Lang Lang returned to Hamer Hall last Saturday night for the Ryman Healthcare Winter Gala and brought the cachet and excitement that a gala performance promises. The concert opened and closed with two Ravel orchestral works – more of them later.
Lang Lang took on Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 and, in true Lang Lang style, made it his own. He was on safer ground musically with a concerto than he was in recital, after all, a concerto gives the soloist permission to declare their talents. Lang Lang was quite restrained in the first movement (marked Andante sostenuto) and gave the opening Bach-like fantasia a somewhat muted reading. Perhaps he was saving himself for the second movement (marked Allegro scherzando) that took fast and playful to the limit. This is where Lang Lang’s phenomenal technique and showmanship came into their own. Maybe the nuances of the scale passages were sacrificed to the velocity of his playing, but he revelled in the bumpy and jolly mid-section. To this, an eminent Melbourne pianist used to sing the words “my father went to bed with his trousers on”, and Lang Lang caught the joy of the moment, cantering in his seat during the section. His enjoyment was infectious.
Having taken the second movement at near breakneck speed, what was he to do with the final Presto movement but play it molto molto Presto! He revelled in the thrill of it and this is what the audience wanted: bravura playing at its best.
At conductor Jaime Martín’s imploring, Lang Lang played Liszt’s Liebestraum as an encore, giving a languorous, stretched-out reading he probably needed as a wind-down after the concerto. More rapturous applause and Martín then literally plonked Lang Lang back on the piano stool for another encore. Lang Lang launched into a totally wacky version of Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, one of earliest Disney songs from 1933. It showed Lang Lang to be a big kid at heart and it showed he can play without his foot on the sustain pedal and serve up some punchy, percussive piano.
At interval the foyer was alive with kids who were on Lang Lang highs even before they got stuck into their ice-creams and Maltesers. These young fans will carry memories like this forever – Lang Lang, King of the Kids – long live the King!
Clearly a lot of fun was had onstage at Hamer Hall and this carried through the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s delivery of the two Ravel works, both orchestrations of piano originals. The concert opened with Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso with jaw-dropping tissues of string sounds at the start and wonderful cameos from various sections of the orchestra creating an outstanding spatial soundscape. Ravel originally wrote Alborada as a piano piece in 1905 and orchestrated it some ten years later. On the way, he attended a rehearsal for Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Stravinsky reputedly said Ravel was the only person who understood it. Somehow there is a kinship in the orchestration between the two – a point not to be stretched.
Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is astonishing in the way he explores instrumental groups, such as the lower brass, who yielded rich, grand-organ tonalities, then paired them with the growlings of the lower double bass strings to unique, ominous effect. Ravel also is a master of linking individual instruments across the orchestra, which requires full awareness from all players of what the whole is doing. Jaime Martín was having the best time conjuring these sounds from the orchestra, building magic upon magic. How wonderful to see how often the violas were driving the momentum in this work, a sign of Ravel’s originality and mastery of orchestration – not to forget the scintillating trumpet solos, the warmth of the saxophone solo and the élan of the percussion section. Every player in the MSO mattered in this brilliant performance, and every player delivered.
Photo credit: Nico Keenan
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Nick Tolhurst reviewed the “Ryman Healthcare Winter Gala – Lang Lang”, presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall, on June 29, 2025.
