Moderators: StevieG, dANdeLION, lucimay
They are making a huge ass deal out of this guy. 
What is all of the fuss about? 
And lo and behold, he has his own website: www.langlang.com/Unicef's youngest goodwill ambassador is telling me about his recent visit to Tanzania, visiting children suffering from malaria. That Unicef should send Lang Lang on an awareness-raising mission is testimony to the international profile the 22-year-old Chinese pianist has achieved, even beyond classical music's usual environs.
Part of his popularity undoubtedly stems from his showmanship. Lang Lang plays with a theatrical physicality, his head thrown back, his arms at full stretch. But while his energetic performances of Romantic repertoire have earned him a reputation among concertgoers for firework virtuosity, they have also earned him caveats of the 'fine, but what next?' variety from critics.
I love Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto, but I've never heard the Paganini Variations. Hope the negative review doesn't put you off the concert, duchess. Professional reviewers are always difficult to please.Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No 2
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Lang Lang/Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre/Valery Gergiev, cond.
There are all sorts of curiosities and strange musical decisions in these live recordings (no hint whatever of an audience's presence, by the way). The first is the time it takes Lang Lang to play the opening measures -- 45 ponderous seconds, the longest on record. It has the immediate effect of making you think about Lang Lang rather than Rachmaninov. But then the powerfully projected bottom C's and G's thumping away underneath the strings of the great opening theme are undeniably exciting. Perhaps this is going to be a gripping peformance after all.
But no. Where, for instance, [American pianist] Earl Wild [in his version with Horenstein and the RPO] whips up almost orgasmic excitement before the alla marcia section and observes the maestoso marking to spine-tingling effect, Lang Lang plays it with the efficiency of any good pianist. Valery Gergiev brings out some frequently overlooked details in the slow movement, but his soloist remains earthbound and bland. The last movement, like its predecessors, lacks that vital spark. Indeed, there is an underlying lethargy to the whole performance manifested in the overall timing, exactly five minutes slower than the composer's 1929 classic account.
The same observations apply to the Paganini Variations. Compare the relish with which Wild, Rubinstein, Kappell and Hough attack the first few variations, and also the unaffected simplicity with which they sing the famous 18th. With Lang Lang's piano placed even further forward than in the concerto, the musical argument is dominated by one protagonist throughout, a balance which not only reduces the effectiveness of quick-fire repartee (as in Variation 9), but also creates a quite false sound picture to that which would emerge naturally in the concert hall.
Lang Lang is a prodigiously gifted artist and his performances of these much-recorded works are fine as far as they go, but only the pianist's army of publicists could claim that these versions compete with the finest.
I am on a Beethoven Symhony quest - to hear all of my favorites live. Last year I got to hear the Ninth and the Fifth. this year I am aiming for the Sixth and the Seventh, as they are both being offered in our area. 
You have doen a great job on fillign me in. Thanks. 
Do you suppose the reason for the hoopla is his age and not (entirely at least) his abilities? I have not heard him so i can't say, but sometimes the excitement over the youth of these wunderkids is overhyped.duchess of malfi wrote:So he is some sort of young, new darling in the world of classical piano?
He is scheduled to play some Rach ~ Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
Yeah, people go ga-ga over youthful talent. I remember the initial excitement over child prodigee Stewart Goodyear when he made his stage debut as a 9 or 10-year old. Nothing like an adorable toddler at the piano to captivate a classical audience. But I haven't heard much from Goodyear since. I guess it's that old curse where the public loses interest in a cute kid once the kid has grown up. Thankfully for Lang Lang's sake, he's too old to be pigeonholed as just a precocious youngster.A Gunslinger wrote:Do you suppose the reason for the hoopla is his age and not (entirely at least) his abilities? I have not heard him so i can't say, but sometimes the excitement over the youth of these wunderkids is overhyped.duchess of malfi wrote:So he is some sort of young, new darling in the world of classical piano?
He is scheduled to play some Rach ~ Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
I loved his first piece, by Chopin, where he was accompanied by the orchestra - but the Rach piece which followed blew me away! 
He got something like a ten minute standing ovation after his second piece, and maybe some of the other people might have even known enough about classical piano to even know what they were standing up yelling about. 
Oh, and we have tickets to some Shakespeare plays, but I consider those part of my younger son's hoime schooling this year. We will be studying those three plays at home before we go to see them. 
