There aren't many classical musicians in our time who could claim to be global pop-culture celebrities. One outlier, however, is pianist Lang Lang: with his endorsement deals with such luxury brands as Rolex and Audi as well as Adidas and Steinway (who produced their first ever artist-branded piano with the 28-year-old Chinese artist), a string of prestigious appointments including as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and, less loftily, a place as one of People Magazine's "20 Sexiest Men Alive" --and never mind the millions of Chinese schoolchildren who are said to have been inspired by Lang Lang's singular rise, and who now study Western classical instruments.
Lang Lang has a reach and an impact that almost no other contemporary classical musicians today could hope to have. Even though he has garnered his fair share of criticism for theatrics at the keyboard as well as for often controversial and even willful interpretations, there's no denying that he is a one-man phenomenon. Call it the "Lang Lang Effect," if you will--or, to appropriate an old Elvis Presley album title: a billion-plus Lang Lang fans can't be wrong.
Just before the debut of his first release on Sony Masterworks, Live in Vienna, on which Lang Lang plays not just his long-beloved Chopin and Beethoven but also stretches out to music of Albeniz and Prokofiev, I reach Lang Lang on the phone from Beijing to discuss the evolution of his music-making. In our conversation, he puts aside all of the glitz to discuss the music he's recorded for this recital.
"Beethoven sonatas were always a dream for me to record, particularly the 'Appassionata'--it's such a milestone for every musician," Lang Lang observes. "Learning that piece taught me so very much about all aspects of being a musician: learning rhythmic control, range of sound, dynamics, different ways of being expressive--playing legato, sforzato, et cetera. Over the years, it's given me such a profit artistically."
"I've worked on Beethoven with many great artists," Lang Lang says thoughtfully. "Not just with Gary Graffman [Lang Lang's teacher at the Curtis Institute, and with whom he began working at age 15], but also with Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Andras Schiff. I've learned so much about Beethoven from each of them. Everyone plays the 'Appassionata,' but each pianist of course comes with his own ideas. One of the most important teachers of Beethoven for me was Barenboim. He's one of the most prestigious Beethoven artists for any form--the chamber music, the symphonies, the sonatas, all of them. He talked to me not just about technique, but also about sound and philosophy. He's a conductor, so I think he thinks more about larger structure and analysis than maybe some other pianists do. It took me a long time to digest all that, but you wind up seeing a bigger and more complete picture."
Even with that incredible roster of Beethoven mentors, however, Lang Lang says that one of his most instructive Beethoven encounters was with the original 'Appassionata' manuscript itself. "I went to the Beethoven museum in Bonn, where he was born," says the pianist, "and oh my God, to look at Beethoven's handwriting in the third movement. The handwriting itself is totally wild--it looks like the notes are just flying off the page. The score is a piece of art itself, you know? Like a piece of visual art. What he wants is so visionary, and so totally visible, right there on the page. Among composers, Beethoven is so precise in saying exactly what he wants. Everything is very precisely detailed in the score--he puts forth very clearly what he wants you to do."
I wonder aloud whether the decision to record the new recital in Vienna came before the decision to make Beethoven such a centerpiece of the album; after all, that city has long laid claim on Beethoven as a near-native son, and moreover this new album seems to be a continuation (or counterpoint) of sorts of one of the albums he made for his previous label, Deutsche Grammophon: an extravagantly packaged set titled Live at Carnegie Hall. "No, no, the repertoire decision always comes first," he avers. "Programming is all about making the right balance, creating the right chemistry. After that comes the venue." Even so, he says that he couldn't resist the Musikverein as a setting. "Especially for my first recording for Sony, we wanted to make this recording at the most prestigious European hall."
So what of the other repertoire choices he made for this program? The Chopin is easy enough to discern: "it's the Chopin year, of course," says the pianist simply. The other choices are more surprising: even ardent fans might not know that Lang Lang learned Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata, the "War Sonata 2/Stalingrad," as a teenager. Despite the immense virtuosic demands it places on pianists, Book 1 of Albeniz' Iberia seems like a real departure for a musician who seems more naturally calibrated towards Romantic staples than towards early 20th-century Spanish repertoire.
"I didn't know Albeniz, or Spanish music at all, really, until I moved to America," notes Lang Lang, who came to study at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at age 15 with the legendary pianist and pedagogue Gary Graffman. "Gary told me that there were three Spanish composers I had to know: Albeniz, Granados, and de Falla."
"Right away," he continues, "I went to Alicia de Larrocha's fantastic recording of Iberia, and it just touched my heart immediately," he says. "I found that to me, Albeniz is like Liszt. Granados is like Chopin. De Falla reminds me of Ravel and Debussy; there's so much color in the music. But so much Spanish music is inspired by the guitar, or is meant to be played on the guitar. It can be really hard to adapt that sound, that aesthetic, to another instrument. It's very similar to the challenge of playing Chinese music on a Western instrument. But Albeniz understood both worlds so perfectly."
What Lang Lang says about Albeniz negotiating skillfully between different cultures seems quite like the way he describes his Curtis teacher, Gary Graffman. "He is just so knowledgeable about so much," enthuses Lang Lang. "Gary is not just interested in music, but in art, in creativity, in general. He has a real passion for Asia, for example--he has the biggest collection of Chinese art that I've ever seen. He really understands human civilization--and he knows both the Asian and Western worlds so well. Actually, he speaks really great Chinese; when I was with him at Curtis, he'd use words in Chinese to get artistic ideas across to me. And what he really helped me with was learning not to just think as a Chinese, but thinking internationally. He taught me repertoire, history, culture; he really expanded my understanding of the world." With his voice softening just a bit, he adds, "Gary helped me have an open heart."
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Lang Lang's Playlist
Ariama asked Lang Lang for some of his absolute favorite recordings. Here they are:
- Horowitz in Moscow. He made this recording near the end of his life, when he was over 80 years old. I'd never heard such a sound in my life before I heard that recording--and the playing is so emotional. It's like an "Appassionata" sonata in itself: every time I hear it, even for the hundredth time, I learn something new--that's what makes a really classic recording.
- The Three Tenors--the first one. I feel like this recording really opened the doors for classical music to reach a bigger world.
- Rubinstein playing Chopin--any of his Chopin recordings, really. Rubinstein's touch was so warm, and he had such feeling for Chopin. Your heart starts to melt right away.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
