Concert review: Lang Lang poetic for Chopin concerto with Atlanta Symphony by Pierre Ruhe

Classical Music

Concert review: Lang Lang poetic for Chopin concerto with Atlanta Symphony

By Pierre Ruhe | Mar 18, 2010

On the way to Symphony Hall on Wednesday, I ran into Reid Harris, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra‘s principal violist, standing in line at a coffee shop. How was this afternoon’s rehearsal with Lang Lang? “He’s doing the Elvis thing, decked out in leather pants,” came the reply. “But his Chopin is sounding really good.”

Lang Lang isn’t the world’s greatest pianist — whatever that would entail — but he is likely the most popular, the reigning King of Classical. His program bio puts the numbers up front: sold-out concerts; recordings that break into the pop charts; 5 billion people watching him during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, where “he appeared as a symbol of the youth and future of China”; cracking Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list; and being a role model for the 40 million or so Chinese kids who are said to be learning European classical piano.

But the 27-year-old had a very traditional education, including studies with Gary Graffman at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Nevertheless, he probably gets more attention from the mass media than he does within old-school classical circles.

No one was disappointed Wednesday. Atlanta’s sold-out, one-night-only performance was a warm-up for the Savannah Music Festival‘s opening event Thursday evening. For the pianist, it was the start of a barnstorming tour, some 25 cities in 30 days. In Chopin’s achingly poetic Piano Concerto No. 2, Lang Lang proved that he’s maturing into a substantial interpreter and has shed a youthful tendency for ostentatious display (for which he’d been dubbed “Bang Bang”).

Chinese superstar Lang Lang plays Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Robert Spano conducting the Atlanta Symphony. Photos by Jeff Roffman

His Chopin is now caressing, delicate, searching. He breathed with conductor Robert Spano and the orchestra and slipped gracefully into singing lines from below rather than above. It was a modest and loving reading, more about Chopin than about Lang Lang. Under fingers of steel, he crafted the second movement’s opening theme in dreamy, liquid phrases and stretched the brief solo passages into dramatic narratives. These were divine moments.

For his only encore, Lang Lang returned with Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise (No. 6 in A-flat), delivering a palette of colors and fiery power not heard much since Vladimir Horowitz’s heyday. The pianist pounded so hard on the keys I worried he might pop a string on the nine-foot Steinway. Two teenage boys seated near me, both studying piano, were ecstatic; they proclaimed Lang Lang their idol. The ebullient audience called him back for encores until, finally, Spano escorted the orchestral musicians off stage.

The concert opened with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which was sometimes very careful but often viscerally charged. In the songful second movement, Spano let the melodies unspool organically and he judged the portamentos — a Romantic sliding from note to note — beautifully. One might guess it will come together perfectly for the Savannah performance.

9 Comments

IveyLeaguer

1

Pierre, I agree with your description of Chopin’s 2nd movement save for one thing. I thought Lang Lang’s opening 2 bars were so slow they were actually dragging the piece to its beginning … also, the opening of the Tchaikovsky No. 5 was a great deal more staccato than I’ve ever heard it, and thought it was a bit awkward.

I’m wondering about your thoughts on these points.
~~~

18 Mar
Pierre Ruhe

2

Sounds like you have the start of a very informed review, Ivey. How about you post it here? That’s the beauty of the online world: one person writes a review, the readers write their own, we get a conversation started.

To answer one of your questions, I didn’t think Lang Lang distorted the opening of the Larghetto but rather set himself up for the rather intimate utterances that followed. Lang Lang remains a showman, and if he’s going to be subtle he’ll assert powerfully that he’s about to be subtle. In this performance, it worked for me.

18 Mar
DRLF

3

Dear Mr. Ruhe,

If my eyes did not deceive me, it was not a 9 foot Steinway, but a Bosendorfer Grand Imperial upon which Lang Lang “pounded”

I do, however, agree that Lang Lang has incredible tonal control and color in his playing.

18 Mar
Pierre Ruhe

4

Lang Lang is a so-called “Steinway artist,” meaning that he plays their instruments — at least in public. And in the middle photo, if you squint your eyes just right, you can see the Steinway logo and name on the side of the piano. If memory serves me, the last pianist in Symphony Hall who played a Bösendorfer was Valentina Lisitsa. There was a rather significant difference in the sound between her instrument and the ASO’s two Steinways …

18 Mar
Pierre Ruhe

5

Lang Lang’s endorsement probably helps sell a hell of a lot of Steinways (especially in China). He even gets top billing on Steinway’s website:

“For decades Steinway & Sons has cultivated special relationships with pianists from every genre. From classical pianists like Lang Lang, to jazz stars like Diana Krall, to pop icons like Billy Joel, to “immortals” like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Arthur Rubinstein — more than 1,500 artists make the Steinway their own.”

18 Mar
IveyLeaguer

6

Yeah, Pierre, I agree that ‘distortion’ is too strong of a word – ‘awkward’ may better describe what I felt. But I think you are correct in that ‘exaggeration’ is what it was. I think a slightly higher (but still exaggerated) tempo I would have created more overtones and a more musical effect and would’ve better matched the exaggerated tempo of the ending, which was beautiful. The final touch was great.
Your points are insightful and appreciated. Thanks.
~~~

18 Mar
John

7

Hey Pierre,

I enjoyed your review of Bang Bang. He’s definitely the new Vladimir Horowitz, meaning, in the words of Joseph Horowitz, he’s the world’s greatest piano career. But Vlad Horowitz had a sense of color and dynamics that was both amazing and original. He also had a sense of the Romantic tradition with his transcriptions. He was like a 20th-century Tausig or Busoni. In that respect, Lang Lang strikes me as being more in the tradition of Liberace or Elton John. But perhaps I’m wrong. Sounds like he can play Chopin’s F minor concerto pretty well. But so could Liberace.

John Pitcher

18 Mar
IveyLeaguer

8

I had never seen Lang Lang before last week, but I’d heard he was widely referred to as ‘Bang Bang’. And it didn’t take long to see he is partly a product of marketing and his path has been well-greased, as opposed to say, Ingrid Fliter. But without knowing what, precisely, he did to gain that reputation, I suppose he may have lost, or is losing, the tendency to bang, according to Pierre’s review.

I was sitting in the Loge, but he looked like he was banging away pretty good on the Polonaise encore. If that is not the same stuff that earned the Bang-Bang tag, whatever it was must have been something.

~~~

18 Mar

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