Lang Lang: This Teen’s a Dream on the Keyboard

Lang Lang is a pianist from China, 18 years old. He entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia three years ago and in no time joined the roster of pianists who could be called upon at the last minute to fill in for famous soloists who cancel.

That was then. Now he is getting top bookings for being himself, and he has an exclusive record contract with Telarc (his first CD is due out in April). He made his Hollywood Bowl debut over the summer as soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Saturday night, he appeared at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall for his first local recital. He is a staggering pianist with a very rare and special attribute--the ability to give, from the instant his fingers touch the keyboard, an audience utter, uncompromising pleasure.

Just about everywhere Lang appears--Chicago has been conquered, New York comes up in April, London and St. Petersburg in the summer--he is hailed as musical and polished beyond his years. I am not sure that is true. Saturday night he gave a more interesting impression, that of a charismatic young man who has used every minute of his 18 years to the best possible advantage.

Lang plays with a youth’s thrill of music not a more experienced musician’s wisdom. Physical and emotive, he sways to lyric music, rapt with eyes closed as if channeling some great mysterious force that is pouring into his body. He is acrobatic, dancing to rhythmic music to the degree (considerable in his case) that a pianist can dance while playing pieces of crushing virtuosity. He ended his concert with an amazing bit of show business by vaulting to his feet on the last chord of a work of legendary difficulty, Mily Balakirev’s “Islamey.”

His tone is gorgeous, so full, liquid and startlingly present that my first thought when he began with Handel’s Suite No. 5 was that Schoenberg Hall had had an acoustic make-over. His fingers are sure, fleet, wondrous. But what seems to lie at the heart of his charm is his rapid response to musical mood. Extraordinarily alert to whatever the composer puts before him, he is, in the most exciting sense of the word, superficial.

The program was curious and interesting, one that would have been more typical to encounter in Moscow in the early 20th century than today. The Handel suite, with its jocular final movement, known as the “Harmonious Blackbird,” sounded fresh and alive. Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 in B minor, which followed, was the evening’s big piece. Here Lang’s gusto in fast passages, an enormous power he can surprisingly unleash at will and a dreamy, gravity-defying lyricism were all huge fun, even when they verged on mannerism. A mesmerizing, time-stopping slow crescendo in the Largo was unforgettable.

The Russians have a great friend in this pianist from Shen Yang, near Beijing. And Lang’s attachment to Russian music dominated the second half of his program in a selection of Scriabin etudes.

He gave each of these technically arresting and sonically colorful exercises irresistible dramatic flair--the fist in the air in Opus 8, No. 2, was quite something, but so, too, was the agile and subtle pedaling in Opus 8, No. 3, and those trills in Opus 42, No. 3 that Lang could make charmingly silly and wildly haunting at the same time.

Nor does Tchaikovsky’s neglected solo piano music--here a short character piece, “Dumka”--have a better advocate than Lang, who impersonated the happy, laughing, dancing peasant at the keyboard, fearless of shtick.

Oh, yes--Lang is also quite good looking, the perfect candidate for classical teen idol. But his talent is also a treasure that needs careful guarding, allowed time to study and grow. I doubt that it will happen. He is a born performer, and the sharks in the classical music business know all about him. Schoenberg was packed; the word is out. Let us hope the best for Lang; his potential is extraordinary.