Tracking Yuja Wang’s Heartbeats During Her Rachmaninoff Marathon | Carnegie Hall

On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-lifetime, all-Rachmaninoff marathon that featured the composer’s four piano concertos plus his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” Throughout the performance, Wang-along with Nézet-Séguin, members of the orchestra, and concertgoers in attendance-wore devices to track their heartbeats.
Unprecedented and insanely demanding, Wang made history. These five pieces include two-and-a-half hours of music, 621 pages of score, and more than 97,000 piano notes.
To this day, Rachmaninoff’s virtuosic compositions captivate like few others, and these world-class artists ensured that the music was as heartily felt as it was technically astounding. Together, they answered a singular question: What happens when Rachmaninoff's music touches your heart?
00:00 - Introduction
01:07 - History of Sergei Rachmaninoff at Carnegie Hall
01:28 - Yuja Wang on Rachmaninoff
02:45 - Analysis of the performance data
08:32 - Yuja Wang's heartbeat before and after
08:55 - Yannick Nézet-Séguin's heartbeat data
10:03 - Synchronicity in Yuja Wang and Yannick Nézet-Séguin's heartbeat
11:37 - Case Studies
12:54 - Final Conclusions
Editor’s Note: This performance marked the first time in Carnegie Hall history that Rachmaninoff’s four piano concertos plus his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” were performed on a single program. It was not the first time in history this has ever been done.
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