The 47th Istanbul Music Festival, organized by IKSV, has come to an end (and now starts the Jazz Festival). This year, the festival really went above and beyond, amazing this classical music enthusiast throughout its entire program running across June 11th to June 30th. It indeed was a challenge to pick and choose among so many fantastic alternatives. Performances included music across genres, and performances of all sizes featuring names renowned throughout the world. Spoiled for choice, I let my orchestral background (a violinist in youth orchestra) lead me. And the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Yuja Wang, on June 15th at the Lutfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Centre was not to be missed.
Luxembourg may be tiny in size, but as expected, its Philharmonic Orchestra was anything but. It came in considerable size (eight double basses and ten cellos alone) and the rest of the orchestra to match; with impeccable sound, unison and under the baton of Maestro Gustavo Gimeno. The program began with Tchaikovsky’s The Temptest, a 25-minute long symphonic poem based on a play of Shakespeare. The piece takes place on a magical island far far away, in a Shakespearean web of struggle for power, manipulation, breezes, storms, love and passion. It is the first composition in which Tchaikovsky has used the volume symbol ffff. Fortissimo Fortissimo.
Next came the expected moment, when Yuja Wang made her debut on stage. For anyone who has somehow missed out on the sensation Yuja Wang: She is a Chinese pianist in her early thirties (but who looks younger) who has been taking stages by storm all across the world. She plays with unparalleled energy and stamina, combined with virtuosity and technique heralded by critics and authorities. To top it all off, she is super hot, also drawing attention with her choice of wardrobe, performing in tiny, skin-tight dresses that would make Kylie Minogue blush. But she is too great a pianist to be accused that she uses this to garner attention: for she could come dressed in a monk’s robe and we would all still be vowed by her artistry and virtuosity.
Yuja Wang debuted with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a choice that matched her persona well: for the Rhapsody also overflows with energy and joy, while impressing with its musical quality. Wang played effortlessly; the piano, music and her being blending so naturally that one could not but come to the cliché conclusion that this was what she was “born to be.” The Rhapsody in Blue is a popular piece, and I have heard it before. Many times. But it sounded and felt different with Wang on the keyboard. Her playing brought out a new level of energy, briskness and precision, that was also somehow both unifying and wholesome.
Her Shostakovitch Piano Concerto #2 in F Major (Opus 102) brought an enthusiastic applause, and she was humble enough to come back for two encores. Yuja Wang’s second encore of choice was a vivacious, and sentimental interpretation of the piano arrangement for Fazil Say’s Memleketim (”My Nation”), one of a dozen songs making up the Nazım Oratorium that pays homage to the 20th-century humanist and socialist poet Nazim Hikmet. It was a very thoughtful gesture. I wondered if it had been Yuja Wang’s encore of choice only for Turkey, or if she also plays it also on stages in other countries as well.
The evening ended with the Luxembourg Philharmonic performing Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, a spicy suite that features not only a piano and but also a harpsichord, both in the ensemble. They were played by the same pianist, who kept on shifting positions between the two keyboards as needed. The evening ended with a pleasant surprise: Although it is not common for orchestras to perform encores, the Luxembourg Philharmonic took heed of the ovation, and treated the audience to an orchestral arrangement of Rachmaninov’s sentimental composition Vocalise before parting. Sniff, sniff. Bye-bye Lux Phil. I hope to cross paths again sometime in the near future.
Photos taken by Ali Güler and courtesy of IKSV.
