Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, April 26, 2025 — Running out of words like “astounding” and “thrilling” will make this article brief. Watching Yuja Wang play Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Opus 16 (1913/23) is astounding as though watching an entire nation’s Olympic teams skating, running, twisting from gymnastic rings simultaneously. The energy, the flexibility, the beauty of physical movements merges with the physicality of making music. It is not only her hands. She lifts herself up off the piano bench; she nods her head at a time that Prokofiev must have planned, anticipating that there is Yuja Wang to meet his ideas of rhythms. Once one hears and lives through the opening movement, Andantino, it may seem tame as listeners think back from the following movements. The Andantino, however, holds up its unique character. First, a stripped world open to a bare stage perhaps as the players seem to have faces blank, maybe ready for Oedipus to learn something shocking. Strangely, the orchestra leaves the world created by this concerto while the cadenza causes the audience to open eyes while the orchestra returns and then, we quietly find ourselves again on the bare stage. The Scherzo: Vivace knocks us out, playing so fast; a “Scherzo: Vivace” is a scherzo on steroids. The Intermezzo: Allegro moderato does not behave so very moderato. This concerto is Prokofiev letting it loose. There are lyrical moments or an idea of a lyrical breath at the same time that the monster takes over. There are notes that are sarcastic, some that are witty but in a rather nasty comic wit. The real world: World War I, the Russian Revolution, the 1918 flu, the famines, at least they have not run into the great Depression. Not yet. The Finale: Allegro tempestoso gets wilder, madder, stealing a theme that mimics Russian or Ukrainian folk arts. Both piano and orchestra explode in power. Through all of this Yuja Wang played the piano and led the orchestra. There might have been several Yuja Wangs but, no. She made the music her own, thrilling and breaking records just where Prokofiev wanted them broken.

After the intermission, some listeners looked a little baffled and excited. Symphony No. 1 in D major, Opus 25, Classical has classical aspects, but there are “neo-classical” signals in the light, bright, maybe sophisticated sound. Prokofiev captured the Classical rules from the 1700s and then, as he switched keys, he also let the rhythm take over. The music is a lovely Larghetto, a second movement that is almost relaxing. If he wanted to follow the whole Classical contract, the third movement would be a minuet. Instead. he gave us the Gavotte: Non troppo allegro. It is suitable for dancing, but in a new rhythmic step. Something new, something lifting the imagination. The Gavotte here will fit perfectly with Prokofiev’s ballet of Romeo and Juliet. When it is time to wrap it up as a gift to the audience, the Finale: Molto vivace is happy, energetic, strong; Prokofiev had made something completely new in a new way.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra gathers together from around the world. They have no conductor. They come for projects or tours. There is a violinist, Matthew Truscott, who is the concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Yuja Wang and Mitsuko Uchida are two of the artists who direct from the piano. Claudio Abbado was founding mentor for the MCO.

Alexander Tsfasman’s Suite for Piano and Orchestra (Jazz Suite) was a delight. Tsfasman made the first domestic jazz recording made in the USSR. His training at the Moscow Conservatory helped him write State approved music with an occasional jazz touch. In the mid-1940s, new music from Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Tsfastman put the composers in danger. Tsfastman was not allowed to tour to jazz in the US or elsewhere. I had never heard of him or his music before this performance. The music was lovely. written by a wonderful pianist who had a tad of a Romantic background that matched his jazz family of sounds. Yuja Wang and the MCO played the mid-40s and obviously enjoyed playing it. The pieces performed by the MCO and Yuja Wang were Snowflakes, Lyrical Waltz, Polka, and Career. I am listing them now because you could find his music on streaming. One could imagine the music on a Charlie Chaplin movie or enjoy his writing: sweet, lyrical, all original. Find him.