Yuja Wang is ravishing in Magnus Lindberg’s new piano concerto — review

Composer Magnus Lindberg’s evolution has been fascinating, parallel to some other lapsed modernists but somehow more extreme, from a hyper-complexity four decades ago to an almost romantic maximalism today.

The current state of that development — there may well be more steps in his evolutionary future — comes with his Piano Concerto No 3. A co-commission with the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic and others, it received its first performance in October in San Francisco and its New York premiere with the Philharmonic in the new David Geffen Hall.

There was an underlying Finnish theme here, attesting to the remarkably vital role that country plays in today’s composition and conducting. Lindberg and Esa-Pekka Salonen, who led the San Francisco premiere, were friends and colleagues at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. The conductor in New York was the much younger Santtu-Matias Rouvali, another Sibelius Academy graduate. Even the encore by pianist Yuja Wang, for whom the concerto was written, extended the Finnish theme: the rippling “Etude” from Thirteen Pieces for Piano by Sibelius.

Lindberg evolved into a composer of symphonic music after orchestral residencies in the 2010s, starting with three years at the New York Philharmonic. His third piano concerto was tailored for Yuja Wang’s dazzling virtuosity; on Thursday she played this formidable score from memory and sounded commanding throughout, from thunderous assertion to caressing lyricism.

This concerto, Lindberg said in an interview, is “the biggest piece I’ve written”, 30 minutes long in three movements. The result is alternately grand and intimately beautiful. There is a true dialogue between soloist and orchestra, both of whom play almost continuously, except for two virtuosic cadenzas.

The score conveys lush grandeur. There’s harmonic tartness, but never abrasiveness: one hears Lindberg’s affection for Bartók, but maybe Rachmaninov, too. The internal structure is intricate, involving, he has said, eight “characters” who continually intertwine. The same material is reconsidered in each of the three movements. None of this is perceptible, at least on a first hearing, but the characters shaped his thinking, making for a kind of hidden opera. However it was inspired and constructed, the result recalls the grand concertos of yore. It’s ravishing, as was Wang’s playing.

Rouvali’s programme seemed oddly constructed. It began with a slightly slurred account of Rossini’s Semiramide overture and ended with Beethoven’s Second Symphony, the first two movements weighty and imposing, the last two almost rushed. Ending with the Lindberg would have made for a better sequence, but seeing an unfamiliar piece after the intermission might well have driven half the audience to the exits. Which would have been their loss.

★★★★☆

To January 10, nyphil.org