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.
Schubert’s monumental Fantasia in F minor, D940 was written for two pianists at a single instrument. Sitting separately – albeit with the pianos parked with keyboards together – makes coordination harder, but also allows more space at the keyboard itself. Wang and Ólafsson served up near-as-dammit timing and astonishingly crisp articulation, the fugato passage a masterclass in clarity and poise.
In Rachmaninov’s own original piano duo version of Symphonic Dances, Wang provided the engine from the start, all sinew and heft, while in combination their loudest chords landed like pillars dropped from a great height. Yet passages elsewhere were almost shocking in their spareness, with melodies and shapes moving seamlessly from one player to another. Moments when time almost stopped were balanced by tempi that tended to the fast and furious.
Best of all, in a performance to inspire superlatives (capped by a mighty six encores), was Adams’s Hallelujah Junction. It’s a piece that barely draws breath: bright, anthemic, quicksilver. Even so their tempo was blistering. For minutes at a time, Wang’s fingers moved so quickly they blurred. Ólafsson’s bass pedal notes were thunderous. It’s hard to imagine a more viscerally thrilling performance.
