TONY YIKE YANG Piano Recital
Voices of Singapore Capitol Studio
Sunday (17 March 2024)
Canadian pianist Tony Yike Yang came to prominence as a 16-year-old finalist at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition, when he also became the youngest-ever laureate in the competition's history. His last appearance in Singapore was a recital at Esplanade's Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
Already a prodigious talent then, his most recent recital at VOS Capital Studio showed he has further matured as an artist. His demanding 80-minute-long recital, performed without a break, was a supreme test of endurance for the pianist, besides being an unmitigated pleasure for those who attended.
The recital opened with Mozart's early Sonata in E flat major (K.282), which was more Romantically than Classically-inclined. He coaxed a rich sonority from the Yamaha C5 grand, and eschewed the mincing prissiness usually associated with the period movement. The central Minuet was kept lively rather than coy, and fluent swiftness in the finale suggested we were not listening to 18th century drawing room music.
The good start continued into the Chopin set with the three Waltzes Op.34 performed as a suite. Sheer brilliance informed the opening A flat major dance, contrasted with wistful melancholy of the A minor, and completed with the F major waltz's prestidigitation, which even in its high speed did not neglect the vital element of rubato. By the end of the barnstorming Polonaise Op.53 in A flat major, the "Heroic", where Yang conquered the left-hand octave fusillades (that Polish cavalry episode) with stunning aplomb, he had more than fully warmed up.
What followed without a break was an astonishing sequence of three great Franz Liszt masterpieces. First was Ballade No.2 in B minor, with its opening subterranean rumblings, from the depths of which the main theme emerges. This was a breathtaking reading, where the full plethora of pianistic sonorities were exploited to the max. Its glorious climax of alternating big chords and earthshaking scales (which no doubt influenced the Lisztian cadenza of Grieg's Piano Concerto) was judged to perfection, and even if he took the chordal ossia instead of the ascending scales that followed, the effect was nonetheless still spectacular.
Vallee d'Obermann from the Swiss book of Annees de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) was another epic tone poem from piano. The cello-like main theme and its subsequent transformation provided the drama of this work which Yang worked built up to a feverish frenzy. The pastoral and storm episodes were very well contrasted and the triumphant end no less impactful.
Completing the Liszt trilogy was Rhapsodie Espagnole, a showpiece where the La Folia and Jota Aragonesa themes from the Iberian peninsula were whipped into an intoxicating brew. Again, Yang's mastery of the myriad technical difficulties made this fiendish number seem almost like light work. As a Lisztian, Yang combines the mercurial spirit of Horowitz with the pulverising power of Lazar Berman. It was very satisfying to have witnessed all of this live.
Yang's two encores included Gershwin's Prelude No.1 (with the ritmato and deciso aspects notched up to the nth level) and Chopin's Minute Waltz (Op.64 No.1), with brilliance prized over mere charm. One looks forward to Tong Yike Yang's next performance in Singapore.
THE MUSICIANS' STAGE
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