Some very fine musicianly playing of refined beauty and above all clarity. A musicianship anchored in the bass as you would expect from the class of Norma Fisher where simplicity and intelligence combine to produce performances of authority and good taste.

It was in the Ravel that opened the programme that showed Yang Yang’s enviable clarity and radiance of sound.There was a ‘joie de vivre’ with her sparkling clarity where she knitted Ravels’ knotty twine together with a masterly use of the pedal to produce ravishing effects of harmonic beauty. The Fugue was of a purity and radiant beauty as the simple subject was played with the particularly poignant yearning that Ravel weaves into each of the six pieces dedicated to friends who sacrificed their lives so senselessly in the first world world war. Ravel was an ambulance driver and saw at first hand the horror of a war where a generation of young men were sent to the slaughter. His choice of title, returning to the baroque, where the restrained civilised passions are wrapped up in the simple lines of its age. It was this that Yang Yang showed us today with her masterly pedalling, that was used so sparingly to add colour but not blur the purity and simplicity that Ravel could convey with such poignancy. There was sentiment without sentimentality, a statement without rhetoric.Beauty and measure together as the ‘Forlane’ unwound with a radiant mellifluous melodic line, the delicacy of the cascades of whispered notes just added to the poignant nostalgia without any turbulence or rage. There was a rhythmic drive to the ‘Rigaudon’ played with scintillating sparkling energy as it descended into a ravishing melody, floated with beguiling beauty on dance rhythms of civilised elegance. A restrained dignity and sense of measure to the ‘Minuet’ with ornaments just adding to the emotional melancholy before the glorious outburst of the ‘Toccata’. Played with remarkable mastery and a crystalline clarity even in the most strenuous passages , bursting into melody with a radiance like the sun shining and giving hope for the future. Extraordinary mastery where the relentless drive and musical shape she was able to maintain right to the exhilarating final pages.

The Chopin 3rd Ballade was played with remarkable musicianship but a rather slow tempo did not allow her to move forward with a flowing undercurrent that like riding on a wave is always present. Yang Yang played with remarkable beauty but the rather slow tempo did not allow her to show us the overall architectural shape.There was restrained beauty to the pastoral opening of the gentlest of Chopin’s four ballades with its simple lapping waves gradually leading us, without stopping, to the glorious final outburst of emotional exuberance and exhilaration, before the final cascade of notes across the entire keyboard, to the four final sedate chords.

Yang Yang’s Chopin is full of beauty and refined good taste but also in the Polonaise – Fantasie rather slow tempi did not allow her to see the wood from the trees. A ravishingly beautiful central episode but where the opening split chords already impeded the natural flow of the music. Her masterly control and sumptuous sound, of course ,brought this work to a magnificent ending, but Chopin’s revolutionary sense of structure was interrupted too often by an artist who loves the music so much that it becomes rather episodic.

Agosti’s magnificent transcription of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ has long been a pianistic showpiece together with Ravel’s ‘La Valse’ . A work only for the fearless, who have a technical mastery not only of the enormous amount of notes, but above all of colour and relentless reserves of energy. Yang Yang played with remarkable mastery, above all a sense of colour and mastery of the pedal that no matter how many notes she played there was always the clarity and sense of line of a true musician. The magical entry of the ‘Firebird’ was played with sumptuous beauty and restraint as she built up the sonorities with masterly control and sumptuous sounds to the exhilarating final bars.If the opening could have been played with more reckless abandon this was not part of Yang Yang’s personality. It was ,though, the colour and imagination she brought to Agosti’s transcription of 1928, that was much admired by the composer, that was exactly that which I remember so well from listening to Agosti in his studio in Siena where the whole musical world would flock to hear sounds that have never been forgotten.

Yang Yang Cai (b. 1998) began piano studies at five with Noor Relijk and later studied under Professor Jan Wijn. She graduated with highest distinction from the Conservatory of Amsterdam 2019. In 2023, she earned her diploma from the Accademia Pianistica di Imola under Enrico Pace and completed her Master’s degree at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Frank van de Laar. Currently, she is pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in London with Norma Fisher. Yang Yang has participated in masterclasses with esteemed teachers such as Ronald Brautigam, Boris Berman, Matti Raekallio, Jacques Rouvier, Klaus Hellwig, Alexander Gavrylyuk, and Arie Vardi. In 2019, she refined her musicality through a workshop at Maria João Pires’ Belgais Center for Arts. Her performing career began at nine, leading to appearances in major Dutch concert halls, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. Internationally, she has performed at Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, earning critical acclaim. Yang Yang is committed to sincere musical interpretation, aiming to connect with audiences beyond words. 

At nine, Yang Yang represented the Netherlands at the International Steinway Festival in Hamburg. In 2015, she performed in Taipei by invitation of the Dutch Trade and Investment Office. She has participated in festivals such as the Delft Chamber Music Festival, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, and Aspen Music School and Festival. Her awards include first prizes at the Steinway Piano Competition (Netherlands) in 2008 and 2012, and winning the Junior Final of the Young Pianist Foundation Competition in 2013, performing Mozart’s 14th Piano Concerto with the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra. In 2019, she won the Grand Prix Youri Egorov at the Young Pianist Foundation Piano Competition, performing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the Conservatory of Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. 

Yang Yang is grateful for the support she has received from numerous organizations, including the VandenEnde Foundation, Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds, Ars Donandi, NL Talentenfonds, Muziekfonds Stringendo, Fundatie van Renswoude The Hague, VSBfonds, Dr. Hendrik Muller Fonds, and Cultuurfonds. She also has the privilege of playing a Steinway & Sons D-274, generously provided by the Voorlinden Foundation.