2022 Opus Klassik Awards Instrumentalist of the Year Winner

“These fine performances will appeal especially to those who like expansive accounts of the concertos.”

“These are imaginative performances … a fascinating rethink from an artist with her own distinctive style and technique, and a Guarneri del Gesù instrument that can gleam and glisten with the best of them.”

“With violinist Tianwa Yang you can always count on a mixture of dazzling technique, colour, tone and musical intelligence… Performances of the Concertos No.1 in D Major Op.19 and No.2 in G Minor Op.63 are both particularly strong on the lyrical aspects of the works, with some beautifully expansive playing. The Sonata for Solo Violin in D Major Op.115 completes an excellent disc.”

“It was to be expected that with Tianwa Yang’s equally virtuosic and beguilingly intense violin playing, the two Prokofiev concertos would be a special treat. In addition, the violinist found a congenial partner in Jun Märkl, with whom she achieved a noticeably harmonious and very colorful interpretation. Already the beginning of the First Concerto is remarkable. It is as if the richly and unusually colored, light-filled sound comes from far away, somewhere from beyond, to develop into a playful dance, in which it sparks and flashes excitingly. The Second Concerto is no less charming, demanding both great technical skill and cantabile from the violinist. The bizarre dance rhythms and the lyrical parts of this concerto are convincingly blended into a homogeneous whole. Together with the refinement of the soloist’s playing, the powerful, pulsating music-making of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jun Märkl creates an atmospheric density that gives the concerto a very special espressivo. The solo sonata op. 115 is also played very atmospherically. Tianwa Yang makes an effort to breathe life into the sonata, which sometimes seems a bit cool with other interpreters, and to make it very rich in color and rhythm.”  *****