Yuya Wang The Vienna Recital UHQCD

On "The Vienna Recital", star pianist Yuya Wang plays an epoch- and cross-genre program with works by Albéniz, Scriabin, Kapustin, Beethoven, Ligeti, Glass, Brahms and Gluck.
Wang masterfully combines this exciting compilation of works, described in the accompanying booklet as a "musical gallery", and thrilled the audience at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The recording of the concerto entered the classical bestseller charts after its first release in 2024.
UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. UHQCDs, unlike conventional CDs, are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. To protect the softer photopolymer from scratching, another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied. The combination results in a significantly reduced reflection of the laser light inside the CD and an unrivalled precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with normal CD players. Musically, the result is a sound that is strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.
The discs offered by Universal Japan are additionally MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) encoded. If you output the digital signal from the digital output of your CD player or the previously ripped data stream of your music server to a corresponding MQA-DA converter, you can generate a 24-bit signal with a sampling frequency of up to 352 kHz from the CD data.
While Universal Music Japan's first UHQCD series relied on DSD data from previous SHM-SACD releases, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACD are now being released with increasing popularity. Typically, the master tapes of the Universal Archive are re-converted to DSD and then post-processed with the appropriate MQA encoder. Thus, the UHQCDs are ideal for music lovers who want to get as close as possible to the sound of the recording, but do not have a SACD player.

Musicians:

• Yuja Wang, piano

Selections:

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)
1. Málaga From Iberia
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Piano Sonata No.3 in F Sharp Minor, Op.23
2. I. Drammatico
3. II. Allegretto
4. III. Andante
5. IV. Presto con fuoco
Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020)
6. Prélude No.11
7. Prélude No.10
From 24 Jazz Préludes, Op.53
Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)
8. Lavapiés from Iberia
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No.18 in E Flat Major, "The Hunt", Op.31/3
9. I. Allegro
10. II. Scherzo. Allegretto vivace
11. III. Menuetto. Moderato e grazioso
12. IV. Presto con fuoco
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
13. Ètude No.6: Automne à Varsovie
14. Ètude No.13: L'escalier du diable
Philip Glass (1937-)
15. Étude No.6
Arturo Márquez (1950-)
16. Danzón No.2 (Transcr. for Piano Leticia Gómez-Tagle)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
17. Intermezzi in C Sharp Minor, Op.117/3
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)
18. Melodie from Orphée et Eurydice
arr. for piano by Giovanni Sgambati