"Loving and Longing" is the title of pianist Yoonie Han's latest album and she gave the audience at the Harvard Club of New York City a taste of some of its selections on Tuesday.

During the performance, Han noted that she has played numerous times at the club and her familiarity with the space and ambiance was duly noted through her demeanor at the piano and while addressing the public.

After a few selections, she would get up and give her audience some background on each of the pieces and even articulate her reasons for including them. At one point, she brought up composer Theodore Wiprud to introduce his piece "El Jaleo," and after the performance, she walked into the audience and gave him a warm hug.

But the gentle woman turned into a passionate musician once her hands touched the keys of the piano. For her first selection of the evening, she gave an introspective account of "El amor y la muerte" from Granados' "Goyescas."

In many ways, this piece set up everything that was to come. Her playing was delicate and mysterious in the quieter passages, but it seemed intent on exploding with ferocious energy at any moment. Her choice to finish out the program with a Liszt arrangement of Wagner's "Liebestod" from his game-changing "Tristan und Isolde" delivered on this promise of repressed longing breaking out into fiery passion. The arrangement opens with a few dark chords that Han struck aggressively. Then she initiated the melody (that is usually sung on the words "Mild und leise") almost barely touching the keys. As the piece built toward its dramatic explosion of sound (Liszt's arrangement is a frenetic rhythmic gesture), one could sense Han pushing the piano to its tonal limits. But yet there were some hesitancy in some of the builds that kept the listener in suspense. It was a truly magical spell to behold.

Another fine moment in the recital came at the halfway mark when Han took on a Busoni arrangement of Bach's glorious "Chaconne," which is originally for solo violin. Han warned listeners that this was not the "religious" approach of the original composition, but a more "dramatic" one. And she certainly delivered on that promise. The Chaconne is a massive piece that can clock in at around 14 to 15 minutes for most violin soloists. The greatest difficulty of playing it is maintaining not only a sense of momentum from variation to variation, but also a sense of fluidity and continuity through its diverse transitions. These transitions arguably offer the greatest challenges for any musician, as it is often easy to fall into the trap of making the piece feel overly episodic instead of having that movement. On the flipside, an interpretation that is too forward moving misses the nuance and introspective nature of Bach's otherworldly music. Han did a wonderful job of creating balance throughout and one particularly magical moment happened at the transition between the minor and major section. As she struck the final minor chord of the passage, it seemed like the piece was about to come to an end; as the noted started to fade, she delicately introduced the next chord, in the major key, to create a seamless transition that blended beautifully without feeling intrusive. This is the wondrous musical effect that the piano can achieve, but the violin unfortunately cannot. There were some overzealous moments where tempi shifts were exaggerated from one moment to the next, but this likely had more to do with the fact that this was a romantic transcription of a baroque piece.

Less successful was a rendition of Schubert's "Gute Nacht" from the Winterreise as arranged by Liszt. The march motif in opening bars started off rather slowly, seemingly setting the mood for a rather tempestuous work; as soon as the main melody arrived, the foreboding motif in the bass sped up. This shift was a bit odd in its musical effect, but hardly hindered the experience. The execution of the "vocal" passages were beautifully executed with a delicacy that expressed the melancholy and dread of the work. During the repeat of the melody later in the piece, Liszt employs a number of virtuoso flourishes. Han soared throughout these bravura passages, but the march motif, which permeates throughout the whole piece, got lost and its musical impact was thus lessened.

Han also played a "Melodie" from Gluck's "Orpheus and Euridice" with finesse and reserve. Far less reserved was "El Jaleo," which Han noted was getting its world premiere. The piece starts off with subtle rhythmic rumblings that slowly building into an explosion of musical fire. Right at the height, the piece comes to an abrupt ending, leaving the viewer fulfilled, but longing for more.

At the end of the program Han stated that she did not want to leave her audience with death and played a more cheerful selection by Schubert. This piece had a directness of movement and clarity of line that made it the ideal ending to an exciting but emotionally draining experience.