Best Yuja Wang Encores (Born on February 10, 1987) Confetti, Fireworks, and Fingers on Fire

 

 by Hermione Lai  February 10th, 2026

I will say this upfront, as a pianist who knows exactly how hard this instrument can bite. Yuja Wang is a miracle! She is both an inspiration and a delightful menace. She raises the bar so high, it feels almost unfair.

Some pianists impress you. Some intimidate you. Some make you want to practice. Yuja Wang does something far more dangerous. She makes you believe, just for a second, that the piano might be capable of flight. Then she laughs, changes shoes, and proves it again.

Yuja Wang

To hear Yuja play is to witness total command without a trace of heaviness. Her fingers are so impossibly fast that your eyes can’t follow. And it’s all fearlessly clear and comes with ease as notes sparkle, dart, tease, explode, and vanish.

Classical music has long suffered from performers who behave as if joy were somehow unprofessional. Yuja Wang is the antidote. She smiles at the keyboard. She dares. She risks. She throws off ten encores like confetti and somehow makes each one feel like a gift.

Talking about encores, to celebrate her birthday on 10 February, let’s listen to her most jaw-dropping encores, explosions of adrenaline, personality, joy and irresistible brilliance.  

Blink and You’ll Miss It

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” in the arrangement of Cziffra lands like a perfectly timed firework. It’s short, explosive, and utterly irresistible. In fact, it’s a full-blown adrenaline rush.

The piano under her hands doesn’t buzz so much as ignites, flashing past in a blur of precision, speed, and wicked delight.

But it’s not just the incredible velocity that makes this a truly jaw-dropping encore. It’s Yuja’s control that is out of this world. Every note is clean, every accent alive, and every phrase shaped with a wink. How on earth can she make something so ferocious sound so joyful?   

Mozart Meets Modern Fireworks

Yuja Wang takes Mozart’s “Alla Turca” and gleefully rockets it out of the 18th century and straight into now. What starts as a familiar classical wink suddenly sparkles, swerves and struts with crisp elegance, colliding with high-octane brilliance.

And if you’re wondering what magic potion she’s using, the arrangement itself feels like a delicious hybrid. It’s a mischievous mash-up of Arcadi Volodos’ pianist extravagance and Fazil Say’s jazzy bite.

Both are filtered through Yuja’s own fearless instinct, with the result that Mozart becomes part jazz club and part keyboard acrobat. It’s utterly alive, Mozart with lipstick, sneakers, and bursting fireworks.

Where Stillness Turns Electric

Yuja Wang

After fireworks and bravura in the main concert, Yuja Wang occasionally turns to something hypnotic in her encore. Just listen to how Philip Glass’ “Etude No. 6” is taking over the room. The steady pulse begins almost innocently, and then, without warning, it transforms.

Repetition becomes propulsion, and simplicity turns into pure electricity. Every return of the loop feels newly charged, all nudged forward with razor-sharp rhythm and luminous clarity.

As an encore, it’s genius. This is a different kind of thrill; it’s cool, focused, and irresistible. You feel the pulse in your chest, the precision in your bones, and suddenly the hall is vibrating with the quiet, unstoppable confidence of modern music played by someone who absolutely owns it.  

Turbocharged Tea for Two

When Yuja Wang launches into “Tea for Two,” the piano becomes a playground of swing, sparkle, and sheer joy. Inspired by Art Tatum’s legendary jazz arrangements, she takes this familiar tune and turns it into a whirlwind of dazzling runs and playful flourishes.

Every phrase seems to giggle and wink at the audience. It’s not just an encore but a celebration. Let’s call it a little surprise that lifts the hall into laughter and applause.

Everything is effortless: the tricky leaps, the double-note passages, and the rapid-fire ornaments. It basically is unbelievable, as Yuja Wang rolls speed, clarity, and sheer brilliance all into one.  

Rocket-Powered Virtuosity

When Yuja Wang dives into Kapustin’s “Toccatina,” she turns the piano into a dazzling jazz-fuelled rocket ship. Yuja attacks this mischievous whirlwind, part classical precision and part big-band swagger, with that signature fearless confidence.

There is plenty of blinding speed and a blizzard of notes, and Yuja Wang brings sheer personality to every measure. Those dizzying runs don’t just fly; they dance, laugh, and flirt.

This is pure joy, reckless brilliance, and rhythmic exhilaration all wrapped into one ridiculously entertaining encore. Those tricky rhythmic twists trip me up every time, but Yuja makes it gleam like polished crystal.   

Polka Rocket

If virtuosity had a theme song, Yuja Wang would be playing it at full throttle on a grand piano. Just listen to her attack the Cziffra arrangement of Strauss’ “Tritsch-Tratsch Polka.” This isn’t a polka, it’s rock-fuelled finger gymnastics.

Every rapid-fire scale, cascading arpeggio, and whirlwind octave is executed with a precision that makes your jaw drop. She spins Cziffra’s mercilessly difficult passagework with the same ease that a cat might chase a laser pointer.

The almost absurdly difficult technical foundation is made seemingly effortless. By the final barrelling chords, you’re certainly not hearing a polka. You’re riding a rollercoaster designed by a piano wizard where exhilaration is mandatory.   

Melody in Bloom

Yuja Wang

Yuja Wang’s take on Gluck’s Melodie from Orfeo ed Euridice (arranged by Sgambati) is like stepping into a sunlit garden of sound. What makes this encore so enchanting is how it contrasts with the firecracker pyrotechnics we usually associate with her.

This encore just delicately floats, with each phrase shaped by a singer’s breath and a painter’s eye for nuance. And with that subtle pedal work that lets the harmonies shimmer underneath, the whole piece just starts to glow.

Here, it’s all about touch, tone and whispered elegance. Yuja caresses each note, letting every delicate turn of the melody bloom. If you really needed proof that Yuja isn’t all about speed and power, this encore showcases her exquisite musicality in every shimmering phrase.  

Horowitz Showstopper

If you’re looking for a whirlwind in a flamenco dress, look no further than Yuja Wang attacking Horowitz’s “Carmen Fantasy Variations.” It’s fiery, dazzling, and absolutely irresistible.

Each variation bursts with personality. One moment it’s a playful flirt, the next a sultry smoulder, and then suddenly she’s launching into a thunderous cascade of scales and arpeggios that leave you breathless.

It’s pure pyrotechnics, but with Yuja, there’s never a sense of chaos, as every blazing run and daring leap is impeccably shaped and perfectly timed. Her touch is electric, and she takes us on a thrilling and utterly exuberant ride through Bizet, Horowitz, and her own unstoppable personality. 

 

From Counterpoint to Confetti

Here is an encore that Yuja doesn’t play all the time, and it’s not so easy to get good footage of it. However, this Katsaris piano paraphrase of Bach’s “Badinerie” is exactly what Yuja ordered.

In the original, it’s already a cheeky and sprightly dance full of twirls and infectious energy. In Katsaris’s arrangement, however, the infectious spirit is out of this world. Every phrase is packed with tiny virtuosic flourishes, surprising little detours, and sparkling commentary that feels like musical confetti.

And then Yuja steps in, and it feels like a burst of personality. Her rhythmic zing and tonal sparkle bring out the humour and brilliance in Bach’s counterpoint, letting every nimble twist shine. By the time she’s finished, it’s less a performance and more a joyous celebration with a distinctly modern and joyful twist.   

Desert Moon Dance Party

For another novel encore, let’s turn to Yuja Wang’s take on “Danzón No. 2” by Arturo Márquez. This sizzling orchestral showpiece has been cleverly reimagined for solo piano by Leticia Gómez Tagle. And under Yuja’s fingers, it becomes an irresistibly sultry dance party under a desert moon.

From the very first syncopated accents, Yuja brings out the seductive rhythmic flair, her fingers teasing and flirting with the melody like a dancer drawing you into the floor.

The way she balances rhythmic excitement with expressive nuance gives the piano version both the heartbeat of the dance and the sparkle of a showpiece. What can I say? It’s full of flirtatious flair, sparkling fingers, and irresistible joy.

Fingers on Fire

Yuja Wang

How about concluding this blog with a lightning bolt, taking a bow? That’s what’s happening when Yuja Wang attacks Prokofiev’s “Toccata.” Her fingers fly with a kind of joyful fearlessness, rapid-fire scales and cascading octaves included.

Every percussive blast is landing with dazzling precision. But here’s the magic. It’s not just a technical tour de force, but even in the midst of this relentless energy, every note sings. Her hands are literally everywhere at once, yet nothing sounds cluttered or mechanical.

I just feel a sense of giddy exhilaration, the kind of thrill that makes you grin and hold your breath at the same time. This is virtuosity that doesn’t just impress the brain. It sweeps the soul along, turning blistering technique into pure musical storytelling.

Whirlwind of Wonder

Yuja Wang doesn’t just play encores. She creates joy, she redefines possibilities, and she reminds us that the piano can dance, soar, and even flirt with the sky.

To love Yuja Wang’s playing is to love risk, brilliance, humour, glamour, and precision, all wrapped into one fearless artist who walks onstage as if she belongs there completely.

But here is the truth. After all the fireworks, the flirts, the sparkling confetti of scales, runs, and octaves, you realise you’ve witnessed more than an encore marathon.

We’ve glimpsed the essence of Yuja Wang. She is a whirlwind of brilliance, bravura, and unabashed delight. And honestly? I can’t wait to see what she’ll throw at the keys next.

Yuja with the MCO in Chicago

 

A rave review of Yuja with the MCO in Chicago. Praise for both her playing and conducting. About Prokofiev 2: "Wang brought a searching yet cool expression to the opening Andantino, and was fully in synch with the composer’s brand of relentless spiky virtuosity. The pianist virtually somersaulted through the dizzying complexities and blizzard of notes in the succeeding movements with immaculate technical command—blazing through the madcap finale with complete accuracy at a velocity that one wouldn’t think humanly possible."

https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/.../wang-brings.../

Yunchan Lim. A Man of Few Words. But His Music! He Had So So Much to Express

by Nicolette Wong  April 12th, 2026

Last week, Yunchan Lim appeared in Hong Kong with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under the baton of Wilson Ng, bringing us his own take of the piano concerto in A minor by Robert Schumann. I sat up in my seat as soon as the piece started, because the way Lim conveyed the short introduction drew me in. I was fascinated not only by the slower tempo he took, but also by the way he made the opening chord progression sound like a resonant yet measured announcement. So often, this passage sounds frantic and is over before we know it, but Lim’s version felt like a real welcome as he invited us to join in his musical voyage.

Pianist Yunchan Lim with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields orchestra at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Photo: HKAF

Indeed, it was an eye-opening journey of discovery. What struck me most was his voicing. Musicians are expected to bring out top lines, good musicians provide a strong enough bass to support the melody, better musicians let interesting bass lines weave into melodic lines, and the best ones let countermelodies speak up so we hear a full conversation. And Lim? He brought out even the most subtle inner voices, conveying the clearest picture of how many layers there were in this piece and how they all worked together in creating this multicoloured soundscape. This, in addition to his carefully crafted phrasing, made the architecture of the work extremely clear. Moreover, I felt his rendition of this concerto was the most romantic version I have ever heard. Yes, the impulsiveness of Florestan and the dreaminess of Eusebius were there, but there was something else holding those two together, something deeper and perhaps more wholesome. It was romantic without being overtly passionate and ostentatious; it was the most sincere and intimate kind of romance.

Two nights later, I returned to the Cultural Centre Concert Hall expecting another odyssey. This time, Lim treated us to a new recital programme of his: the Schubert D major Sonata D.850 ‘Gasteiner’, paired with Scriabin’s Second, Third, and Fourth Sonatas. I really was transported to another world, so much that after I heard the flourish ending the last sonata, I felt that I was physically in a different realm, and my soul somewhere far, far away, until the crash of applause brought me back to reality and my soul back to my body. Lim’s sound was powerful without being harsh, his tonal palette was so refined and meticulously crafted, and his shaping so precise and carefully sculpted. It was apparent from both the concerto and these sonatas (as well as the encore of the Chopin A minor waltz) that Lim has his own understanding and interpretation of music. There is no display of pyrotechnics even when the music demands great technique, and there is no narcissism or self-indulgence in his phrasing, nor in his way of taking time. Rather, Lim lives for music: he does not play to please others, he does not play in order to show others what a great musician he is, he does not play for the stage. On the contrary, he puts music on a pedestal, and he is merely its servant.  

Being able to watch Lim play was also mesmerising in another way. His body was so fluid – sometimes he rose tall, sometimes he was hunched over with his head loosely hanging from his neck, sometimes his torso was twisted such that his right shoulder and arm were much closer to the keyboard than his left side. I am no expert when it comes to body mechanics, but it is evident that all these movements, whilst being completely organic and not at all superfluous, must impact his sound production. On a superficial level, it goes to show how profoundly Lim himself and his music have fused together as one.

As I observed him taking his bows, I chuckled to myself. The conundrum that is Yunchan Lim stared me in the face: here was a great artist whose musical maturity and intellect suggest someone way beyond his twenties, yet he carries with him an innocence and hopefulness that exude a certain youthfulness. At the piano, he is a master in control; yet one cannot help noticing the boyishness and humility in his stage presence. How lucky we are that we still have decades and decades of watching this extraordinary artist blossom!

Rachmaninoff’s Last Student: 98-Year-Old Pianist Ruth Slenczynska

 by Emily E. Hogstad  October 26th, 2023

Ruth Slenczysnka must be one of the most interesting pianists alive today. She certainly has a story unlike any other: she studied piano with Rachmaninoff as a little girl – became an international musical sensation – abandoned her performing career – returned to it after a divorce – played for presidents – dueted with Harry Truman – spent a long career as an educator – and just last year put out an acclaimed album for the Decca label. And that’s barely scratching the surface of her list of accomplishments!

Ruth Slenczynska © Meredith Truax/PA

Here are thirteen facts about the incredible, inspiring life and career of pianist Ruth Slenczynska:

1. Ruth Slenczynska was born on 15 January 1925 in Sacramento, California, to a Polish violinist named Joseph and his wife. Joseph had been a leader at the Warsaw Conservatory before emigrating, but he was deeply frustrated that his performing career had never blossomed in the way he’d hoped it would. He became obsessed with living vicariously through his gifted daughter.

2. Joseph abused Ruth. When she was just a toddler, he implemented a strict study routine. Eventually, she was forced to play nine hours a day. She told CBS This Morning in 2022, “When I was practicing, and hearing from the street my sisters’ calls as they were playing with other kids, I wanted to be one of those kids who played. And if I didn’t practice, I was chased around the apartment with a stick.”

Pianist Ruth Slenczynska on her life in music   

3. By the age of four, they’d relocated to Europe so that she could access the best teachers and rub shoulders with the most influential musicians of the day. The list of pianists who young Ruth Slenczynska studied with or was mentored by is dizzying, and includes Schnabel, Cortot, and Hofmann.

4. She gave her first concert at four, her recital debut at the age of six in Berlin, and her orchestral debut at eleven in Paris. Not surprisingly, she was hailed in the press as the second coming of Mozart.

A Five Year Old Prodigy (1930)   

5. In 1933, when she was only nine years old, she filled in for Sergei Rachmaninoff when he was indisposed, duplicating his program. Afterward, he called her and invited her to play for him. Understandably, she was terrified. He calmed her down by showing her a picture of his motorboat and imitating the noise of its engines, and she was able to play for him. In gratitude, he gifted her a little Fabergé egg, which even today she wears as a necklace. She spent two years learning from him.

8-year-old Ruth Slenczynski makes her American debut in a piano recital in New York, Nov. 13, 1933 © WNYC

6. She performed for – and played with – President Harry Truman, who was an amateur pianist himself. When the interviewer on This Morning asked her how playing with Truman was, she laughed and said, “Good! Really good! And he was so personable… I thought he played very musically.” Later in her career, she also performed for Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan.

7. When she was fifteen, the pressure of a performing career got to be too much. She gave it up, ran away from home a few years later, and enrolled at the University of California. In 1944, the year she turned nineteen, she met and married a fellow student named George Born. They stayed together until 1953, when they were divorced.

8. In order to make ends meet as a newly single woman, Slenczynska began teaching piano, and eventually she returned to the concert platform after an absence that had lasted for more than a decade.

Ruth Slenczynska talks and plays two Rachmaninoff Preludes (1963)  

9. She wrote a memoir in 1957 titled Forbidden Childhood about the abuse she’d endured as a child. A few years later, she penned a second book, this one called Music at Your Fingertips: Aspects of Pianoforte Technique.

10. In 1964, she joined the staff of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, a town just across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. There she met a political science professor named Dr. James Kerr. A few years later, she married him. Decades later, she referred to him as the love of her life. He died in 2001. They never had any children.

Ruth Slenczynska, c. 1957

11. One of her students, a pianist and teacher named Shelly Moorman-Stahlman, welcomed Slenczynska into her family. According to This Morning, Moorman-Stahlman and her husband welcomed Slenczynska into their home, and today they all live together in Pennsylvania.

12. Slenczynska released her beautiful album “My Life in Music” on the Decca label in 2022, at the age of 97, sixty years after she last recorded with them. It features lovely, touching performances of music by Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Bach, Debussy, and Barber (a friend!).  

13. When she was doing press for the new album, she told NPR, “You don’t become a pianist until you’re past the age of 60. And then you should have something to say that’s worthwhile. If you don’t, forget it.” For over ninety years, Ruth Slenczynska has always had something to say.

10 of the Best Piano Etudes by Women Composers

 by Emily E. Hogstad  April 26th, 2026

Piano etudes don’t have to be dry technical drills. In the hands of a talented composer, they can become miniature works of art.

While names like Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy tend to dominate discussions of the genre, women composers across the past 250 years have contributed some of the most challenging and expressive etudes ever written.

From Hélène de Montgeroult’s revolutionary harmonic language to Grażyna Bacewicz’s electrifying mid-century modernism, these etudes reveal a vibrant pedagogical tradition that can totally reshape our understanding of piano history.

Today, we’re looking at ten of the best piano etudes by women composers, spanning from the late eighteenth century to the twentieth.

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764–1836)  

Hélène de Montgeroult was a French aristocrat, pianist, and innovative composer whose life reads like a novel.

She survived the French Revolution – as one urban legend has it, by improvising variations on “La Marseillaise” to save herself from the guillotine – and went on to become the first female professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1795.

Hélène de Montgeroult

Montgeroult composed an extensive body of piano music, including a whopping 114 piano études published within her comprehensive piano method, Cours complet (1816).

These études were composed between 1788 and 1812 and are considered her magnum opus.

Montgeroult’s music was decades ahead of its time; in fact, she has been called “the missing link between Mozart and Chopin.” She was only eight years younger than Mozart, but her harmonic language and lyrical style clearly anticipate Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin.

Marie Bigot (1786–1820)   

Marie Bigot de Morogues was a French pianist-composer who was admired by the likes of Haydn and Beethoven.

In fact, Bigot impressed Beethoven so greatly with her pianism (she was the first to sight-read his Appassionata Sonata for him) that he gave her the manuscript as a gift. She was one of the first pianists to play it and a fierce champion of Beethoven’s works in general.

Marie Bigot

She later became a well-respected teacher in Paris, giving piano lessons to both Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn in 1816.

Bigot composed a handful of works, among which her Suite d’études (a set of six piano etudes) stands out.

Published in Paris after her departure from Vienna, this set solidified her reputation as a talented composer.

Contemporary accounts note that she had written more music than she ever published, but the etudes were the music she chose to share with the world.

Louise Farrenc (1804–1875)   

Louise Farrenc was a French composer, virtuoso pianist, and professor who achieved considerable renown in her lifetime.

She was the only woman appointed a full professor at the Paris Conservatoire in the nineteenth century, and she tirelessly championed both contemporary and early music.

Louise Farrenc

Farrenc’s own compositions include three symphonies and a huge amount of chamber music, but for pianists, her Etudes hold special significance.

She composed a widely praised set of 30 Études, Op. 26, that systematically covers all major and minor keys, as well as a later set of 25 easier etudes, Op. 50, for intermediate students.

The etudes in Farrenc’s Op. 26 were composed between 1835 and 1838. They belong firmly in the tradition of the great nineteenth-century piano etudes.

They were admired by critics, including Robert Schumann, and were even adopted into the Paris Conservatoire’s curriculum.

For comparison, Chopin’s etudes were written between 1829 and 1839.

We wrote about Farrenc’s groundbreaking career, and how she fought for equal pay for equal work.

Kate Loder (1825–1904)

Kate Loder

Kate Loder (later Lady Thompson) was an English pianist and composer.

A child prodigy from a prominent musical family, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and became the Academy’s first female Professor of Harmony at the age of eighteen.

Unfortunately, Loder’s performing career was cut short after her marriage to famous surgeon Henry Thompson.

At the time, it was considered unseemly for the wife of a prominent gentleman to appear on the stage, so she retired from performing. However, she continued to teach and compose.

Her Two Books of Twelve Studies for piano are particularly noteworthy. While writing her etudes, she enthusiastically embraced the Romantic era idea of turning technical challenges into appealing music.

Laura Netzel (1839–1927)

Laura Netzel

Laura Netzel was a Finnish-Swedish composer (born in Finland but raised in Stockholm) who, like many Nordic composers of her time, went abroad to study.

She traveled to Paris and studied composition with organist Charles-Marie Widor.

Her output was prolific, spanning vocal works, chamber music, and orchestral pieces.

Relevant here are her Deux Etudes de Concert, Op. 52, published in 1895.

The first is subtitled “La Fileuse”, or “The Spinner.” It features a rippling accompaniment suggestive of a spinning wheel’s constant motion. Above it, a gentle, singing melody unfolds.

It was likely inspired by other spinning-wheel-inspired pieces popular in Romantic piano literature at the time. Netzel, however, puts her own spin – no pun intended – on the genre.

Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847–1907)   Play

Agathe Backer Grøndahl was a Norwegian pianist-composer and one of the leading musical figures in Norway in the late nineteenth century.

A student of Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow, Backer Grøndahl enjoyed a stellar career as a concert pianist and earned acclaim for her compositions.

Agathe Backer Grøndahl

She wrote numerous piano pieces, songs, and orchestral works, often infusing them with Norwegian romanticism, much like her friend and colleague Edvard Grieg.

Among her works for piano are the 6 Concert Etudes, Op. 11, published in 1881.

These aren’t easy etudes for up-and-coming players; they’re thrilling virtuoso works intended for advanced pianists, and perfect for a concert setting.

Teresa Carreño (1853–1917)

Teresa Carreño

Teresa Carreño was a Venezuelan-born piano virtuoso and composer. She was one of the most famous pianists of the late nineteenth century, male or female.

Dubbed the “Valkyrie of the Piano”, she enjoyed a dazzling performing career. As a child prodigy, she played for President Lincoln at the age of ten. A few years later, she played for Liszt, who was deeply impressed by her.

She would be a fixture on concert stages for decades to come and wouldn’t let marriage or motherhood stop her. (In fact, she married four husbands.)

In the middle of her hectic career and personal life, she found time to compose a number of piano works, mostly salon pieces and virtuosic showpieces.

One of them was her Caprice-Etude No. 1, Op. 4. It is unknown exactly what date this Caprice-Etude was written, but she would have been very young. Her Op. 5 is dated 1863, when she was ten, so, remarkably, this work likely dates from that time, too.

Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944)  Play

Cécile Chaminade was one of the most successful female composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A French composer-pianist, she was both prolific and popular: she wrote nearly 200 piano pieces, plus songs, chamber music, and a ballet.

Her music was embraced by a massive female audience. In fact, “Chaminade Clubs” dedicated to performing her music sprang up across America during her lifetime.

Cécile Chaminade

Though her output has often been dismissed by (male) critics as mere “salon music”, many of Chaminade’s works demonstrate genuine craft and deep thoughtfulness.

Among her best works are her Etudes de Concert, Op. 35, a set of six concert études composed around 1886.

The most famous of the set is “Automne” (“Autumn”), Op. 35 No. 2. This miniature masterpiece is certainly not a work by a second-rate composer.

Mana-Zucca (1885–1981)

Mana-Zucca

Mana-Zucca was an American composer, pianist, singer, and even actress.

Born as Gussie Zuckermann in New York to Polish immigrants, she adopted the stage name “Mana-Zucca” (a playful rearrangement of the letters in her surname) for her musical career.

Mana-Zucca debuted at Carnegie Hall at the age of eleven. She went on to study with renowned teachers, including Ferruccio Busoi and Leopold Godowsky.

Although largely forgotten today, she was quite famous in her youth. At one point, she was nicknamed the “Chaminade of America.”

Over the course of her career, Mana-Zucca composed over a thousand works, including two operas, a ballet, orchestral and chamber pieces, and hundreds of piano solos.

One extraordinary project of hers was My Musical Calendar, a collection of 366 piano pieces (one for each day of the year), illustrating her endless inventiveness and pedagogical bent.

Read about Mana-Zucca’s many talents.

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969)   

Grażyna Bacewicz was a Polish violinist. She was also one of the most talented composers of the twentieth century, male or female.

Although her violin works and string quartets are perhaps best-known today, Bacewicz was also a fine pianist, and she wrote a significant amount of music for the instrument.

In 1956, she composed her 10 Etudes for piano (sometimes called 10 Concert Etudes), which were first performed in 1957 in Kraków by the pianist Regina Smendzianka.

Grażyna Bacewicz

These études date from Bacewicz’s postwar period, when she was blending neo-classical clarity, Polish folk tradition, and a modernist harmonic language.

Here she follows in her countryman Chopin’s footsteps: every etude isolates technical or rhythmic challenges, but never at the expense of overall musical integrity or inventiveness.

Conclusion

Exploring piano études by women composers not only enriches our understanding of the repertoire but also fills major historical gaps and introduces pianists to fresh, exciting works that deserve to stand alongside the canonical études of Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy.

So whether you’re listening, studying, or preparing your next recital, remember these etudes. They contain some of the most compelling piano writing you’ve probably never heard!

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Facing Alexander Scriabin (Died on April 27, 1915)

 by Hermione Lai  April 27th, 2026

In all my years of playing the piano, there is only one composer whose music I consider terrifying. And that composer is Alexander Scriabin. In his early sonatas, there are still gestures to hold on to, but as you move further along, all familiarity disappears.

Alexander Scriabin

Chords become alien, textures are all over the place, and the music doesn’t breathe in regular phrases. It’s almost like getting seriously lost. How can you communicate something that can’t be grasped?

No Place to Hide

The harmonic language expresses colours and metaphysical visions, not really something you can handle in the practice room. And I can’t even imagine having to memorise the music. I’ve heard it said that pianists need a kind of vulnerability to perform his music, as it is impossible to hide behind structure or tradition.

I think it’s time I confront my demon. So, to commemorate Scriabin’s death on 27 April 1915, let’s have a quick guide to his 10 piano sonatas. Mind you, I’ll try to stay away from too many technical descriptions, and I am immensely grateful to Simon Nicholls for his 1996 notes accompanying Marc-André Hamelin’s interpretations.  

Between Prayer and Despair

Scriabin’s first attempt at a piano sonata was written at the age of fourteen, while he was at the Cadet Corps in Moscow. This turned out to be his Sonata-Fantasy in G-sharp minor of 1886, a work that was never published. So let’s forget about this work and move straight to his Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 6, published seven years later in 1893.

Josef Lhevinne

Scriabin had been trying to compete with the unbelievable virtuosity of his classmate Josef Lhevinne, and he injured his right arm and hand. Doctors told him that he would never recover. Thus, this first sonata, as Scriabin calls it, was a cry against fate and against God.

That cry is heard in the opening measures of the movement, which at times almost sounds like Brahms. Doubts and prayers appear in the second movement in a musical language influenced by César Franck.

The Rondo movement sounds like the finale, but that place is taken by a seriously gloomy Funeral March. It all sounds like Scriabin is trying to find his bearings in a late-Romantic language, throwing in snippets of Chopin, Schumann, and Modest Mussorgsky.   

Nature Transformed

Alexander Scriabin

It took Scriabin the better part of five years to write and publish his Sonata No. 2, Op. 19. The piece unfolds in two movements, and the composer told us what to expect in a short programme note.

“The first part evokes the calm of the night by the seashore in the South; in the development we hear the sombre agitation of the depths. The section in E Major represents the tender moonlight which comes after the first dark of night. The second movement, presto, shows the stormy agitation of the vast expanse of ocean.”

This sonata is one of Scriabin’s most famous works, and it is technically approachable. It certainly helps that in the opening movement, the exposition, development, and recapitulation all start with the same music.

Scriabin’s style has changed in comparison to his first sonata, as the piano writing is much more delicate, almost in the style of Chopin. There are plenty of polyrhythms in the opening movement, while the finale features endless streams of triplets against a marching rhythm.   

A Soul’s Journey

Scriabin’s Sonata No. 3 was composed between 1897 and 1898, around the time he married the young pianist Vera Ivanovna Isaakovich. Initially, he is said to have called the finished work “Gothic,” like the impression of a ruined castle.

Several years later, he or his second wife, Tatyana Schloezer, came up with a different description and nickname, namely “States of Being.” And in this description, all four movements represent a story of a soul’s strife, from being free and untamed to reaching the abyss of nothingness.

A clever person once said that composers who issue programmes for their music often live to regret it, and that seems pretty apt in this case. The music, however, has once again advanced in style. All movements are closely linked to each other in a cyclic treatment reminiscent of Liszt.

Hints of Wagner’s Tristan float through parts of the closing movement, which really does not have a happy ending. There is plenty of counterpoint and a seemingly symphonic conception underneath it all.  

From Desire to Radiance

As Scriabin went through a turbulent personal period, his musical language was transforming as well. His Sonata No. 4, issued as Op. 30 in 1903, is headed by a poem describing a flight to a distant star.

Thinly veiled in transparent cloud
A star shines softly, far and lonely.
How beautiful! The azure secret
Of its radiance beckons, lulls me…
Vehement desire, sensual, insane, sweet…
Now! Joyfully I fly upward toward you,
Freely I take wing.
Mad dance, godlike play…
I draw near in my longing…
Drink you in, sea of light, you light of my own self…

In this shortest of his sonatas, Scriabin uses cyclic themes throughout the 2-movement work. We find unusual harmonies and plenty of “Tristan” references in the opening introduction.

The second movement, which follows without a break, features plenty of new sounds. The first-movement theme returns in a jubilant manner and in an explosion of overwhelming joy. Compared to the sombre finales of the first three sonatas, this one is full of light and ecstasy.   

Ecstasy Unleashed

Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5 was written shortly after his orchestral “Poem of Ecstasy” in 1907. Apparently, he wrote this sonata in only a couple of days as his musical style had evolved once more.

The “Poem of Ecstasy” features a lengthy poetic introduction, describing in rather sexual terms the release from the unconscious mind.

I call you to life, mysterious forces!
Drowned in the obscure depths
of the creative spirit, timid
Embryos of life, to you I bring audacity!

I am not sure we could call it a transitional work, but the music relates directly and clearly to the tonal system, yet many features already point to his late style. We are certainly treated to a contrast between ecstatic fast themes and languid slow ones.

We find cyclic links between sections, and this sonata might be the most difficult among this group. Some parts are downright unpianistic, but we do find some of Scriabin’s most creative harmonic writing, nevertheless.   Play

Fear and Shadows

After Scriabin completed “Prometheus,” he set to work on his Sonata No. 6, Op. 62.

There is no programme, and Scriabin never played it in public. He considered it frightening, dark, mysterious, and dangerous.

The music is disturbing, switching between playful and fleeting, and within this concentrated mysteriousness, tonality has almost disappeared. One might practically call this sonata atonal.

In addition, a transformation of the piano sound had taken place. We find monolithic chords, fluttering airborne impulses, and what has been called an arching theme of boundless sensuality.

There is plenty of febrile hyperactivity that exceeds the range of the keyboard, and it gives the impression of a dream. This sonata remains obscure, and you won’t see it much on concert programmes.   

White Mass

Scriabin at the piano

With the 7th Sonata of 1911, actually finished before the No. 6, we are squarely in the grasp of the composer’s Messianic pretensions. Subtitled “White Mass,” it features wondrous sonorities, extreme dissonances, and a number of themes related to heavenly exorcism.

Scriabin set out to create a prophetic atmosphere; just listen to the opening fanfares and the lightning flickering across the score. Chiming bells present a motif of invocation, and arpeggios drift like clouds of incense.

It all, predictably, ends in a mighty climax, a light flutter of trills and a polyrhythmic ascension after a chord that spans 5 octaves. Many consider this sonata Scriabin’s crowning achievement.

Scriabin loved to play this sonata in public, but the reactions were rather cold. There are just too many technical difficulties, and the harmonic structure and rhythm tend to be a great challenge to pianists.   

Quietest Storm

The Sonata No. 8 turns out to be the quietest of the set. Actually, it was the last sonata to be finished in 1913, and Scriabin spoke enthusiastically of it. But it is the longest and most complex of all Scriabin’s works.

Apparently, Scriabin thought of its form as a quasi-geometrical organisation that bridges the visible natural world with the invisible artistic realm. He also thought himself superior to Bach in terms of contrapuntal writing.

We do find plenty of counterpoint and less dissonance as the entire sonata exudes a static mood. This is possibly what Scriabin had in mind when he called parts “at perfect peace.”

Horribly difficult to perform, on par with the 5th and 7th Sonatas, but it has a much more mature personality. The material for this sonata is summed up in a final dance, and then everything just dissolves.   

Black Mass

In terms of popularity, the Sonata No. 9, subtitled “Black Mass”, is by far the most frequently performed of the set. That subtitle actually comes from an admirer, who described the atmosphere as Satanic.

The work dates from 1912, and it is one of the more approachable sonatas, both in terms of technical demand and in understanding the composer’s mystic ideals. Opening dissonances and repeated notes reach a nightmarish first climax.

The lyrical second subject appears in various seductive guises and turns into a grotesque march. The music becomes more intoxicating by the minute, and the coda evokes the cackle of the devil. Yet, it all ends in subdued quietness, or as A.E. Hull calls it “molecular vertigo.”

Into the Light

In his final sonata, Scriabin returns to the harmony of nature. Sonata No. 10 is bright and sunny, and much less dissonant. It was written on his country estate. The serene opening finishes with luminous trills in a blazing vision of light.

There are plenty of fluttering chords and joyous screams, and Scriabin thought he was on the brink of great new developments. Surprisingly, this sonata is more tonal and features more exposed tonal chords.

Scriabin died in 1915, but he was convinced that “the masses need to be shaken up, in order to purify the human organisation.” I wonder what he might have thought of World War I and the Russian Revolution.

After looking at and listening to the 10 sonatas by Scriabin, my fear of his music will probably never completely go away. It’s like stepping into quicksand, with no anchors for fingers or the mind. And maybe that’s the point; you’ll just have to let go and lunge into the music headfirst.