The face peeking out from behind the grand piano in the grainy
black-and-white video is recognizable, if just barely. With a rapture that's
rare in a 13-year-old, Chinese pianist Lang Lang is making his way through
Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2. No matter if the orchestral accompaniment is
routine — he plays with an imagination that somehow brings forth fresh
phrase readings at every turn. Here one can see and hear (albeit in
nascent
form) everything that was to make Lang Lang one of the piano world's most
exciting young stars a mere seven years later.
The journey between that teenage face, on a video taken at the 1995 Second Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition in Japan, and the pianist making his Wigmore Hall debut (on 27 November 2001) amid a string of recitals across Europe has been about much more than deep contemplation of Chopin. It has been about survival.
Lang Lang and his parents arrived from China without much (his mother had been a telephone operator, his father a folk musician) and lived without much for years; he has usually traveled to and from glittering engagements at glamorous venues by intercity bus so as to save money. Yet they've never betrayed the slightest sense of want or discomfort. They're a ceaselessly warm, cheerful trio — their standard greetings are bear hugs and kisses — and appear to be paragons of gratitude.
Officially, Lang Lang graduates from the Curtis Institute of Music next year, but not in his mind: he hopes to continue studying with his primary teacher there, Gary Graffman — and with the Philadelphia Orchestra's incoming music director, Christoph Eschenbach — indefinitely. Lang Lang is so committed to this plan, in fact, that he recently bought a home in Philadelphia for himself and his parents after years of living in a one-bedroom apartment.
Many young performers in his place might be inclined to declare independence
from their teachers. "That's stupid," says Lang Lang. "If you don't have a
teacher, your playing will get strange. I get my own ideas, but that's not
enough to be a great musician. I want to get better without getting
strange."
The talent, however, was such that he had been famous in China throughout his teens and was even the subject of a Chinese-language biography by the age of 17. He arrived in the United States with a huge repertoire, one that now is up to some 37 concertos. Thus, a large part of Lang Lang's education is less about developing ideas than about how to project them: he grew up, after all, in a land where grand pianos are scarce and upright pianos the norm. "Mr. Graffman has taught me to bring ideas to the public — to bring the power out from the piano. That's very important. If you don't have the power, you don't have really beautiful music."
Yet even having fascinating ideas and projecting them to an audience aren't enough to triumph over one potential disaster after another, as Lang Lang has done repeatedly. In 2001 alone, he went onstage for a highly publicized return to China (with the Philadelphia Orchestra) exhausted from interviews and without the benefit of a rehearsal or sound check; the piano he was to play at a concert in Taipei almost didn't arrive; he performed the ferociously difficult Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto at the BBC Proms (recorded live for commercial release) after only one warm-up concert in Finland.
"At the Royal Albert Hall, I was thinking so many things. Telarc [which recorded it] was taking so many chances: It's so expensive and you have to get an agreement from the BBC, and it didn't come through until the very last moment. And there was only one chance to play the Rachmaninoff. But I was fortunate: I've had many sessions with great artists. That makes me more comfortable. Otherwise it's difficult."
How did the performance come out? "I tried my best."
Lang Lang used to say that after making his debut at Carnegie Hall, everything else "was easy." Now that's amended: "Easi-ER," he says, purposefully accenting the last syllable.
Unlike many young musicians, Lang Lang seems perfectly comfortable with his physicality. You need only see him move during performance to know that. In fact, one can't help remembering a musician of similar physical extravagance, Leonard Bernstein.
Lang Lang seems not to have thought too much about how necessary his own physical response is to what comes out at the keyboard. Like Bernstein, he has noticed a correlation between restrained physicality and less-then-exciting performances; unlike Bernstein, Lang Lang has seen that the correlation isn't hard and fast.
One thing is certain: He needs listeners in the room in order to perform. An
entire recital sits in the Telarc vaults; maybe Lang Lang will authorize the
release of the Chopin Sonata No. 3, but not the other works, most of which died
for lack of audience stimulation. When he went into the studio to record some
Scriabin etudes that will fill out the Rachmaninoff Concerto disc, an audience
was assembled for the occasion.
His people skills are such that if his music career somehow doesn't last, he could easily run for mayor. He often brings home new friends to sample Mom's cooking. He's oddly non-judgmental — even when it comes to using his name right. Journalists often get it wrong: it's Lang Lang on first and all subsequent references. The New York Times prefers the second-reference moniker "Mr. Lang." Mention that and he laughs good-naturedly. "It's OK. It's not like they give me another name, like 'Mr. Penn'."
In the world of piano superstars, how long can this
last?
