United Kingdom Various: Vikingur Ólafsson, Yuja Wang (pianos). Royal Festival Hall, London, 1.11.2024. (CSa)
Berio – Wasserklavier (arr. for 2 pianos)
Schubert – Fantasia in F minor, D.940
Cage – Experiences No.1
Conlon Nancarrow – Player Piano Study No.6 (arr. Thomas Adès)
John Adams – Hallelujah Junction
Arvo Pärt – Hymn to a great city
Rachmaninov – Symphonic Dances (arr. for 2 pianos)
‘Discover a world of innovation, something to come home to’ once ran the slogan for high-end audio equipment makers Bang and Olufsen. Not to be confused with Wang and Ólafsson, two of the world’s most sought-after concert pianists, whose innovative joint recital before a capacity crowd at London’s Royal Festival Hall was well worth leaving home for.
The platform, cradled by a semi-circle of audience members, was dominated by two sleek extra size Steinway concert grands. These mighty instruments – lids removed to ensure enhanced projection and improved tonal clarity – were pointed in opposite directions but with keyboards closely adjacent to ensure close coordination, even the odd whispered conversation between players. The decision to pair these two superstars, so different in personality, was as audacious as their programme of nineteenth century and modern repertoire was bold.
Wang appeared sparklingly extrovert in one of her sequined bodycon dresses and trademark Christian Louboutin 7-inch heels. Once seated, and assuming the primo or top part throughout, she played with dazzling technical skill and grace but with no physical gestures and without affectation. Ólafsson, fashionably bespectacled but soberly suited and booted, could be mistaken for a young accountant. Some claim that the 40-year-old Icelander is Reykjavik’s answer to Glen Gould. Taking the secondo role, he accompanied Wang with cerebral intensity and at times explosive virtuosity. He sometimes raised his hand in an end-of-phrase flourish or to beat time and occasionally lowered his head over the keys in moments of intense concentration. Yet, despite these superficial dissimilarities, this unlikely partnership melded together in perfect synthesis, whether performing on two pianos or sharing one.
They started the recital on separate instruments with Wasserklavier, a two-minute piece by Luciano Berio. It was played in strict accordance with the composer’s instructions – ‘always very softly and from a distance’ – and began almost imperceptibly. This gentle introduction provided a moment of reflective calm before launching into the haunting melancholy of Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor. Written for four hands on one instrument, I last heard this work some years ago at the Royal Festival Hall when Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim played it together on one keyboard sitting on the same piano stool to play it. Wang and Ólafsson’s decision to perform it on two instruments led perhaps to a certain loss of intimacy, but their performance was one of unified continuity – beautifully balanced and subtly articulated.
The duo then turned to three twentieth century works by American composers, all linked by themes of spirituality and contemplation. First came John Cage’s slow, meditative Experiences No.1. Composed in 1945 for only the white keys of two pianos, Wang and Ólafsson subtly conjured Cage’s heady, perfumed Far Eastern soundscape while in Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study No.6, artfully arranged by Thomas Adès, they hammered out the complex tango-like rhythms and interweaving melodies with great dexterity.
John Adams’s pulsing, effervescent Hallelujah Junction completed the concert’s first half. Adams named the work after a small truck stop on Highway 49 in the High Sierras near the California-Nevada border where he had a small cabin nearby. The work, a hypnotic hymn of praise in which three musical syllables are constantly repeated with ever increasing force, was executed with jaw-dropping speed and astonishing coordination, building up in the final ecstatic moments to a trance-inducing Shaker style dance.
After a welcome interval, Arvo Pärt’s Hymn to a great city, a short but prayerful piece completed in 1984, was followed by a ravishing two piano account of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. Originally commissioned by Eugene Ormandy for his Philadelphia Orchestra, Rachmaninov completed the piano version of these Dances in 1940 which he performed privately at his home in Beverley Hills with the legendary Vladimir Horowitz. Some argue that the work’s constantly shifting moods and rich orchestral texture make it the greatest work for the two piano medium written in the twentieth century. Wang and Ólafsson certainly brought to the fore the modernist rhythmic elements, inspired by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, which marble through the opulent Romantic score. Their playing was nothing less than ravishing, particularly in the propulsive first movement and mischievously playful Tempo di valse, while the ominous finale offered the opportunity for a white-knuckle bravura conclusion to the published programme.
Save that this exhilarating tour-de-force was by no means the end of the evening. No less than 5 encores followed. ‘What do you want first, Brahms or Dvořák?’ asked Ólafsson, who had suddenly become the evening’s Master of Ceremonies. The crowd opted for Brahms -16 Waltzes Op.39 No 2 in E major to be precise, followed by one of his Hungarian Dances. Then one of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances. ‘We might play until the Tube stops running!’ Undeterred by Ólafsson’s playful threat, and clearly in no hurry to get home, the audience bayed for more. They were rewarded with a wonderfully syncopated Snowflakes from Alexander Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite No.1 and a warming nightcap – Schubert’s Marche Militaire regrettably brought events to a close.
Chris Sallon
Such wonderful musicians!