In touch with Chopin’s fragile side

Why does Lang Lang, the 24-year-old Chinese pianist with an echo for a name, still set off such virulent debate within the classical community? Another chance to consider that came Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall -- and once again, one had to conclude that a lot of hot air, pro and con, has been blown at the wrong target.

Yes, Lang could turn on the physical shtick in a manner suggesting showman-like artistes from long, long ago: the languid (indeed!) swaying, the back flexed ever so slowly so that he faced the overhead lights. But there’s nothing wrong with a little physicality as long as it communicates something accurate about what the artist is doing musically, and I’ve yet to find it distracting with this artist.

As for his alleged musical eccentricities, Lang does have a valid point of view toward the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, which he essayed with eminent, attentive Russian conductor Vassily Sinaisky and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Lang went about the entire piece in a gentle, velvety way, rippling beautiful chromatic passages with a liquid touch, rarely raising his voice above the level of mezzo-forte.

Everything was in place technically, the main melodic line always at the fore with the rest melting into the orchestra; at times, you couldn’t even hear his left hand. Yet there was little sense of the underlying strength and harmonic daring (for its time) of this piece, nor was there any hint of nationalistic dance in Lang’s shapeless treatment of the Rondo theme.

In other words, on this night, Lang seemed to regard Chopin as a fragile, precious, almost effeminate poet -- and there is more to the composer than that. Yet the concerto floated by well enough in this non-provocative way.

As always greeting his audience -- maybe that’s another thing that drives the classical police unnecessarily crazy -- Lang finished with a brief, jarring, hammered Chinese toccata, “Happy Times,” from his latest CD, “Dragon Songs.”

Sinaisky opened the evening with a blaring, almost Russian-flavored treatment of Berlioz’s “Le Corsaire” Overture and closed it with Rachmaninoff’s final work, the Symphonic Dances, where the aging, homesick composer was trying to reconcile new sonorities in fresh ways with his yearning Russian roots.

Let it not be forgotten that Rachmaninoff wrote the piece with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in mind, for even as Sinaisky vigorously pounded out the rhythms and brought out lots of dazzling detail, the built-in lushness at the work’s core couldn’t help but evoke the old Philadelphia Sound.

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Los Angeles Philharmonic

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 tonight, 2 p.m. Sunday

Price: $15 to $135

Contact: (323) 850-2000 or

www.laphil.com