This is one of the hardest pieces in the world – but this virtuoso makes it look *effortless*

26 April 2018, 10:05 | Updated: 26 April 2018, 10:16

One top pianist has said playing this piece is “like having to solve endless quadratic equations in my head”. Yuja Wang makes it look as easy as three blind mice.

When Ravel wrote his fiendishly difficult Gaspard de la Nuit he set out to make it one of the most challenging pieces ever written (thanks, Maurice).

It’s inspired by a poem about a sprite or goblin of the night and the movement that causes nightmares for pianists everywhere is the third, called ‘Scarbo’.

Pianist Steven Osborne – a Ravel expert – has called the music “eerie, hectic and disturbed” and said trying to play it is like “having to solve endless quadratic equations in my head.”

It’s moments like this that are particularly… troublesome:

And this:

Which makes it all the more impressive that Yuja Wang plays it without any apparent effort. 

WE BOW TO QUEEN YUJA.

This Sunday 29 April at 3pm, Charlotte Hawkins will celebrate Yuja Wang as her Young Classical Star.