On paper, it is an idea so obviously marketable it might have come straight from a record label boardroom: a special offer on celebrity pianists – buy one get one free! For while Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson number among classical music’s biggest names, we know them as soloists. In combination for the London stop of their duo recital tour, they predictably drew a more-than-capacity crowd, with extra seating spilling across the stage. Less predictable was whether this stellar double-act would also make musical sense.
The concert started almost inaudibly. Wang barely brushed the keys for the first notes of Berio’s Wasserklavier, its simple gestures echoing between the two Steinways, the dynamic level set at ultra-intimate. Such moments of breathtaking quiet returned periodically. Cage’s Experiences No 1 was as delicate as cut glass; Nancarrow’s Player Piano Study No 6 was driven by Ólafsson’s lopsided ostinato but made unforgettable by the sudden hush towards the end. Pärt’s Hymn to a Great City hung in the air like distant bells.
