Joyce Yang has colours of the rainbow in her piano
PIANIST Joyce Yang sees colours when she plays or listens to music, and she has included plenty of them in two programs for her Musica Viva debut tour.
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COLOUR is very important to South Korean concert pianist Joyce Yang. She is one of 5 per cent of people who experience synaesthesia, which means that when she plays or listens to music she sees colours or patterns.
It varies from composer to composer. Schumann is a “clear landscape”, a map she has in her head. Chopin is more elusive, “like water — I’m not able to tell you what shape it is”, she says.
And she chooses programs which have a wide palette so that her listeners can experience some of her colourful musical world.
For her Musica Viva debut tour the 32-year-old has chosen two programs, one lighter and the other darker with more shadows.
For this lighter concert she opened with Five Lyric Pieces by Edvard Grieg — delightful miniatures featuring softer and sweeter hues, from the silvery moonlight of Nocturne to the more strident childlike primary colours of Once Upon a Time.
VIVID
Claude Debussy was dismissive of Grieg, describing his music as “pink sweets filled with snow”. He was up next with Estampes — three pieces which must be a favourite with Yang as she performed them when she made her Australian debut in 2010.
These are more vivid, bolder tints favoured by Monet or Sisley as the composer goes on his imaginary travels evoking the gamelans of Indonesia (Pagodas); the guitars and orange trees of Spain (An Evening in Granada) and gardens in the rain.
Yang used her impressive technical prowess and poetic sensibility to ensure that these contrasting cameos were given their due.
There was plenty of contrast in the next piece, Frederic Chopin’s Andante spianato et Grande polonaise brillante. The Italian word “spianato” means smooth or even and Yang’s subtle light touch certainly brought out that quality while the polonaise is the composer at his most nationalistic and unbuttoned, using the rhythms of the dance from his Polish homeland.
I’m not sure which colours Yang saw when she played the world premiere of 24-year-old Sydney composer Elizabeth Younan’s Piano Sonata, commissioned for Musica Viva by human rights advocate Julian Burnside.
FORMIDABLE
For me there was quite a lot of blue — the fast outer movements at times reminding me of the stride jazz style of the Harlem pianists but with strong tinges of Younan’s favourite composer, Bela Bartok. The slow middle movement was beautiful with a spacious quality.
Younan, who is still studying at Sydney Conservatorium with Musica Viva artistic director Carl Vine as her composing mentor, is a formidable talent with a highly individual musical voice.
Yang finished the recital with Robert Schumann’s Carnivale, a set of 20 miniatures dedicated to a various characters — some real, including his wife Clara, Chopin and Paganini, others fictitious, Pierrot, Pantalon and Columbine of classic comedy.
This 30-minute piece is so richly coloured that Yang has had it choreographed so dancers can interpret what she sees when she plays it.
The afternoon was rounded off with a bonus encore, Earl Wild’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s The Man I Love.
Yang returns to perform a program of works by Liszt, Rachmaninov, Janacek and Younan at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Monday, July 23, at 7pm.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Joyce Yang
● WHERE: City Recital Hall Angel Place
● WHEN: Saturday, July 14