It’s usually a good idea to take the hype surrounding every new piano phenom with a grain of salt. Often, the young classical music debutantes don’t live up to their top billing. But this past Saturday evening at Roy Thomson Hall, 23-year-old Chinese sensation Lang Lang proved that he’s got what it takes, and then some, in a sparkling concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Playing Chopin’s famed Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, the likable Lang Lang brought a new energy and a deft emotional touch to a work that is often performed, but rarely this well.
The gala concert was somewhat of a political evening, with premier Dalton McGuinty and Lu Shumin, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, on hand to celebrate the 35th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. The TSO’s always-enthusiastic conductor, Peter Oundjian, welcomed the capacity crowd to this evening of “cultural exchange” with the national anthems of China and Canada.
Lang Lang led off the evening, and from the opening bars he took the listeners beyond the tuxes and the dignitaries, dropping the formal mask to reveal the simple lyricism and emotional power of Chopin’s music.
The most impressive thing about Lang Lang’s playing was that he never repeated a phrase in the same way. He constantly varied dynamics, altered rhythms, and evoked many different moods and colours using the same notes.
In an expressive style that commanded the audience’s attention, Lang Lang delivered an emotional yet controlled performance that was perfectly balanced in terms of technique and feeling. His interaction with the orchestra (never overpowering it but always holding his own) betrayed an early maturity that portends great things.
The only downside was Lang Lang’s reluctance to use his full weight during the louder, chordal sections. It would have been nice to hear a bit more power at times, but then again, Chopin’s style was more restrained than, say, Beethoven’s.
The road from rural China to concert halls around the world has been an interesting one for Lang Lang. Born in Shenvang in 1982, he first played the piano at age two, and later traveled with his father to study at Beijing’s Central Music Conservatory, where he practiced six hours a day in the small, unheated apartment that they shared. He eventually made his way to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and got his big break filling in at the last minute for an indisposed soloist.
Only 23, Lang Lang tours and performs with many of the great symphonies of the world, and was recently appointed UNICEF’s youngest-ever goodwill ambassador. It seems that Lang Lang’s life experience has had a positive effect on him, for he was appreciative and humble in accepting the audience’s prolonged praise on Saturday, repeatedly acknowledging the orchestra and sharing broad smiles with Maestro Oundjian.
As an encore, Lang Lang spoke briefly of the ties between Canada and China before performing a marvelously dramatic Chinese folk song in honour of the occasion.
