LSO/Wang/Peltokoski Review – Yuja Wang’s ferocious Rautavaara meets Peltokoski’s passionate Wagner | classical music

MWith Yoga Wang at your own risk. For anyone still doubting her mood after last week, here she is, exploding into the solo part of Enuguhani Rautavaara’s 1969 Piano Concerto No. 1. It is a massive work that requires a great deal of physical strength – at several points the soloist almost attacks the keyboard, hitting the keys in clusters or using the forearm to shape the melody. Wang was formidable, and Rautavaara’s dense writing provided a perfect showcase for her luminous clarity. And the orchestra was aggressive enough, thanks to the judgment of Tarmo Piltokowski, the Finnish conductor making his LSO debut.

Wang gives us three entries, beginning with Finnish composer Erkki Melartin’s Barcarolle and ending with Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 6, a duet in which she was joined by Beltokowski, a not-so-ordinary pianist. In between came the highlight: her own arrangement of the desperate second movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8, dispatched with delightful subtlety.

Still only 25 years old, Beltokoski has crammed an astonishing number of Wagner operas into his career thus far; In the concert hall he was also championing The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure, an arrangement by Henk de Vlieger to condense a 16-hour cycle into just over 60 minutes. You could argue that a version like this, however skillfully executed, is part of the Jive Bunny series aimed at those who already know and love The Ring. You can also complain that it ignores some of the best parts: Die Walküre gets relatively short shrift. But it was rewarding here, partly because the orchestra was in glowing form and partly thanks to Beltokoski’s pacing.

He was initially a reserved presence on stage, his beats small and almost quiet as Rheingold’s music exploded in the sunlight around him; Even in Ride of the Valkyries he was mostly holding back the copper. But this was a wise management of resources, because by the time it came to the music of Brünnhilde-Siegfried’s triumphant love, his gestures were wide and passionate, resulting in rich lyricism, and at the climax of Siegfried’s funeral music, both feet left the ground.