“Yuja Wang, one of today’s greatest pianists, playing not one but two concertos — Ravel’s Concerto in G and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” — with her trademark mixture of ferocious dexterity and a light effortlessness that evokes the wings of a butterfly caressing the keys, while the young, energetic conductor Lionel Bringuier led the National Symphony Orchestra … a consummate professional at the top of her game …
The amphitheater at Wolf Trap may not be conducive to the most nuanced performance, but she gave one nonetheless, lowering the tone to a limpid whisper for long stretches in the Ravel before swelling to stretches of sheer virtuosity that were too effortless, sleek and gentle to be described as fireworks: rather, a spray of diamonds on velvet. Bringuier, meanwhile, let the winds linger lasciviously, gleefully over every note, especially in the Gershwin, before moving on to a long, slow, loving, elegant, slightly soporific account of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Anne Midgette – The Washington Post