Lang Lang breaks the schmaltz barrier

If the 22-year-old piano virtuoso Lang Lang ever gave up music, he might easily become a successful politician. He’s all smiles, and these days he sports slick threads and side-swept bangs. A born crowd-pleaser, he appears doused in self-regard, content to keep other emotions off the stage. Musically, he sticks to a simple core approach and seems nearly evangelical about his responsibility to it. Few players pump both fists midway through an exciting work. At Lang’s recital Sunday night in Walt Disney Concert Hall, the act was routine.

He had arrived with a program lacking depth. Of course virtuoso recitals should include schmaltzy showpieces. But as ticket prices rise and more worthy artists flood the scene, audiences appreciate at least one challenging, serious sonata. Lang’s sole contribution to the category was Haydn’s late Sonata No. 60 in C, and he played it shallowly, with twinkly music-box simplicity, offering clean, superficially pretty sounds while segueing out of the classical style with a slick legato to showcase his mastery of extremely soft dynamics.

Lang’s sound lacked richness from start to finish. He began the night with Schumann’s first piano work, the “Abegg” Variations, an early, rather forgettable Romantic piece based on a series of tones that spell out the name of an acquaintance of the composer. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this performance. It just sounded so premeditatedly charming that it could have been streaming through a 747’s “classical” radio channel.

Chopin’s flamboyant “Andante spianato and Grande polonaise brillante” concluded the first half. Here, Lang rendered a spacious, singing melody accompanied by impressionistic tones before a happy, bouncing dance. But he should have cut the cuteness in favor of showcasing the music’s peculiarities. There is a dark side to even celebratory Chopin works. Great recitalists have always found in them something strange or dark to add human complexity to the fireworks.

Simpler still were some early, nationalistic shorts by Chinese composer Tan Dun. Boasting such picturesque titles as “Missing Moon” and “Herdboy’s Song,” “Eight Memories in Watercolor” allowed the pianist another chance to create serene and jubilant small moments. The music fuses Chinese folk sounds with jazzy grace notes and Modernist syncopations, and Lang proved custom-built to play it; the movement “Floating Clouds” sounded exactly right.

To rally ovations, Lang finished with Chopin’s D-flat major Nocturne (too Lang-winded) before tossing off Liszt’s remarkably difficult “Reminiscences de Don Juan,” a maniacal impression of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” played note-perfect and sing-songy but without demonism.

Then came encores. A drawn-out rendition of Schumann’s familiar “Traumerei” was followed by the appearance of Lang’s father, Guo-ren Lang, who took his son’s exultantly raised hand and pumped it hard before performing with him a rabble-rousing Chinese folk song, “Competition of the Two Horses,” on the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin. The performance was telling: As Guo-ren’s strings wobbled and twanged, both men swaying, it became obvious that showbiz had been a family value at home. “Flight of the Bumblebee” ended the evening. Shocker.

More shocking, Lang is good for music: He gets people who might not otherwise care about the art into halls, and he can certainly play the heck out of the piano. It’s just that if he wants to compete with career virtuosos like Evgeny Kissin, he will need to abandon musical politicking. Real musicians candidly answer personal questions for the world to hear. For Lang Lang, the challenge awaits.