Lang Lang Is Back: A Piano Superstar Grows Up

To vaunt tasteless performers like Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, who have zero artistic integrity, no depth, no culture, just showy technique is to destroy classical music and its most valuable traditions. If Gary Graffman couldn't teach interpretation to Lang, (or Wang?) then he is immune to it. He capitalizes on the least aspects of Horowitz's career, and that is a shame. He's no Rubinstein. Remember Rubinstein? Chinese musicians are generally extremely adept on a technical level, but unless they can westernize their thinking, they remain alien to what classical music is all about, which is traditions. They seem to think that it's being "universal" (which refers solely to its appeal) as a justification for not acculturating themselves, something Japanese artists can excell at. But when, like athletes, they are representatives of the Chinese government and its attempts at world domination, they are tools and not artists. Pay less attention, much less attention. They thrive on it. Given his status, I can only hope and pray that Lang has developed some depth, but I doubt it. Classical artists can, indeed, learn an awful lot from entertainers, but it's a high-wire act to incorporate any of their traits.

Perhaps one of the most memorable performances I heard was when I was in grade school and Lang Lang performed the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Seattle Symphony in the early 2000s. Back then he wasn’t a household name. His performance was so enthralling, my parents upgraded their second-tier season tickets to the main floor so they could better-see performers. My father - who learned the piece back when he was a student at Oberlin - said it was the best interpretation he ever heard and asked Lang Lang to sign the sheet music he brought. For me, an Asian-American child, it was exciting to see Lang Lang push against the racist idea that Asians play mechanically. Still, many musicians (music professors, teachers, performers, and the likes) in my circle of friends have said that Lang Lang plays with no musicality. To those detractors, I’ve asked them to do a rigorous blind listening test of Lang Lang compared to other highly-regarded musicians performing the same pieces. Lang Lang’s interpretation almost always comes out on top (and if not, near the top). One only needs to listen to his interpretation of the Chopin Etudes to hear the brilliance with which he interprets these pieces. In the end, I would like to thank Lang Lang for everything he has given to the realm of music. His master classes on Youtube, his incredible interpretations, his inspiring of many children to play, and the pure delight and joy he has for music. Congrats on the recovery, Lang Lang!

i must admit i had never heard of Lang Lang until I watched an episode of "Beethoven in the Jungle" where he played a piano piece (in a bar scene no less) that just knocked my socks off. I have since streamed countless youtube performances and can't get enough of the joy I feel when watching him play and listening to the marvelous music. I am anything but a sophisticated classical music buff - I simply enjoy the Beethoven, Tchiakovsky (can't even spell it), Gershwin, and other staples. Let the critics say what they want to say. My guess is that Lang Lang has and will do more for the broadening of the joy that classical music brings to a wider audience than he will detract from the seriousness and integrity of the genre.

Okay, might as well say it right off. I'm not quite a believer in Mr. Lang Lang. Not yet. Not quite. But I can't help it. I'm a pianist myself--strictly amateur, you understand! virtually no technique at all--and I know you can't just SIT there like an automaton. Your fingers (and the mind directing those fingers) immersed, inundated by floods of intellect and passion proceeding from (1) a Bach fugue (2) a Beethoven sonata (3) a Brahms intermezzo. Your body is bound to sway back and forth a LITTLE bit. I grant you. But I feel an instinctive prejudice against people who EMOTE at the keyboard. Like Franz Liszt years ago--"smiles of seraphic rapture coming over his face"--oh, cut it OUT, would you? Cut it OUT! But Liszt's technical skills. Beyond praise. The man could play anything--no no, could SIGHTREAD anything. And Mr. Lang Lang. Oh yes. Formidable technique. And that stuff about "soulless Asians." I've known--personally--some Asians who were outstanding pianists. Soulless? Not a chance! Not these guys! No sir! No! I wish Mr. Lang Lang the best--the VERY best. True confession: I don't follow this stuff. I didn't know about that injury to his arm. BEAT that injury, Mr. Lang Lang! Take care of yourself. Don't let it come back. Don't let it lick you. Keep growing, sir--into the splendid musician God MEANT you to be. The world is watching you, sir. The world is waiting. So am I.

His father pushed him relentlessly, Mr. Lang wrote in his 2008 memoir, “Journey of a Thousand Miles” — and even urged Mr. Lang to kill himself after he was dropped by his first teacher in Beijing. “Die now rather than live in shame,” Mr. Lang recalled his father saying. Mr. Lang’s father thrust a bottle of pills at him and told him to swallow them all before ordering him to jump off their balcony. In light of the above, I couldn’t care less about the purity of classical music or self promotion. I’m glad Mr. Lang survived and hope one day he leads us into a discussion of mental health.

Listen up: enjoy his/everyone's music with your ears. Watch Pianist on your computer.

Maybe it is time to give my Van Cliburn recordings a break and try Lang Lang again.

I like Billy Joel (whose musical abilities are far better than his reputation would suggest), and I don't have anything against crossover. But what classical music needs is someone who can convey to more people that classical music is a whole universe with often superior harmonic complexity and variety of form - from 1 minute Chopin preludes to a 90 minute act of a Wagner opera. Beethoven can be more exuberant than any pop, Chopin more bleak and mysterious than Leonard Cohen, Bartok can be more violent than punk etc etc This music will survive at least a couple more centuries, no matter what. But how many people enjoy it will depend on honest ambassadors ... apart from Leonard Bernstein, I could maybe think of Yo Yo Ma and maybe Hillary Hahn.

The open secret in classical music training is that overuse injury is what weeds out some performers. It is a long road back. Unlike many other prodigies, Lang Lang has made classical music approachable and accessible for a larger audience. His youthful exuberant technique had passion and sensitivity behind it. It was exhilarating to see him in performance. Now that he has matured, expanded his interests, I can't wait for the opportunity to again see him perform live.

I hope that he learns to bring depth and quietude to his magnificent technique. I have found his work in the past to be "sound and fury, signifying nothing. "

Bravo! Encore! And good health to this inspiring person! And thanks nyt.

Leonard Bernstein conducted Peter and the Wolf for children, and thus inspired a generation of kids to love (and play) classical music. He too was criticized as a showman and huckster. I rest my case.

About twenty years ago, my husband and I were in Amsterdam where he was working for a few days. I went to a free noon concert at the Concertgebouw although I didn't recognize the artist's name. Before the concert, a young man in a blue plaid shirt and jeans came out and moved the grand piano around. This kid I thought was a stagehand was Lang Lang who then sat down and played for an hour. I've never been the same.

He raised my curiosity that a boy wonder has become a matured musician. I heard him before that his techniques are impeccable and delicate which is great to listen and appreciate. If I cannot go to his concert, then I will buy whatever in the market from his latest release.

I have never seen this pianist in person, but I did hear a live concert of him playing on FM station WQXR in New York that was transmitted to other classical music station that I heard here in Florida. He is to be taken seriously.

I acknowledge that Lang Lang has a magnificent technique. But I deplore the way that he has sold his talents to the cheapest forms of music. How will someone take his interpretation of the Goldberg Variations seriously, when he has played with Metallica and Billy Joel, all for just the bucks? His album Piano Book” was a cynical ploy by Universal and Deutsche Grammophon to make a fast buck for people who think Für Elise is the apex of classical music. His gestures at the keyboard are meant to convince people who know little about music how profoundly he plays. I’m sorry, it will take much more than a good performance of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto to convince me that he is a serious musician.