“We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips.
‘So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.” T.S. Eliot: Portrait of a Lady
Eliot tends to resort to an irony that can make you recoil. No such ironic concert was delivered when Lang Lang fans packed out Hamer Hall to see their idol. The emphasis is on “see”; a huge live screen was put up so we could see Lang Lang up close. Lang Lang gave an outstanding performance as Lang Lang, a pianist with technique to burn, a generous demeanour and sense of being present, without any overweening ego.
There was a lot of dance music in the program, opening and closing with works in F sharp minor. Lang Lang fans went for Lang Lang and, if you went for the music, you might have been puzzled by his interpretations.
On a general level, he pretty much ignores any staccato instructions in the music and his right foot is nearly always on the sustain pedal (easily noted, as he wears shiny, patent leather shoes).
Lang Lang opened with Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, Op. 50 and turned what is a stately edgy (and mostly restrained) court dance into a sea of delicious harmony – not at all what the score asks for. As with the rest of the program, so many opportunities to explore the colour and textural range of the piano were not taken up. This meant that when the Pavane went into some dramatic moments of contrast around the middle, there was nothing to contrast with before or after.
The second work for the night was Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16, an enigmatic work with sharp contrasts in tempi. Lang Lang’s bravura playing was evident in the fast sections and he achieved a very compelling sense of improvisation in the slow movements. This was the most convincing performance of the night.
After interval we were given 12 Mazurkas by Frédéric Chopin, then his Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 44. A mazurka is a dance in triple time characterised by a strong emphasis on the second or third beat of the bar. Sure, Chopin probably did not intend them as dance music, but he surely didn’t intend them to sound like waltzes. Again, lots of sustain pedal and much rubato and playing around with the tempi.
Lang Lang attacked the Polonaise in F sharp minor like an adolescent — too fast and too loud. A Polonaise is rather like a slow mazurka, lots of opportunities for dancers to sweep around, stamp their feet and hold heroically elegant poses. Possibly Lang Lang is not a dancer, ignoring the composer’s instructions to put some heft and swagger into the work.
Lang Lang gave three encores. The first was Claude Debussy’s Clair de lune. Lang Lang has the perfect limpid tone for this, but by stretching everything out we missed the occasional little duple time “hiccups” in the piece and the descending passage, so evocative of a moonlight ladder on a lake, just sloshed down in unmeasured harmonies.
The next encore was Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance. Under Lang Lang’s hands it started with thumping trills (not as given in the score) and stayed in thumping mode, his gestures becoming larger and larger.
The final encore was unknown to me, a popular work that had hints of Happy Birthday to You, but was really a vehicle for Lang Lang to give his all in a way that the audience loved but would have bemused Chico Marx and Liberace (“why didn’t we think of that?”). I’m surprised he didn’t fall off his seat.
Photo supplied.
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Nick Tolhurst reviewed “Lang Lang in Recital”, presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall, on June 25, 2025.
