La campanella, S. 141 No. 3 (Liszt)

*La campanella* is Liszt's most famous single showpiece — an arrangement of the bell-theme from Paganini's Second Violin Concerto that transforms the original's fiery violin writing into a tour de force of pianistic leaping, cross-hand passages, and stratospheric right-hand trills — and Wang plays it as if the technical challenges simply do not exist. This is partly a question of tempo: Wang takes the work at a speed that makes the famous wide-interval leaps genuinely risky, and the fact that she lands every one of them with bell-like precision creates a specific frisson that slower, safer readings cannot reproduce. But there is musicality beyond the acrobatics: Wang shapes the melody — that irresistible ascending bell figure — with genuine charm, the ornamental cascade passages given color and shape rather than merely executed. Liszt wrote this as an homage to Paganini's supernatural reputation, and Wang inhabits that mythology completely — the performance has the quality of something slightly impossible being made to look effortless.