 |
| Lang Lang is firmly established as one of the world's top piano masters. (China Daily) |
On June 14, 2013, two Chinese superstar musicians staged a little duel — not a duet, but a kind of mock musical duel. Lang Lang and Jay Chou invited three members of the audience at Tsinghua University to each strike a random note on the piano. They then fleshed the notes out into a complete piece. Jay Chou was to go first, and he turned the three notes into something similar to one of his pop songs. When the hapless fans again picked notes, two of them struck keys very close to each other, and Lang, facing away from them, jokingly pleaded: "Please give me some range." He made do with their choice of notes but expanded to cover much of the whole keyboard, finishing with a flourish.
This match of improvisation was, of course, all in good fun, part of a gala nicknamed "Lang Lang and His Friends", to celebrate youthful dreams and, coincidentally, Lang's 31st birthday.
Lang and Chou hail from different ends of the musical spectrum, but they share some common roots: Chou started by setting his eyes on becoming a concert pianist, but in the middle of the road "took a swerve" into the pop realm. Lang chimed in, saying he actually desired for this kind of "swerve".
Lang Lang has never shown any serious interest in crossing over to pop music. He has gained an enormous worldwide audience by appearing in high-profile shows ranging from the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to the BBC Proms in London. Despite the occasional prerequisite pop tune or patriotic song, he hews pretty closely to the classical canon. This has earned him a lot of respect because his rock star-like stature is built on a solid core base of professional achievements.
However, Lang is open to opportunities that put him on the same stage with pop sensations like Jay Chou or jazz veterans like Herbie Hancock. He is generous to his colleagues and heaps praise on Chou for "his well-rounded talents that include songwriting" and on jazz pianists for their great skills of improvisation.
Lang Lang is at the top of the world — not just the world of classical music, but a wider world where his impact is felt, such as music education. He has received numerous awards, performed with many of the world's top orchestras and appeared in special functions with world leaders and state dignitaries that testify to his stature more clearly in the eyes of those who cannot tell Chopin from a show tune.
Lang has had his share of detractors, though. He has been criticized as "immature" or "lacking sensitivity". But he remains unfazed. "I seek a challenging style," he explains, "the Russian school, with Gary Graffman as my teacher. It's a physically demanding style. When I first started, I played a lot of Tchaikovsky piano concerto No 1 and Rachmaninov piano concerto No 3, fit for a teenager and the audiences loved it."
But Lang understands that he has to expand his repertoire. "You should not lose yourself, but keep growing and never be stagnant." When he switched to a heavily Austro-German repertoire, he changed many minds. A lot of his early critics were won over and morphed into fans.
Rainstorms flood more than 10,000 cars in underground garages in Wuhan
Feedback
RSS
