Because he often plays for thousands on garishly-lit stages, it’s easy to dismiss 31-year-old pianist Lang Lang as just a popular entertainer. But he is a serious artist — nowhere more so than on a new recording with conductor Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.
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On Oct. 22, Sony releases a spectacularly fine recording of Lang playing Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Both 20th century pieces, in their own way, are fierce works that are touchstones for pianists who want to aggressively prove that they have amazing chops.
Prokofiev’s concerto is full of dancing, in a distant reflection of something from a couple of centuries earlier, and Lang, Rattle and the Berliners serve it up with a breathtaking range of dynamics and colouring.
Here is a live, beating heart, inside the often icy-cold chest of 20th century music.
The Bartók concerto is not something I would ever choose to listen to after a hard day’s work, but these musicians have nonetheless found a way to find engaging music among the piles of notes. This, too, is a modern aesthetic with a heart.
CBC Music is streaming the album online for free until Oct. 22. It’s a must-listen — here.
You can find out more about the album itself — a release that will include vinyl for the growing legion of warm-sound nostalgists — on Lang’s website here.
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Lang was in Toronto last month to help kick off the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s new season. I had already heard and had my socks knocked off by the new album, and was granted a short in-person interview with the pianist.
We didn’t have time to get into specifics about his first recording with Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, but we could talk about the spirit of collaboration behind it:
“It’s the music that matters,” he insists as his fingers restlessly work a conference-room tabletop. “We have to find ways of being comfortable working together. If we’re comfortable, then the music works. If we’re not, everything turns into an ugly fight.”
Lang says squabbles are more common than they should be, making for imperfect concerts and recordings. It’s why he feels lucky to be enough of a star to ask to work with his favourite people — including Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian, from whom he says he continues to learn new things.
The recording with Rattle was initiated by Lang. The two had given concerts together with the Berlin Philharmonic.
Lang prepared for the recording by performing the concertos live — in the case of the Prokofiev, with Gustavo Dudamel leading the Berlin Phil. “I’m going to warm them up for you,” laughs Lang of Dudamel’s initial quip.
Rattle listened to a recording of that performance, and immediately informed Lang that he wanted to do some things differently. The pianist listened, learned, and brought some of his own suggestions to the microphone.
It took two one-and-a-half-day sessions last winter and spring to lay down the two concertos (scheduling challenges meant it couldn’t happen the same week).
Prokofiev and Bartók are not Lang’s usual territory. But after having built one of the biggest international careers in the history of classical piano performance on the back of the 19th century musical canon, Lang felt like he needed to tackle something from the 20th century.
The Prokofiev third concerto has emerged over the past decade or so as a favourite showpiece for many young pianists. It is technically fierce, but also has a lyrical, playful side.
The Bartók concerto No. 2 is much more daunting in its spiky, agressive abstraction. “The two pieces were only written 10 years apart,” Lang points out. “I think it’s great to give my audience something that they normally wouldn’t come to hear me play in a concert.”
What motivated Lang the most about both pieces — and the Bartók especially — was “to have control from the brain rather than from the heart.”
“I think it turned out pretty well,” he adds, matter-of-factly. He gives a lot of credit to Rattle and the Berliners.
“Playing by yourself is the most convenient,” he says. “You just have to like the hall and like the piano. “But performing with an orchestra is much more appealing,” Lang points out. “It’s like an extension of your instrument, it’s more like teamwork, and you inspire each other.”
Lang admits to being hooked on one further extension of this process: Of conducting a concerto from the piano, something he has done with Mozart — much in the way the music was performed back in the composer’s own time.
“It’s like you’re driving the best car in the world,” he beams of having a full orchestra at his fingertips.
The pianist has a Mozart concerto recording on his to-do list — with veteran historical-performance advocate Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting. “He’s very traditional, but not square,” Lang smiles of the 80-something maestro, who has taught him a lot about how to play Mozart not just accurately but with tasteful flair.
I press Lang about whether he might like to consider working more as a conductor in the future.
“What I really want to try is composition,” he smiles. With his millions of piano-student fans in China and other parts of the world, there is a ready market waiting for his musical thoughts.
“A lot of people have been asking me to write something. If I write well, I will have a huge career,” he explains. “In America, people are looking for performers, and leave the writing to real composers.”
His muse has been Herbie Hancock, with whom he toured a few summers ago. Hancock asked Lang to improvise — a request that made the classically trained pianist freeze in terror. But the Chinese sensation can’t resist a challenge, and quickly realised that anyone with a sure technique can make up music on the fly.
“I love melody and melodic stuff,” Lang says. “For structure, I need to learn a lot more.”
The pianist pauses for a second, then chuckles. “If you want a new ring tone, I could do that.”
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
