Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Lang Lang--Hurrah!

The OP wanted to know why people were bad mouthing Lang Lang.

*shrugs*

I have respect for him. I wish I had his technique...but if I had, I wouldn't play like him (or at least not everything. I do admit I enjoy some of the stuff from him I've heard on Youtube).

As for why people are bad-mouthing him... just jealous idiots.

I especially took offense to someone somewhere in the thread saying something about "yeah, yeah...another guy from China who would have starved had he not made it...yeah he had to work really hard but everyone works hard to become a concert pianist, blablabla" or something to that extent.

Yes, most concert pianists work really hard to become what they are. However, the consequences of not making it differ drastically country to country. This is really something that should not be made light of. I mean, if someone had said "yeah, yeah... another holocaust survivor story", seems to me to ring a similar insensitive remark downplaying the struggles of this individual

I think people are bad-mouthing him for the same reasons that there are people bad-mouthing other classical pianists: differences in interpretation. Victor likes his Appassionata in a specific way, I like my Second Hungarian Rhapsody in a specific way, and Lang Lang does it so horribly different that we cannot help but be negative about it, as we feel it goes against the spirit of the piece. Jealousy might come into it at some point, but there is more to consider. Overall, I love Kissin, but I've listened to a recording from him of Chopin's Prelude 4, Opus 28, which I honestly think I do better. Why? Because I think he butchers it by playing it too fast.

As far as that story goes, I understand your point. On the other hand, I do think those types of stories tend to get 'blown up' a little bit: they are very dramatic and so people focus a lot on them. Who knows what he really went through? Even in the department of holocaust survivor stories, you have different kinds of gradations. There are the ones that have had to suffer through years of camps and have lost everyone they held dear, and there are the ones that only got caught a couple of days before the end of the war and thus may not have been subjected to the same horrors. I think that's what the poster intended.

Exactly my thoughts, well said Zindaras!

Here's what I think of...



Really. I'm not kidding.

Whilst everyone in that audience of the HR performance looks stoned, and that tempo was faster than I like, his performance was nearly perfect, and being played that fast is not easy to do. My hats off to him for being able to play it that well, that fast.

Regarding the "what a crappy childhood i had " subject. I am not saying he didn't, i don 't know, but consider what most of these jewish russain pisnists had to go through during the soviet revolution ... moving to a new country not spealing the language, not knowing where or how your family may be ...

The Neill Eisenstein stuff may have been the single most retarded thing I have ever seen in my short damned life.

They probably were, considering the fact it was in Amsterdam.



My gripes with him were never technically related. I can't detect a single error in his playing there (but then again, I probably wouldn't have been able to), and his speed is incredible. I just can't fathom how his version is just a little over half the length of Hamelin's version (which I consider standard). Hamelin's is on the long version, but the majority of recordings seem to be about 10 minutes in length...which still shaves off more than 2.5 minutes. That, coupled with the fact that he is utterly erratic in his tempo, sometimes playing a part relatively normal and then releasing a floodwave of notes, just ruins it for me. Basically, he turns the piece into a display of his technique, which is what music is just not about.

The very first piece I learned already taught me that playing the notes is not the same as playing the piece. I miss him playing the piece. For all his swaying, he fails to convey the emotion that Hamelin does without so much as moving his head.

What about this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nIuA7Ir19k

How about if the word 'rape' never be used in the context of fine pianism? Why don't we just do that.

-J

Hamelin probably plays his own cadenza which is extremely long.

Yes, and probably one of the most interesting and legitimate cadenzas I've heard, though it's not for everyone.

Saying that reflects rather badly on you, not on them.

Popularity=/=Good Musicianship

+1

Oh and Bech, why don't you listen to his recording of Rach's g minor prelude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMfz1G7Btyo&feature=related

I for one congratulate Lang Lang. Some multitasker he is. While we average mortals struggle with talking and playing at the same time, he effortlessly dances and plays at the same time.

YEP.

Still, I think we can all agree that the most brutal rape that ever occured on a piano was the infamous Cindy Elizondo beauty pagent Chopin Sharezo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUiHBjQku0o

You can say what you want about Neill Eisenstein. He's got devastating chops. And a facebook group someone formed called 'neil eisenstein-the legend'. no, i did not form it.

No one blames Lang Lang for anything but criminal taste:
the fact that his clownass musicianship is worth 20mil a year says more about the sad world we live in than anything else...