Yuja Wang (piano)
The American Project
Michael Tilson Thomas (b.1944)
You come here often? (2016)
Teddy Abrams (b.1987)
Piano Concerto (2022)
Louisville Orchestra/Teddy Abrams
rec. 2022, The Kentucky Center, Louisville, USA
Deutsche Grammophon 486 4478 [42]
This new disc from Deutsche Grammophon is very much a star vehicle for pianist Yuja Wang. And why not as she is an extraordinary pianist in the literal sense of the word. Still only thirty-six she has been a major recording and concert artist since she was twenty. Interestingly, her discography is relatively small with much of what there is appearing to have been recorded in concert. Also, the repertoire she has recorded – with the exception of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? – is mainly core Romantic repertoire. So this new disc premiering two modern works written for Wang is of interest in widening the repertoire as well as being another chance to marvel at Wang’s prodigious gifts.
DG have called the disc “The American Project”. I suppose not because the two composers are Amercian per se but rather because the musical vernacular both use could be termed populist American. Both composers are also better known as conductors. The disc opens with the 4:34 You Come Here Often? written by Michael Tilson Thomas as a concert encore for Wang and as such it perfectly fits the bill; light-hearted and accessible and tossed-off by Wang with nonchalant virtuosity. The cheesy pick-up-line title is left unexplained. But this paves the way for the disc’s main event; Teddy Abrams’ Piano Concerto. Abrams studied at the Curtis Institute at the same time as Wang so they have been colleagues and collaborators for over twenty years. Abrams’ career has taken him on to being the Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra since 2014.
The original idea was to write a piece that could work as a concert-companion to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue the rationale being if you have an artist of Wang’s stature in town it would be good to have her on stage for more than sixteen minutes. However, to quote Abrams from the liner; “[the concerto] blossomed into a much much larger work. I see this concerto as an opportunity for the piano to guide us through what I think is one of the strengths of American culture, its plurality, its interconnectedness.” The result is a work that runs 37:25 in eleven sections that play continuously. The music is a stream of consciousness celebration of the melting-pot of popular music and styles that make American music the unique fusion of styles Abrams alludes to. Of course Abrams is just one of many composers exploring this type of post-Modern populism. Michael Daugherty springs to mind as another who takes traditional forms and groups and expresses them using populist musical vernacular in probably more musically exploratory ways than Abrams. I had not heard any of Abrams’ compositions before and the result here is attractive and energetic and – certainly in the context of this work – buoyant and good natured. It is also clearly written as a display work with ten notes in the solo part where one might have sufficed. But if you have a pianist who not only can play ten but probably twenty and relishes them as well why not write that way. The structure of the work is more like a continuously playing suite rather than a traditional concerto. Spread across the work are four sections for the solo piano called cadenzas although their function seems more to be one of contrast than display in the traditional sense of a cadenza. Hence they allow for both reflective as well as virtuosic music which permits Wang to demonstrate her technical and expressive range. Some of the thematic material is revisited later in the work to give it structural unity but the sense is more of a musical quilt with distinct sections brought together to make an attractive and colourful whole.
Given that Abrams is a child of the 80’s the thing I find curious is that the musical style presented here harks back more to the big swinging band/orchestra arrangements of the 50’s-70’s. So Big Band, Swing, Jazz, Gospel, Latin are the most direct inspirations amongst others. Some of the orchestral scoring was more reminiscent of 70’s movies and TV series – big and brash with a cocky city confidence. The great thing here is not just what fun the music is but palpably how much fun the players seem to having performing it. The performance itself is tremendous with Wang wholly inside the idiom. She can stride-piano with the best of them and her hallmark clarity of articulation allied to powerful precision pays great dividends in the chromium-plated passage work Abrams throws her way. But just as fine is the work of the Louisville Orchestra. Abrams writes for what might be called a Studio Orchestra with the usual symphonic line-up complimented with an enlarged rhythm section and keyboards with frontline saxophones and brass. The result is a wonderfully swaggering sound. DG’s engineering is very good – for sure they have adopted what could be called a studio style for the recording with the saxes and lead brass prominent in the mix and the strings relatively recessed. Wang’s piano is ideally placed front and centre but without overwhelming the busy and important orchestral writing. The “feel” of the orchestral playing is just perfect – the ideal combination of stylishly cool “looseness” but with super-tight ensemble and rhythmic precision. Abrams gives players within the orchestra opportunities to shine and without exception these solos are taken with flair and brilliance. Any thought that this idiom might not sit comfortably with Wang for all her technical brilliance is completely unfounded. From her years at the Curtis Institute and now being based in the USA Wang is clearly completely at ease with this style of music.
Of course this is by no means the first time a composer has tried to write a large-scale concerto using a popular musical vocabulary. Some composers have struggled to find a balance between the lighter and more serious elements of their compositions but Abrams seems content to write an essentially warm-hearted and accessible work that is celebratory in mood. I like very much the fact that he writes in an athletic, virtuosic and direct manner avoiding the faux-spiritual ‘noodling’ of some contemporary composers who mistake banality for profundity. So all in all a big cheer for the players, the piece and the performance.
I do find DG’s presentation a bit underwhelming. The issue of playing time is an obvious one. Online sellers are offering this disc at release in the UK fro £12-13 for the CD with a running time of just 42 minutes. I guess the rationale is that Wang will sell discs no matter how much or little music they contain. But from a programming point of view perhaps the “American Project” could have been expanded to include another work of similar style (her discography already includes one Rhapsody in Blue). On a purely personal level it would have made more sense to me to put the encore after the main event – just as it was written to be. The booklet is another shrine to Wang – 12 pages in total (including front and back cover). Of these 5 are pictures of Wang, two are a title page and a track listing and one is a pointless cityscape graphic a high school child could have produced. If this is being promoted as a premium product – and in terms of music, playing and engineering it certainly is top drawer – then please back it up with decent liner notes too. Abrams’ note is brief and rather gushing about Wang and would be fine alongside some additional more detailed information. The Presto website mentions that these are ‘live’ recordings. Given that many of Wang’s discs are taken from concerts this might well be the case – but nowhere in the DG booklet does it say it is. If this is a live recording it is very good indeed. There is absolutely no audience noise of any kind and the level of technical execution from everyone is astonishingly high. Also, as mentioned, the quality of the DG engineering – always complicated by the requirements of the concert environment – is excellent.
In many ways the concerto harks back to the virtuoso display warhorses of the 19th Century written to showcase and celebrate the remarkable talents of the soloist without necessarily intending to plumb the depths of profundity. By that measure this is a worthy addition to that genre. Wang’s fans and collectors will be lining up to buy this disc and they will be delighted with what they hear. But the music on this disc deserves to be heard in its own right. It does not intend to be ‘great’ music (unpretentious in the best and literal sense) – but great fun and hugely entertaining it most certainly is.
Nick Barnard
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