Yuja x Hockney: artistic immersion at London’s Lightroom

Pictures at an exhibition? Modest Mussorgsky got there first with his solo piano suite responding to artworks by his dear friend, Viktor Hartmann. But a piano recital in an exhibition – a multimedia one at that – feels genuinely innovative. Last year, Yuja Wang performed six programmes in David Hockney’s Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) installation at London’s Lightroom, tucked behind King’s Cross Station. It was utterly jaw-dropping, but although invited to attend, press were under strict instruction not to publish reviews. One year on, she – and Hockney – have returned, along with your correspondent, this time officially on duty. 

The concept is great. Inside, the Lightroom is essentially a white cube. With a Steinway planted at one end, the audience fills the rest of the floor – some on seats perilously close to the piano – and are engulfed by Hockney’s art, projected onto the four walls around us. As the Yorkshire-born artist drew some of his latest works on an iPad, it is possible to animate these creations, pen stroke by pen stroke, so it feels as if you are inside the art as it emerges into being. 

Yuja Wang plays works selected in response to Hockney’s art (the repertoire is unannounced and liable to alter over the seven showings in the four-day run). At other times, the walls show projections of the megastar’s face – close-ups showing fierce concentration or a cheeky grin as she rattles off fiendish fistfuls of notes – and overhead shots as she eats up the keyboard so we can admire her rapidfire dexterity. 

And at this opening performance, her pianism was often astonishing, particularly when at full pelt; the fast-repeated notes of Pierre Sancan’s Toccata or the Precipitato from Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata (a familiar Wang encore) were breathtaking, as was the clangorous finale of Samuel Barber’s Sonata, which featured in her recent tour programme. Her sense of rhythm in Ligeti’s Hungarian Rock, written for harpsichord imitating a guitar, was “rock” solid, crisp without being percussive. Philip Glass’ Etude no. 6, one of several numbers that featured in last year’s set, was superbly paced and balanced. 

Some numbers – Ondine, La campanella – lacked a true piano dynamic, possibly due to my proximity to a Steinway with an extremely bright treble. And while the more familiar works from Wang’s wide repertoire sounded polished and exciting, a few of the new additions didn’t always feel completely secure; they will surely “bed in” more during the run. 

The softer numbers were often the ones that worked best in symbiotic relationship to Hockney’s art: a pastoral landscape drenched in rain during Ravel’s Jeux d’eau; the photographic collage Pearblossom Highway to Berio’s Wasserklavier; or the majesty of A Bigger Grand Canyon accompanied by Rachmaninov’s nostalgic Elégie. Heavenly Bach was illuminated by Hockney’s stained glass, coloured lights bathing the audience in a warm glow. And in La campanella, a Yuja Wang speciality, we found ourselves deep in the forest, specifically The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, overhead projections allowing pink flowers to burst into blossom beneath our feet. 

Mussorgsky wrote his pianistic tribute to Hartmann after the artist’s death. Here, the 87-year old Hockney, in a blue tartan jacket and his familiar flat cap and very much alive, soaked up this thrilling recital from a prime front row seat, clearly in his element. And quite rightly so.