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Top 10 for Dec

Yuja Wang - Ravel Piano Concertos / WRTI: Featured release for 2015

WRTI's Mark Pinto, host of the Classical New Releases show, fills you in on the latest and greatest classical music CDs every Saturday at 5 pm. Here are five newly released recordings he recommends.

The wonder that is pianist Yuja Wang is on amazing display in her blazing new recording of the Ravel concertos for one and two hands.  In the G Major concerto, Wang is particularly adroit in the percussive effects and simply fearless in the fast passagework and lightning-quick repeated notes.  And almost miraculously in the Left Hand concerto, she keenly divines the melodic line from Ravel's furious thickets of notes.  As poetically sensitive as she is technically assured, Wang is also able to convincingly project Ravel's moments of impressionistic delicacy and quiet reflection in these works.  The Tonhalle Orchestra turns in a command performance of its own, whether digging in with Wang in the bluesy sections, matching her ferocity in the thunderous moments, or staying perfectly in-sync with her through all the mad dashes.  In between the concerto performances here, Wang tackles the seldom-heard solo version of Fauré's Ballade in F# and beautifully captures all its inherent drama.  With her clean passagework, clear articulation of every note, and sparing but effective use of rubato, Wang is simply poetry in motion.