A fantastic journey

Young pianist Wang Zitong embarks on her first national tour, performing her carefully curated recital Fantasy Pentaprism, Cheng Yuezhu reports.

With a recital titled Fantasy Pentaprism, young pianist Wang Zitong curates five works that form a distinct emotional journey, while striving to present the pieces with authenticity and integrity.

This June marked Wang's first China tour, and she graced the stage at the Beijing Concert Hall, along with three other major cities of Shanghai, Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

At the recitals, audience members were treated to a wide array of styles and techniques, as Wang played pieces written by five composers spanning different eras.

"A pentaprism, as you may know, is a five-sided reflecting prism that can transmit an image without inverting it. In relation to the recital, the five sides represent the five pieces and the prism is like the performer striving to convey the composers' intentions," she says.

"That said, the full title is Fantasy Pentaprism because all five pieces are related to the concept of fantasy in one way or another."

For the first part of the recital, the program features Bach's Chorale Prelude, BWV 639, arranged by Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni; In the Mists, a piano cycle by Czech composer Leos Janacek, and Piano Sonata No 3 in F-Sharp Minor, Op 23, written by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin.

"The Bach-Busoni piece primes listeners with its dignified yet captivating aura. Then, Janacek introduces an element of mystery and builds tension, which culminates in the fervent, unrelenting Scriabin," Wang says.

The second half comprises Mozart's Piano Sonata No 4 in E-Flat Major, K 282, and Franz Liszt's Piano Sonata in B Minor, S 178.

"After the intermission, I envisioned the contrast between light and dark — a juxtaposition of Mozart's pure and innocent sonata with Liszt's diabolic magnum opus," she adds.

From a personal perspective, for the China tour, Wang prepared pieces that resonate with her own life experiences, so that she can present them genuinely and portray the most authentic and convincing version of them.

Each of the pieces bears its own unique significance to her, but among them, her favorite is the piano sonata by Liszt, as it accompanied her throughout her final semester at the Curtis Institute of Music in the United States.

When she first studied the composition, which was highly controversial and received harsh critique upon its initial publication, she found herself filled with trepidation, constantly concerned that her interpretation might not fully grasp its complexity.

"Playing Liszt's sonata at the end of a program is obviously strenuous and taxing, but, in a way, I think that embodies the spirit of the piece — the dramatic and conflicting life of Faust culminating in a transcendental ending," Wang says.

"Liszt's sonata is one of those works where there is really nothing to say afterward. I think this ending is not only a riveting conclusion to the 30-minute work itself, but also to the entire program."

Despite the piece requiring the pianist to pour their entire being into it, from technical skills to emotional expressions, the onstage performances proved a revelatory and fulfilling experience for her.

Born in 1999 in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Wang started learning piano at the age of 3.

When she was 11 years old, she was enrolled at the Central Conservatory of Music Middle School with top grades, studying under the conservatory's professors Chang Hua and Sheng Yuan.

"Wang's performances are filled with color, imagination, a sense of conviction and originality," Sheng once commented.

Since her debut recital at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing at the age of 13, Wang has performed on stages in the US, Germany and Poland, among other countries, and collaborated with esteemed orchestras worldwide.

She enrolled at Curtis in 2012, where she obtained a bachelor's degree under pianists Meng-Chieh Liu and Eleanor Sokoloff, and continued onto undertake her studies for the master's degree last year at the New England Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of professor Dang Thai Son.

Last year, she was once again thrust into the public consciousness when she won first prize and the Nelson Freire Prize for the best performer of a piece by Chopin at the 2022 edition of the Ferrol International Piano Competition in Spain.

"For the foreseeable future, I will continue my graduate studies in Boston, and I plan on traveling and performing as much as I can," Wang says.