Lang Lang: I always travel with my mother

Lang Lang: I always travel with my mother

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norman lebrecht

July 06, 2018

The pianist, who returns tonight to the stage after an 18-month injury break, talks for the first time about his travel entourage.

Watch here.

The interviewer deserves some kind of award.

The New York Times, meanwhile, has been having vapours about Lang Lang’s comeback, claiming that the whole of classical music depends on his health. It’s nice to have him back, but seriously…

Comments

  • Gareth Jones says:

    Ah yes, Mrs Bang Bang: please keep your son away from Mozart, Schubert, Chopin…

  • Caravaggio says:

    The New York Times item was an unnecessary piece of trivial puff and another indication in the direction of the steep decline in their coverage of classical music and its performers. Very dumb.

  • Edgar says:

    Soon the Divine Pianist will grace Tanglewood this very eveing, July 6, 2018, with His Epiphany (aka appearance to mere mortals). Let’s hope Mozart survives…:-)

  • Olassus says:

    Nobody “needs Lang Lang to come back.” He may have “a personality” but he has nothing to say artistically of value, in part because he commands no musical style (unlike at least one pianist from his own country).

    “Cred” is precisely what he lacks — and what “establishment” is Cooper talking about, bookers like Volpe with the budgets and balls to hire sure-fire-sell-out artists? Apparently missing the whole point of his association’s job, Volpe should do the math on a pair of sell-out subscription evenings with Lang Lang and learn that they still lose money.

  • Jack says:

    As did Percy Grainger

  • Robert Holmén says:

    Lang Lang’s English sounds like the “white person” person accent that a black comedian in the US might do.

    I wonder how he arrived at that.

    • Max Grimm says:

      I think it’s really you, not him, who arrived at that 😉
      To me he sounds like a person from China speaking American-styled English, with cadence and inflection frequently pointing toward the possibility that he may be a person from China speaking American-styled English.

  • Cyril Blair says:

    The New York Times is having vapours (or vapors, as we say in the U.S.) because they want the Chinese eyeballs. Monetizing Chinese readers is behind every Lang Lang article. They have a Chinese edition and every article about Lang Lang can also be read in Chinese in the American edition online.

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