Finding a photograph of Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and Chinese pianist Yuja Wang together proved difficult when their two-piano recital at Symphony Hall was flagged as part of the season’s upcoming events. To solve the issue, the Globe’s photography department created a composite image from pre-existing individual shots. From the outset, it was clear this would be an extraordinary event. Both Ólafsson and Wang are renowned soloists who fill large concert halls worldwide, but this was their first collaboration. Their four-hands tour began last fall in Europe before launching the North American leg this month.
Although they were born in the mid-’80s and share the same generational cohort, the two pianists appear to be an unlikely pair at first glance. When they appeared on the Symphony Hall stage and bowed together, Ólafsson’s movement was crisp and controlled, while Wang performed an exaggerated deep bow before snapping back up with lightning speed, a move that could easily be featured in a YouTube compilation.
Ólafsson’s performance attire, consisting of round glasses and a chic yet comfortable blazer, could be described as “chic professor.” In contrast, Wang’s appearance, like her playing, demanded attention and knew how to seize it. On Friday evening, she wore two gowns: a sparkling number reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s famous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress, and a more avant-garde indigo gown with a high slit on the right thigh—naturally, the side facing the audience as she sat down. (She’s not one for coincidences.) As for the sheet music, Ólafsson brought paper and a page-turner, while Wang opted for an iPad.
Despite their contrasting appearances and styles, Ólafsson and Wang were in complete harmony in their approach to the two-piano program. The program, featuring mostly 20th-century repertoire, was infused with a sense of playfulness and exploration, a feeling they both embraced.
The twin pianos were positioned center stage, with their keyboards aligned end to end while the bodies of the instruments pointed outward in opposite directions. Wang’s piano, placed in front, allowed her to dominate the higher range of the keyboard, while Ólafsson often provided rhythmic foundations from the rear. Against Wang’s pianistic fireworks, which transformed the keys into rapidly blossoming cascades of notes, Ólafsson’s tone was mellower—smooth, rounded, and reminiscent of water flowing over stones.
The duo began with Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor, a piece with a dusky beauty, before moving on to mid-century avant-garde works: John Cage’s Experiences No. 1 and Conlon Nancarrow’s No. 6 from Studies for Player Piano, the latter arranged for human piano players by Thomas Adès. The Cage piece required surreal synergy, which the two pianists delivered effortlessly. The piece’s irregular phrases didn’t feel like they ended but rather disappeared into wormholes. In the Nancarrow, Ólafsson reveled in the bass line’s offbeat rhythms, while Wang’s vaudevillian melody cartwheeled and leaped through the air.
Over the past decade, both pianists have inspired new concertos from American composer John Adams. Adams’ Hallelujah Junction, which appeared on the program, features a perpetual-motion vortex. Here, the differences between Ólafsson and Wang became even more apparent. In sections where the two piano parts were only rhythmically offset, the contrast between the two was striking. Both seemed to tap into volcanic energy, but where Wang’s gestures exploded outward, like Vesuvius, Ólafsson’s playing felt like a glowing, molten overflow. Together, they embodied two different flavors of unstoppable force, and any would-be immovable object was doomed in their wake.
In the program’s final piece, Rachmaninoff’s two-piano arrangement of his Symphonic Dances, Ólafsson displayed the same precision and attention to detail as one might expect in a second language, while Wang played with the fluent nonchalance of a native speaker.
Ólafsson is not typically one for encores, but Wang’s love for multiple encores is an integral part of her performance. When the audience clamored for more, she was ready with her iPad, turning it sideways into landscape orientation as Ólafsson rearranged the seats to join her at the front piano. The two played four-hands style, both musicians sitting on the narrow ends of their own benches.
The encores included two Brahms waltzes, followed by a Dvořák dance, a Schubert march, and another Brahms waltz. Some concertgoers, understandably, thought the performance had concluded after the third encore and began to exit the hall. However, the opening strains of Hungarian Dance No. 1 reeled them back in. Whenever Yuja Wang is involved, one can never be entirely sure that the show is over until the house lights go up.
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