Lang Lang’s last run
NewsThe Chinese pianist is taking the final steps to transform himself into Liberace.
Long unseen in a classical concerto or recital, his New York concert tomorrow night is not at Carnegie Hall but at Radio City Music Hall. His repretoire is Hollywood schmaltz.
His ‘special guests’ include Gina Alice Redlinger, Andy Lin, Plínio Fernandes and The Tenors.
Lang Lang is all played out.
Could you ever imagine him returning to Beethoven opus 111?
Can we imagine a pianist like Richter playing Disney stuff at the age of 40? This is the age where pianists could really start to mature. Alas; LL was always a joke and people were fooled. Worst of two worlds: American and Chinese. Two worlds which, also have so much good to them.
There is a fine line in stereotyping people. It isn’t a necessary thing to do, actually. Hear me out, please. One thing I have been consciously aware of during the last thirty years of my forty years in the business is public perception. While performing and recording music by Gershwin, Leroy Anderson, Ellington, even Neil Sedaka, or Christmas Albums, the most important aspect I have always kept on the front burner is to stay true to one’s roots. When Steinway & Sons started their record label in 2010, they wanted a Christmas album. I said no. But, with no must come a plausible alternative. I suggested Bach. And so it went. The Christmas came second. And, recording the complete sonatas of Mozart and new works by Fuchs, Richman and Bolcom. Fine line is a very fine line. Then, let’s take this a step further. Personal artistry. I have known vocalists who excelled in Mozart, and then decided, what the heck, now I want to sing Gershwin. It all depends on the individual, not only public want. I still play Beethoven, Prokofiev and the like, but also Peter Boyer’s new Rhapsody in Red, White & Blue and a new Adolphus Hailstork concerto. That’s just who I am. In turn, I respect Lang Lang to perform what he feels best at this stage of his life. He can turn around in five years and play the complete cycle of Mozart concertos, who knows. Aside from whatever he plays or how people perceive his playing, he has done a tremendous job of inspiring young people to play the piano. In the end, that is a legacy of its own.
I’d object the part “inspiring young people to play the piano.” If you refer to the growth of piano study in China, he did not do it, instead he made big money from those. Even worse, he cheated and run away with millions, leaving piano teacher unpaid and students tuition without refund. Search “VIP peilian lang lang” in news.
Dear Mr. Biegel,
this is a very reasonable answer, and everybody should have their “guilty pleasures”, whatever one calls it. But I believe for the case of LL, as you write “He can turn around in five years and play the complete cycle of Mozart concertos, who knows” – I believe this is never going to happen. He is musically satisfied, and when you reach a certain age, you cannot anymore go only with instinct, enthusiasm and spontanity. There needs to be something more, a feeling for construction, polyphony, the joy of slowness in playing, which LL does not have. So I think Disney is his future, and I hope he will enjoy it!
Dear Serge,
Many years ago, during my Juilliard years, music critic and our professor, Irving Kolodin, played two recordings of the same aria. He told us to compare them. Everyone played the presumptuous critic and said this was like this, and that one was better because of that. He said, “I fooled you all. They were both by Maria Callas at different ends of her career.” Another point, is that musicians evolve. The songwriter, Jimmy Webb, famous for his chartmaking hit songs, had turned 70 when I proposed he compose a bona fide work for piano and orchestra. He did. It is wonderful. We cannot predict the future. The evolution of a musician can take many twists and turns. There may be other reasons for Lang Lang’s pull back, but he is still creating. Perhaps this is where he is on his yellow brick road. Where he will be in ten years, he cannot even predict. If someone told me in 1985 when I was a student starting out, that I would end up commissioning over two dozen works by various composers, I would have looked at that person and laughed.
Good for you Jeffrey. I could not agree more.
Thanks Jeffrey. You said it far more eloquently (and patiently) than I would have!
I would take exception to the implied comparison of Christmas music – and, by extension, the Disney stuff Lang Lang is doing – to Bolcom and Hailstork. I’m very glad to read that you’re interested in and involved with contemporary repertoire, but the subtext that would seem to equate holiday albums with the work of those distinguished composers strikes me as problematic.
I see your point – in the now. However, when I am physically gone, the legacy must be total, all encompassing. If a Christmas album reflects my love for this music, and my love for Bach is reflected as well, that is what I leave this world with. I believe in never separating the human spirit because of what others expect. This is very very important for artists to understand. Again, fine line. Respect all sides.
I’d rather hear Ling Ling (the panda) play the piano.
“Can we imagine a pianist like Richter playing Disney stuff…”
Richter in the movies as the original Liberace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__siAlu7B8
Fantastic!! Is that really Richter? Virtually nobody will know this movie in the West.
Yep. Featured in Monsaingeon’s film.
https://youtu.be/ruFttzQbC5w?t=4808
Is good for Music that he does not return to Opus 111
He has achieved everything that can be achieved. A brutal media over-representation at the beginning of the last decade has made people tired of him. He should step down gracefully and rest on his millions instead of continuing to be milked by the industry until things get even worse than this Disney crap.
But it doesn’t change anyways the fact that the half-life of a great career in the 21st century is no longer than 15 to 20 years. The same will happen sooner or later to Yuja Wang, Igor Levit and all the others who are now in their thirties and younger. It is the spirit of the times.
Some of the current under 40 stars will fizzle. But those who keep growing will last.
The careers that are cut short are usually those of musicians whose career is premature and is not aligned with musicianship and intellectual growth. Nothing new about it: think of Van Cliburn and Ivo Pogorelic.
Evgeni Kissin, Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes and Leonidas Kavakos are now in their 50s, and are aging like wine.
Leonidas Kavakos reached the top of his profession only in his 40s, after almost two decades of steady rise; he has outlasted and outshined some of his peers who, unlike him, had a meteoric rise in the 1980s or 1990s.
He has a right to make a living. Let’s not waste time imposing on him expectations that he cannot fulfill.
No loss if LL does not play opus 111 henceforth, a net gain in fact.
Where’s he headed? The next Liberace? Roger Williams? Or Victor Borge? Why stress out playing Beethoven or Rachmaninoff when you can make far, far more money playing popular, cheesy “Hollywood schmaltz”?
To be honest Norman, I don’t think I’d ever want to hear Lang Lang play Beethoven Op 111.
My ears still need therapy from his traumatising accounts of the Goldberg variations.
To me, there’s only one place where he belongs – and that’s firmly off the stage.
There is one special guest you left out: Cocomi, who is Kimura Takura’s daughter. The highlight of Lang Lang’s concert promotion in social media features her dad’s name in the title as the main selling point. This did help boost the ticket sales so her name (Or her dad’s name) deserves an honorable mention.
Well, we’ve had Rubinstein, Heifetz and Piatigorsky, now we have Lang Lang, Garrett and Hauser…..times are changing….
To be called Liberace should not be an insult!
Liberace was a great entertainer, but he was also a talented musician: he appeared once on the old Mike Douglas (chat) Show, and played a Mozart sonata movement. His performance was excellent. (Of course, he dressed like Mozart for the show….)
Lee was quite a musician. His interpretations of classic repertoire was beautiful, as was Victor Borge’s. I knew Victor, and his playing of the standard music was simply gorgeous.
Is his arm / hand /wrist (not sure which ) part fo the issue ? As I recall when he ” returned ” , he was playing Beethoven PC # 2’s, not Rach 3’s ?
Lang Lang was never going to win further fame and fortune playing late Beethoven, late Schubert, late Debussy, or late Bach. Never was that type of pianist. So he will at least win fortune helping Disney sell more stuff around the world. Perhaps his next release will be music for Marvel comics (Disney subsidiary)
Maybe I’m missing something here…what exactly is wrong with “transforming into Liberace”? He was one of the very best musicians on the piano of our time.
And, as Liberace was famous for saying, “I cried all the way to the bank.”
When Liberace played Radio City in the 80’s he said “ You know that bank they say l’m always laughing all the way to? I bought it!”
If he ever pivots back to classical music, he may bring a lot of his Liberace audience to serious recitals. Or not!
Cult followings are self contained. They do not transition to classical audiences. Examples abound. Arguably Lang Lang himself is one.
What’s really the the problem? That he pivots between traditional classical music and pure pop?
So?
Is this really different than how many (most?) orchestras spend the bulk of December performing Christmas/holiday concerts that fall very much in the pops bucket? Or that almost every orchestra performs the soundtracks to the Harry Potter films with the moving playing?
And he must be doing something right with traditional classical music concertgoers if he can still sellout concerts with all of the major orchestras performing the Grieg piano concert or the one of Beethoven’s.
Some of the arrangements are by Stephen Hough. I don’t see you lips-pursed snobs having a pop at Stephen though… He recorded ‘These are a few of my favourite things’ (which is superb) 30 years ago.
Lang Lang has an audience, he makes money and so do his label and arrangers. Why does this annoy people so much? Beats me…
Can’t compare this guy to Liberace. Liberace was a much better pianist with more musicality. And Liberace didn’t have a beard for marketing purpose.
Good.
It is well known in the agency business that LL stiffed IMG and Edna Landau who had launched his career in order to move over to CAMI. His reason? CAMI had promised to make him a world superstar whereas he, LL, felt the then hierarchy at IMG Artists which had at its head one of the Hamlen/Landau originators was “too old fashioned.” Clearly being a world class pianist did not figure in his thinking.
A few days after this he is playing a solo recital at Stanford with Schumann and the Bach Goldberg Variations….
Carnegie Hall capacity: 3,671
Radio City capacity: 6,015
You know how many classical musicians would give up one arm to play Radio Music Hall? Yuja Wang would wear put on a nun’s habit if she could book Radio City.
Carnegie Hall can’t afford Lang Lang anymore.
I would pay money to see Yuja Wang play Beethoven opus 111 wearing a nun’s habit. BIG money.
He has always been a lightweight at heart so this only fitting……
Has he ever fully recovered from his injury?