Piano recital by Yuja Wang

What is a prelude?
The short piano lexicon

The prelude was originally an improvised warm-up; a preparation for something bigger. It’s all in the name: “prelude” comes from the Latin “prae” (before) and “ludere” (to play). Learn more about the prelude in piano music.

Biography

Yuja Wang

“Her combination of technical ease, colouristic range and sheer power has always been remarkable,” the Financial Times wrote about Yuja Wang, “but these days there is an ever-greater depth to her musicianship, drawing you into the world of each composer with compelling immediacy.” Yuja Wang’s international breakthrough came just one year before she had completed her studies with piano legend Gray Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia: in 2007, she stepped in at short notice for the famous Martha Argerich, playing to an enthusiastic audience in Boston. Since then, she has won worldwide acclaim for her bravura, technical assurance, and charismatic stage presence. She made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2015 with Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, one of the most challenging pieces in the piano literature. In November 2017, she accompanied the orchestra and Simon Rattle on their tour of Asia, and in 2018 she toured with the orchestra again, this time under the direction of Kirill Petrenko, to equally enthusiastic acclaim. Yuja Wang also regularly gives solo recitals in the music capitals of Asia, Europe and North America. “Listening to her is to re-examine your ideas about how well one can play the piano in the first place,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. Next Saturday, Yuja Wang can be heard for the first time at the Waldbühne with the Berliner Philharmoniker.