Pianist finds voice, joy in music of Scriabin
By Lindsay Christians, The Capital Times (02/23/10)
Young Chinese pianist Xiayin (pronounced sha-EEN) Wang grew up listening to her father play the erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument like a two-string violin.
Now, she tours the country playing the music of Western composers, including premieres of American works, in solo recitals and with symphonies. To Wang, all music expresses human emotions, no matter where it’s from.
In the Overture Playhouse on Thursday, Feb. 25, Wang will perform a program of Alexander Scriabin’s piano music from her most recent CD, “Scriabin: Poems, Waltzes, Dances,” released last year. She’ll also play new music by Richard Danielpour, a contemporary American composer.
77 Square spoke with Wang shortly after she returned from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where she performed with the National Symphony Orchestra there and gave a master class.
I have been listening to your newest album of Scriabin music — it’s so playful. What drew you to this composer for your second album? (The first, “Introducing Xiayin Wang” (2007), included works by Mozart, Ravel and Gershwin.)
I remember very deeply the first experience of hearing this composer’s piece, Opus 72, the Vers la Flamme. The very first time I heard it I fell in love with it and wanted to explore this composer. He has so much color and definitely creates a certain kind of mood into the music. I personally really, really like playing that kind of music.
Then Naxos (Wang’s label) was interested … they proposed, if you are so in love with this composer we have some of the less-played Scriabin piano compositions that are not being recorded. So I said I would be thrilled to do this project.
In a conversation with pianist Simone Dinnerstein a few months ago, she said that while she respects a composer’s original intentions, for her, it’s important to put a personal stamp on each piece she plays. Do you agree?
I would agree with her almost 100 percent. I think it’s very important … that’s why we have the same pieces performed by different performers. It’s interesting to see how we take the music differently. As a performer, I want to make the music as effective as possible, just bring out as much juice as possible from the music, just squeeze the juice out. That’s what the audience is looking for.
Everyone has different points of view and different feelings when they hear different harmonies, different sensitivities. That all comes out differently. Of course, (that’s) not to play it extremely out of the frame — not to play Scriabin, for example, like Mozart. That’s actually impossible to do. But with Scriabin you will never run out of ideas.
You’ll be performing some work by contemporary American composer Richard Danielpour, who cites the Beatles as an influence and draws freely from pop, rock and jazz rhythms. What do you enjoy about playing his work, and do you work with him on new compositions?
I do work with him. He’s in the process of composing a piano concerto for me. That’s the advantage of playing a contemporary composer’s music; you can talk to the person who composed the music and get their intentions. I have already recorded both books of (his) preludes; “Enchanted Garden” will be released in late spring.
Richard Danielpour is a composer that … his style is not so obscure. He does write atonal … but you always have a sense of what he wants to say, and he has a lot of variety in his melodic writing. He not only writes great melodies, he also writes for the pianist, which means it fits the hands. There’s nothing awkward about it.
The Washington Post said that “showy scores” put you in your element. Would you say you have a flair for the dramatic?
I try to cover as much variety of styles as possible in every program. I have from classical, romantic and impressionism to modern, to contemporary and even to Gershwin.
Quiet music can be very effective. It all depends on how you bring it out to the audience, the detailed way that you do it. I like to make every single second of the performance attractive to the audience. You have to make sure the audience is with you the entire time. What I try to do with every performance ... is bring them from the beginning to the end of the journey, so they remember everything I did.