In a piano-stool radio interview in Boston this week, the Chinese pianist demonstrates how he changes colours at the keyboard to calibrate the emotional impact of the music. Every performance, he says, must differ. ‘Glenn Gould never played what people expected,’ he declares.
He goes on to say that artists must carry in their heads the whole of recorded history in order to produce a relevant, contemporary interpretation. There are further interesting insights in his conversation with Meghna Charkrabarti at Boston Symphony Hall. Listen here.
photo: Jesse Costa/WBUR
And here’s video of his Boston rehearsal.
Very funny video of Lang Lang, worth watching all the way through:
lang lang is NO glenn gould
Definitely not. I’d say closer to Andre Rieu than Glenn Gould.
Liberace?
Agreed. (C)Lang (C)lang is definitely not Glenn Gould.
Yes, we have commented on the similarity to Liberace in our family many times. And to think I paid good money to fly to Berlin last week to watch Lisitsa’s all-Liszt circus act in the Philharmonie! Heard Steven Osborne in B’ham day before yesterday playing late Schubert and B. opus 111. More musicality in his little finger!
Lang Lang is Lang Lang
Agreed. A hugely talented musician. Heard several of his performances during the last few years and, apart for some exaggerations and excesses, most of the time his playing was quite superb.
To be more precise, he is talking about how he changes colours of his outfits at the keyboard to calibrate the marketing impact of the music.
Of course, during his concert career Gould got the same sort of flack as Lang Lang. But we can afford to admire him now he’s dead.
Interesting that the pianist Eileen Joyce used to change her dress (during the interval, of course) according to what she was playing.
Absolutely! Same thing with Charles Ives. He was mostly dumped on while he lived, but now he’s a minor god in the “Classical” Music Pantheon.