acclaimed ensembles performing today. Within a short period of time the Fauré Quartett has conquered the great concert halls of London , Paris , Berlin , Amsterdam , Brussels , Geneva , Hamburg , Frankfurt, Milan , Buenos Aires , Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. “They attract superlatives wherever they go,” wrote The Strad following a concert at London ’s Wigmore Hall, while the Süddeutsche Zeitung praised them for a performance that “brought tremendous pleasure by highlighting interpretative details that had scarcely ever been heard before”. The Fauré Quartett strives to achieve a unique sound for Brahms (as indeed for every work)
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more