Album: Yuja Wang, Transformation (Deutsche Grammophon)

Not for Yuja Wang the mandatory selection of Chopin preludes and ballades; instead, she's chosen a theme, Transformation, here realised in various forms: most obviously, Brahms' famously tortuous Variations on a Theme by Paganini, but also Ravel's deconstruction of the waltz in La Valse, and most impressively, the gradual humanisation of the puppet in Stravinsky's Petrushka (and its subsequent reversion to wood). Wang's command and artistry is never in doubt right from the opening Allegro Giusto section, described in delicate little left-hand runs against a pointilliste upper-register, the combination lifting the piece in a weightless, dizzying dance.

DOWNLOAD THIS Three Movements from Petrushka; La Valse