Review: The starry spectacle of Yuja Wang and Vikingur Ólafsson at Disney Hall

The Vikingur Ólafsson and Yuja Wang circuit reached Walt Disney Concert Hall this week. Demand for the superstar pianists’ recital was specified that Wednesday’s sold-out show led the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which presented the concert, to adhd a 2nd date. Not a performance to beryllium missed by immoderate surviving being who could beryllium squeezed in, the Wednesday nighttime show had 1 patron exiting Disney carrying a tiny dog.

Two-piano teams thin to beryllium for the like-minded. Pianists typically beryllium facing each other, truthful their eyes tin meet, the pianos nestled unneurotic and the lid up connected the rear instrument, creating successful effect a treble instrumentality of astir 460 strings. Such rapport often leads to sibling duos (like the Labèque sisters) oregon husband-wife teams (like Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa).

Little of that, however, applies to the improbable Ólafsson and Wang pairing. The introspective Islandic and dynamic Chinese Canadian pianists sat broadside by broadside astatine Disney, their pianos facing other directions, their heads turning to marque oculus interaction lone erstwhile needing to coordinate a climax. Keeping to type, Ólafsson chose the L.A. Phil’s old-school luminous Hamburg Steinway; Wang, the orchestra’s much glamorous New York Steinway.

The acoustic effect proved an immersive glory successful Disney portion inactive allowing for transparency and individuality of some the pianos and the pianists. Ólafsson’s full, liquid tone, peculiarly successful the little registers of the Hamburg keyboard, provided a rich, pillowy instauration for the sound, portion Wang’s treble sparkled. Small quiescent pieces became soft magic. Flashy large works offered monolithic soft immersion to a fault.

Thrilling — but besides curious. The programme included a small spot of everything, and the littler the bits, the better. To begin, the stylish pianists walked softly connected stage, sat down and instantly floated disconnected into fanciful abstraction with Luciano Berio’s two-minute “Wasserklavier.” Fingers hardly graced keys successful an evocation of the calmly rippling watery surface.

Concerts seldom statesman good erstwhile they statesman successful stillness, but someway the pianists instantly stunned an antsy assemblage into soundlessness (no unwrapping candies, nary canine barking). This flowed into the rhapsodic lyricism of precocious Schubert, his important Fantasia successful F Minor. Wang conveyed a brightly percussive melodic delicacy, portion Ólafsson answered with suave lyricism.

John Cage’s short, Satie-esque “Experiences 1” and Conlon Nancarrow’s tango-like Study No. 6, primitively for subordinate piano, past introduced John Adams’ “Hallelujah Junction.” To perceive these successful Disney had peculiar value for the venue. Written for 2 L.A. pianists, Gloria Cheng and Grant Gershon, “Hallelujah Junction” had its premiere successful 1998 astatine the then-new Getty Center and was dedicated to Ernest Fleischmann. Without that imperious caput of the L.A. Phil, who ne'er took nary for an answer, determination would person nary Disney Hall successful which to nutrient the evening’s incomparable soft aura. It was Fleischmann who began Adams’ four-decade narration with the L.A. Phil, thing that the composer acknowledged astatine the orchestra’s latest Green Umbrella concert, dedicating it to Fleischmann successful grant of what would person been his 100th day this past December.

Ólafsson and Wang captured subtle Cagean whimsy much readily than seductive Nancarrow shimmer earlier they went to municipality with “Hallelujah Junction.” Both pianists person a past with Adams. He wrote his glorious, grinding 2nd soft concerto, “Must the Devil Have All the Great Tunes,” for Wang and his mellower 3rd soft concerto, “After the Fall,” for Ólafsson, who premiered it with the San Francisco Symphony past month. But for each that, the brace barreled done “Hallelujah Junction.” They lacked the clarity and nuance of Cheng and Gershon, but Wang’s exhilarated rhythmic grooves had lives of their own.

Magic returned with Arvo Pärt’s “Hymn to a Great City” successful the 2nd half. Presumably written for and premiered successful New York successful 1984, this tiny people takes nary bites from the Big Apple. No car horns for the mystical Pärt, who didn’t marque his U.S. debut for different 2 years (at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music extracurricular of Santa Cruz). But supplication bells galore. Still, Pärt didn’t similar what helium heard and withdrew the hymn, lone to revise it years later. As it present exists, it captures the supernatural tingle of small bells, arsenic good arsenic the heart-throb of gongs, each sounding disconnected successful the misty distance. Here the pianists pulled disconnected a feat of witchery, arsenic Pärt erstwhile did himself penning his Fourth Symphony (“Los Angeles”) for the L.A. Phil and Disney acoustic.

Ólafsson and Wang went connected to bring retired the darker bell-like qualities of the two-piano mentation of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Even so, the gloom of Rachmaninoff’s last large enactment was dispensed by axenic pianistic spectacle. The mates yet danced their mode retired of Disney with 3 encores. A Dvorák Slavonic creation and a Brahms Hungarian 1 were flirtatious and fun. Brahms’ Waltz successful A-flat Major was lovingly exquisite.

But what mightiness we person missed without that fortunate pooch’s quality to perceive higher frequencies of the ethereal doorbell tones? Even to constricted quality ears, they linger long.