So young, and so wise

With the Philadelphia Orchestra, Yuja Wang channels Chopin

In
3 minute read
Yuja Wang, prodigy. (Photo by Rolex/Fadil Berisha)
Yuja Wang, prodigy. (Photo by Rolex/Fadil Berisha)

Why are “child prodigies” found only in music and nowhere else? Monroe Levin, the late founder of the late lamented Jenkintown Music School, often remarked, "You never hear people say, ‘He was a brilliant lawyer when he was eight.'”

Okay, maybe you could say the same about some teenage gymnasts and tennis players. But for the most part, dancers and athletes flourish in their 20s, novelists in their 30s and 40s, doctors and lawyers perhaps in their 40s and 50s. Shakespeare, Jefferson, and Einstein all hit their creative peaks in their 30s. But the conventional lament — “If age only had the energy, and youth only had the experience” — doesn’t seem to apply in music.

The pianist Yuja Wang, who is 29, has dazzled audiences since her teens with her seemingly effortless ability to channel the souls of dead composers like Chopin and Schubert. Wang is a millennial born in China; Chopin and Schubert are 19th-century Europeans. What explains the bond that connects them?

Kissin at 12

This past weekend, to prepare for Wang’s performance of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra, my wife pulled out a recording of Evgeny Kissin playing the same concerto with the Moscow Philharmonic in 1984. Listen to part of it here and tell me if you aren’t blown away. Kissin was 12 at the time.

Wang’s musicianship brings the same dynamic combination that worked so well for a boy genius such as Kissin: the youthful joy of discovery on the one hand, and mature understanding on the other. But of course you could say the same about Chopin himself, who was only 19 when he wrote this particular concerto. In music, at least, there really may be such a phenomenon as old souls.

In the 1979 documentary From Mao to Mozart, Isaac Stern observed that Chinese violinists seemed to possess flawless technique with Beethoven and Mozart but lacked the instinctive emotional connection that Russian Jewish violinists conveyed for the same music. Had Stern heard Yuja Wang play Chopin, he might have reached a different conclusion: we haven’t yet reached the end of musical history.

Ax contemplates retirement

A century ago it would have been impossible to imagine Yuja Wang and Chopin as soulmates. Today it’s not only possible; she adds a whole new dimension to a composer who was born in Poland and spent most of his life in Paris.

As time passes and technology shrinks the globe, ancient ethnic differences fade; what survives are the newfound emotional links connecting people who previously thought they had little in common. Music, the international language, provides the connecting thread. That’s why, among other things, great music doesn’t grow stale.

Not long ago, in a radio interview, the 67-year-old pianist Emanuel Ax was asked if he has contemplated retirement. Ax said he plans to continue performing as long as he’s physically and mentally able. The exciting thing about playing the piano, he insisted, is that each performance brings new insights into the pieces you’ve played for years. But I wonder: how much more has Kissin evolved? How much more can Yuja Wang evolve? (Watch her in action here, and you may wonder too.)

For the moment, suffice it to say that the reason great orchestras were created was to deliver such sublime performers to their audiences.

What, When, Where

Philadelphia Orchestra: Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21; Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14. Yuja Wang, piano; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducted. September 22-24, 2016, at Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Sts, Philadelphia. (215) 893-1999 or philorch.org.

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