Music lovers in Hong Kong have the immense luck and luxury, in the very week running up to CNY, to see two of the most prominent Chinese pianists on stage: Lang Lang and Yundi Li. Both are virtuosos. Both have celestrial skills on their common instrument. Both are loved by the people of Hong Kong. And I attended both concerts.
With such proximity in time there are bound to be comparisons; it would, however, have been quite unjust to provide a direct measure between the two. Afterall one did a recital and one did a concerto. But there're generalities that can be made. In this first part I will write about Lang Lang first.
One word comes to my mind when I think of how to describe Lang Lang's performance: flamboyance. Frankly he loved to be in the spotlight. Whilst having an impossibly near-perfect skills on the most difficult passages, he seemed to be able to add in the extra layer of glam to sheen up his shiny musical shoes. Sometimes you wonder if he had another eye on his chest, for he liked to put his head up looking at the ceiling and his hands will press out the notes - just like pilots happily looking down to his well-understood instrument, doing its own work in auto-pilot mode, satisfied. In fact not just that, he *enjoyed* playing the piano, overwhelmingly, unstoppably, just like a mum who would not give up clutching her own baby. The piano *is* his baby- his to play with, his to control, forever.
The first piece he played was fitting to the times: Mozart's Piano Sonata K330 in C major. Some of the kids must be happy too: for this would have taught to them as a popular grade-6-ish piece. With Lang Lang's dexterity, this Mozart sonata would serve no more than some warm-up exercise. But already his glam could be seen everywhere: the allegretto sounded presto (but then, this would always be the case), and the andante cantabile more like looking at a lazy boy, scratching his body on the morning bed, not wanting to get up. Taking the extremes is what virtuosi are best in: in this case the extremities provided the contrasts, so lacking otherwise, in a middle-grade Mozart sonata.
Chopin's Third Sonata was every pianist's starter to the professional world. In Lang Lang's case, this was one of his showpieces: he even put the Scherzo in his own webpage. The allegro maestoso resolute, the scherzo stormy (cf. Last Mvt of Chopin's second sonata - such resemblance of that in the closing part of this scherzo!), the Largo serious, and the presto, well, gone in a wooosh. Why is the programme so short? But it's actually not short - he's just playing everything double speed.
After the whirlwind of the Chopin, Schumann's Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) must have come as a resting refuge to the already stirred-up heart. If I were to teach kids on Schumann, this would have been the very first album that they will buy. The songs range from easy to moderately difficult, but whilst some could be skimmed through, others were more profound. Träumerei, the most famous of them all, was only an ordinary dream of Lang Lang; Hasche-Mann was so fast it was more fitting as a maniac's buff, not a blindman's. Still, another breather taken before we see yet another explosion.
Two of the greatest Preludes, No.2 in B-flat and No.5 in G minor by Rachmaninoff, provided the interlude between the warm-up and the raison d'être of the evening. But this was not just any other interlude: these were some of the most famous, standalone concert pieces on their own. The grandioso B-flat prelude was stunning. The bass ran lucidly while the right hand punched out its victorious voice. The contrast between the two voces enriched the concert hall to no end. Maetoso (4/4=80) was again taken at twice the speed, and the sextuplet octave passage before the coda was unbelievbly quick and exciting. What a brillant execution. The G minor, on the other hand, was unexpectedly, in piano-teachers' parlance, 'steady'. No overspeeding! That's unheard of in Lang Lang! But wait... in recapitulation he couldn't hold on to that speed and went up a notch. Well we won't blame you for that, don't you worry.
All right. Here comes Liszt. Années de Pèlerinage II was the prelude of the duo, and the Lang Lang that we recognised started to come in shape. A romantic love story slowly, but passionately, unfolded. But of course, sometimes we wonder if the subject of this love story would have been the piano itself. The Hungarian Rhapsody in C# minor was the grand finale of the assigned programme. This is no ordinary rhapsody (which, by the definition of its name, was already a crazily difficult piece) - this one was the Horowitz transcription, whom we know, from the selection of his programme ranging from Mozart's K330 to Schumann's Träumerei, Lang Lang venerates a lot. So a most fitting tribute it was, not just to the composer who would have celebrated his 250th birthday, but to one of the greatest 20th century pianists. The last section, the Friska, left everyone of the audience with their mouth wide-open: how can this impossible passage be played with such speed and dexterity? And, mind you, as always, Lang Lang didn't look at the piano - he shook, he nodded, he frowned, but those notes just came out from the Steinway, pretty much like those computer-programmed Klavierchord. Is he a robot? Needless to say, the applause was deafening.
But it's a recital, and with such a piano lover as Lang Lang, how could he leave us without something extra? The audience was expecting, and he played no less than seven encore pieces. Before he would play the piece, he would sit on the stool, facing the piano as if he was going to start and then, suddenly, he would turn 90 degrees and explain, in heavily-American-accented but good English, the piece that he would play. His plummy face only helped adding in the cuteness of it all, and the audience just loved it. He played a variety of Western and Chinese repertoire, including a very quick version of the Flight of the Bumble Bee. For one piece, 彩雲追月, a Chinese song, he would describe it to the English audience as 'the moon (pointed upwards)... is chased (hands in galloping position)... by... the clouds! (eyes wide open, a la lamp-on-head cartoon character look)'. The Chinese audience couldn't stop laughing; the Westerners started to clap at his ingenuity. After the final piece was played (which was an impossibly fast and difficult show-off piece, with all the chords, runs, glissandos etc.) the audience roared, stood up and gave him an approving round of applause. You may see this done quite often to maestros like Pavarotti, but to a 23-year-old pianist, there was an added meaning to it all...
For, he can confidently say, he's done an exceptionally good job.
