Munich's classical music fans had a rare treat on July 10th with the live broadcast of pianist Lang Lang's concert from the Rheingau music festival. Many of today's classical music shooting stars are somewhat overrated, relying more on good packaging than actual skill, but this is not the case for the young Chinese pianist Lang Lang. The Wall Street Journal calls him one of the twenty people who will change the world. A critic from the Washington Post wrote: "If he were a share on the stock market, I'd take out a credit to buy him". The 21 year old is currently one of the hottest new classical music stars around. If it were up to his worldwide audiences, Lang Lang would be playing 48 hours a day, and then some. ...
Little needs to be said about this young Chinese whose name has become synonymous with musical excellence. Born in Shenyang, China, in 1982, he was a wonder-child who started piano lessons at the age of three. By the age of five he gave his first recital, playing difficult pieces like Liszt by heart, standing and stretching out his little arms for the keys because he was still too small to reach the pedals when sitting on the stool. When Lang Lang was nine years old, his family moved to Bejing, to enable him to study at the Central Conservatory there. Financial sacrifice was in order. They lived in a small apartment without heat. "All you could do in order to keep warm was practice, eat hot food, and sometimes my father would go to bed before me and warm up the sheets for when I went to sleep", the celebrated Chinese pianist remembers of his difficult beginnings. His first piano was Swedish made, not quite as sturdy as the Steinway pianos, and the little boy's ardent practice broke the strings. "In the end, some 30 tones didn't work, which means that I must have broken about 70 strings," recalls Lang Lang. "I didn't mind, I just kept playing, and I replaced the missing notes inside my head."
His extraordinary talent made him so famous in his home country that a biography of Lang Lang appeared, in Chinese, when the teenage pianist was only 17. The rest is history: move to Philadelphia, further studies there, numerous awards in Europe and a first step toward international fame when he auditioned for the Chicago Symphony in 1999 and was asked, at short notice, to replace Andre Watts who had become ill. Then, finally, his celebrated debut at Carnegie Hall, New York, on November 7th, 2003, which took not only the New York audiences by storm. Lang Lang played Schumann, Haydn, Schubert, Tan Dun, Chopin and Liszt, well enough for his worldwide career to take off like a rocket. Less than one year later, he is completely booked out, with a schedule that will keep him very busy indeed for a rather long time.
Translated into English, Lang Lang means something like: splendid, shining man. And this he is, indeed. These days, if you don't know Lang Lang it's almost as bad as not having an email address. He has been titled "Pianist of the 21st Century". And there he was, this young Chinese piano miracle, performing in the Rheingau. The television station 3 Sat took pity on all those who could travel to see him and they broadcast the concert live, throughout Europe, including some pretty impressive close-ups of Lang Lang's truly astonishing hands. BBC, to satisfy British audiences, joined with a later broadcast date.
As soon as Lang Lang enters the stage, you realize that someone really great is standing there: he has a commanding presence that belies his youth. Once he sits down at the piano he no longer looks like the 21 year old who he still is but, rather, like a master at the keys who seems to be somewhere around 30, an effect that comes from the undeniable maturity that he brings to his treatment of the music. Lang Lang, in fact, seems intoxicated with his music, resulting in near-unconquerable difficulties being played with the same abandon as the easier pieces.
"He is like a cat at the piano," says Daniel Bairenboim about him. That is one way to put it, but it is only partially true. Lang Lang played Chopin's piano concerto No 1 in e minor (op 11) all by heart. When he leans back during play, tilting his upper body near horizontal and playing with arms outstretched, he becomes an extension of his piano. Lucky the Steinway Grand that is being handled by his skilled fingers, which move up and down its keys like ten little graceful men performing a magical dance. Any gifted pianist with good technique and skill can play a piano, and can even play it well, but Lang Lang can bring the instrument alive in a way that can only be described as sensational. His octaves come with astonishing drive, the double notes with gorgeous power. The softer passages shine with friendliness, harmonizing under the authority of Lang Lang's skilled hands to display warmth, passion and radiance at times, at others moody, grumpy, or even devout aspects. There is delicacy, control, super-abundant tone colour.
Lang Lang had only one piece, Chopin's concerto, to play during the entire concert. The break, after his performance, was to be followed by a Schumann symphony. But the audience was not going to let him go that easily. They sat there, saturated with the excellence of his performance, and when Lang Lang had played his final note he was rewarded with such an enormous amount of applause that it was clear the clapping would go one until he played some more. Kindly, gracefully, the pianist thanked Foster and his orchestra before sitting down again for an uncharacteristic encore in the middle of a festival program. He played Schumann's Traumerei (op 15) but he could have played anything, it would not have mattered. The idea in everybody's mind seemed to be: Keep him at the piano - don't let him go. So long as Lang Lang sits at the piano, the world seems to be in order, all chaos momentarily kept at bay.
Deutsche Grammophon had luckily foreseen the enormous popularity of this young pianist. When he gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 2003, they had installed their recording devices and made a live CD. The result is now on CD, and DVD, under the title: Lang Lang Live at Carnegie Hall. The 2 CD set (DG CD 474 820 - 2) and DVD (DG DVD 073 098 -9) provide some interesting extras, such as the traditional Chinese "Two Horses", a piece about two horses competing at a ravishing gallop. This, Lang Lang performs together with his father, Gue-Ren Lang who plays the Erthu, a Chinese two-string violin that can, well and truly, whinny like a horse.
Whether you see him live, or on DVD, or even just listen to him on the radio or on CD, any musical experience with Lang Lang's competent pianist hands is likely to leave his listeners in awe of this talented and well-behaved young man whose expert play results in handsome excellence that enchants with its thoughtfulness, passion and impeccable first-rate virtuosity.
www.rheingau-musik-festival.de
www.deutschegrammophon.com/langlang-recital
www.klassikakzente.de
www.langlang.com