Yuja Wang doubles down and Petr Popelka throws himself into the music with the Cleveland Orchestra

United States Ravel, Ligeti, Mussorgsky: Yuja Wang (piano), Cleveland Orchestra / Petr Popelka (conductor). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 28.11.2025. (MSJ)

Ravel – Piano Concerto in D major for Left Hand
Ligeti – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

Most pianists would do either Ravel’s Left Hand Concerto or Ligeti’s, but Yuja Wang played them back-to-back in this concert with the Cleveland Orchestra, and she threw in a couple of encores to boot. I have no idea if it is a good thing for her to burn so brightly so young, but there is no question the challenge keeps her engaged while other pianists in their thirties start to sound bored. It will be interesting to see what happens much later, once age catches up with her. She will either have to become a different sort of artist, more measured and philosophical, or refuse to change and simply retire from the keyboard. That is why it is such a gift to hear her now at the height of her powers, and that height is Himalayan.

The Ravel was played with plenty of snap, crisp where desired and blended into a wash of sound in other places. Both the Spanish and jazz elements of the piece were savored without resorting to exaggeration. The orchestra under Petr Popelka played with great warmth – this definitely was not a cool, clinical approach. Jonathan Sherwin’s writhing contrabassoon solo set the dramatic tone which carried through to the fiery end.

The Ligeti is less commonly heard though longtime regulars in Cleveland might remember it from around 2000 with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and conductor Pierre Boulez. This performance was, not surprisingly, more visceral. The frenetic activity of the first movement perfectly set up the abrupt change to the trancelike second movement, where whisps and occasional whiplashes of piano hung suspended over a bass drone, and flutes and toy instruments like the ocarina and slide whistle piped up fragments of melodic turns, not comical but deadly serious.

The twirling scherzo, marked Presto Luminoso, would be a connection point for any listener who only knows Ligeti from his famous contributions to the soundtrack for the Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey. The work continued on, freely tonal or atonal at every turn, Wang reveling in its spiky terrors while Popelka threw himself with relish into the orchestral fabric.

The first of Wang’s two encores was Mendelssohn’s Song without Words in F-sharp minor, Op.67, No.2, played briskly with a deft touch but a powerful sense of emotion held in check. When the audience declined to stop applauding after the first encore, she returned and, after a moment of apparent improv, launched into Boris Giltburg’s arrangement of the second movement from Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.8 with blistering attack. As the audience would gladly and rightly have asked for encores all night, the house lights were brought up quickly after Wang left the stage, enforcing the intermission.

Throwing himself into the music with relish is also a good description of Petr Popelka’s conducting of Pictures at an Exhibition. His characteristic gesture is hunching over as if to grab the music and pull it out of the orchestra, which he did effectively. His approach was focused on handling the famous suite as a showpiece, generally brisk and colorful. The opening, recurring Promenade was more of a ‘Trot’, suggesting not Mussorgsky’s own portly tread but a modern figure who has been well-dosed with Ozempic. Diet Mussorgsky, perhaps, but still enjoyable.

There was certainly no leanness in the orchestral sound. Colors were bright and full, and the orchestra was given the opportunity to show their brilliance, which they did quite gloriously. Highlights included a crackling Gnomus; Richard Stout’s remarkable tuba solo in Bydlo, which somehow managed to be expressively mournful without ever sounding less than pristinely played; a twittering Ballet of Chicks in their Shells; Michael Sachs’s pleading trumpet solo in Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle; and general glorious brass playing in Catacombs and The Great Gate of Kiev.

All this music in one concert made for a very full but also fulfilling evening.

Mark Sebastian Jordan

Featured Image: Yuja Wang plays Ravel with the Cleveland Orchestra © Human Artist Photography/TCO