Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner If Your Recorder Gets Stuck on "60 Minutes" Sunday...

You'll accidentally record a segment about Lang Lang.

might be worth watching, as i will learn alot of "what not to do's".

Watching Koji's Avatar is about as much LL as I can stomach.

Actually...I've found out that it's a "60 Minutes Investigates" show.

It probes the corrupt business practices at DG, such as why they signed LL, why LL is too cool for school:



and most importantly, why they put together another Rachmaninov album, especially right after Stephen Hough released his definitive version for Hyperion? :rolleyes:

I hope Leslie Stahl gets to the bottom of this. :p

Wow! Seems an odd, niche audience sort of story for them to do. Almost seems like something Saturday Night Live would do as a 60 Minutes lampoon sketch. I'll definitely watch.

Same here.



I listened to some clips of his Rach 2. Do we really need another recording of an over-sentimental Rach 2? Hough's recording was exactly what the piece needed; a nice and straightfoward rendition.

Although, I thought Zimerman did an even better job than Hough. Plus, Zimerman didn't screw around with the opening bars.

There are certain pieces that really have no more need of being recorded because definitive recordings already exist. Rach 2nd concerto and sonata both fall in that category for me.

koji (STSD)

Well, I think even in the presence of a definitive recording, someone can come along and bring something very fresh to a piece (which may or may not be a new definitive) and have a recording worth hearing.

But in this case, I think its highly unlikely that will happen in for long time for the Rach 2. Too easy to slip into schmaltzy misfortune with any new "explorations"

It's already been briefly discussed, and I was openly debated for saying it, but I just read again in an article how Stephen Hough "takes the opening of the 2nd concerto as written, which even the composer himself didn't do in his own recordings." Additionally, Stephen discussed this with me and reaffirmed this.

If you must, I can go and find it and give you specifics.

From their description: LANG LANG: So good he's said to have 11 fingers, Chinese piano prodigy Lang Lang may be the best pianist of his generation. Bob Simon reports.


meh

No, I believe you. I simply can't get over how cheap Hough's intro makes the piece sound - and to my ears, that cheapness permeates the rest of the recording.

I'll go a step further and say that some pieces need to be put on a moratorium list for a few years, heh.

Actually, the Wideman competition banned Rach 3 this year (I was afraid we'd make it through a thread without mentioning it).

I wasn't even aware that DG had issued yet ANOTHER Rach 2. I already have the composers 2 versions, 3 with Rubinstein, Kapell, Guitierrez, Hough, and Zimerman (coupled with a spectacular 1st). Why does DG think I need another?

A pity that a certain nameless jury member didn't know the Barber concerto AT ALL.

koji (STSD)

As much as a despise Lang Lang, I actually think that he is good for classical music at this moment - his antics, flashy album covers, young carefreeness, and basic unartistic way
is actually bringing a LOT of attention to the classical recording industry.

My grandparents, for instance, who are very kind but know little of music went to see LL a few months ago play the Rach2. They never heard the rach2 - they liked it and they liked LL. Now they go to classical concerts more.

Now imagine...hypothetically ::

Some unmusical teenage girls in Bejing walk into a barnes and noble, see the new LL cd there, see on the cover the sexy biatch strolling romantically through the russian corn field wearing his silk concert cloths. They get turned on and decide to buy the CD that they would not have heard otherwise. They like the Rach 2, becuase it IS a good piece..so next time LL comes to town they go and see him. now they KNOW music and start to go more and more. =D =D

........As always I am too rushed to articulate myself but i'm hoping most of you got my point.

Doesn't Yundi Li already have a lock on the sexy young Asian pianist niche?

...and last year also. I did Brahms 2, played it better than anything else in my whole life, but like almost every year they picked nothing but Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Prokofiev.

Heh.

Not this year. Winners were Prok 1, Barber, Beethoven 4, Liebermann 2, Prok 3, and Saint-Seans 2.

I had the dubious distinction of playing first out of everybody. Of course, mathematically that means I was eliminated first and therefore placed last out of over 50 people.

edit: Oops. There was a Rach 2 in the finalists as well. Funny I forgot to list it, especially since I thought he was going to win.

At least they didn't tie for first again. They did that I think two years in a row...cheapens the prize, IMO.

I suppose that's true, but I wish there were more orchestral performances available just the same. There were far too many people at Wideman that are perfectly capable of nailing a concerto with orchestra that will likely never have the opportunity.

Brendad what year did you enter??

So did anybody watch 60 Minutes?

I've never heard a Lang Lang recording, my only exposure is the commentary on this forum. In light of that, I was pleased to see the "non-fan" point of view was represented too.

2003.

What is so bad about Lang Lang? I have never heard him play or anything, and im not sure i want to from hearing all the bad things about him. What exactly is so bad?

I've never really listened to Lang Lang either, because I've heard/read such bad reviews of his playing.

It's really hard though to explain why I don't like certain artists, especially when they're so popular. For example, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He is internationally well-known as one of the greatest cellists alive today, but I don't know that that says much about the cellists alive today. I've heard his CD of the Brahms sonatas, and it just doesn't do anything for me (I don't know why - perhaps because I've heard du Pré's recording). I've heard his "Classic Yo-Yo" CD, and "Simply Baroque" and that new Tango CD, and I'm just not impressed. I can't really explain what's so bad about his playing, but I guess I just don't like it. Then why is he so popular?!

I imagine other reviewers might feel the same way about Lang Lang - they don't like his playing but can't explain why. Or maybe they can (if they can, please, I'd like to hear this!)

It's not even that he's a bad pianist - because technically, he really isn't. Beyond technique though, he has no musical talent WHATSOEVER.


I'd rather pay money to hear Helfgott than Lang Lang.

That's a bold statement.

If you heard his Carnegie hall recital disc, you'd agree.

I'll post a recording of Lang butchering the Schumann Traumerei, you'll see what I mean.

It may be that critics dont like the person, and that can easily bias the subjective perception of his playing. Indeed, with all the mellow dramatic swaying around, and in the footage of him as a child he already carried himself with so much arrogance, and then the Prok3 footage someone posted here (spawning Koji's avatar), its kind of easy to be annoyed by him.

Again, I havent heard him, so I dont know. But if one doesnt like the person, its easy to convince oneself of problems with performance, especially if its less than genius.

One of the nay sayers remarked so. Scowling at his ego and histrionics.

Post a Horowitz recording of Traumerei at the same time.

I think a lot of people don't know how musically horrible some performances are until they hear a breathtaking performance of the same piece (I'm in no position to say that Lang Lang's performance of Traumerei is musically horrible, but I get the feeling from your post that I will soon be in a position to make that claim)

I used to LOVE Arrau's recording of the Grieg Concerto... not that it's "musically horrible" or anything - it's a great performance - but I just simply cannot listen to it anymore after hearing Andsnes and Michelangeli (Richter and Zimerman, too, but I don't often listen to their recordings of the piece)

Lang Lang - Schumann Traumerei

Argerich - Schumann Traumerei

That link didn't work for me... huh...

I went to Amazon.com and listened to samples of his Schubert Wanderer Fantasy from the Carnegie Hall CD. Sounds like a student performance - he gets all of the fortes and all of the pianos, certainly... and he gets all of the notes... but there is no "oomph" in it (or perhaps too much. He tends to bang the fortes). I can't hear his soul in it. There's no discernable passion in it.

But check out the review titles:
"Subtle Brilliance"
"Simply Breathtaking"
"Meanings, like new, were revealed to me"
"Spellbinder, from delicate to thunderous"

Hmmmmmmm..... well, I do agree that he demonstrated subtle brilliance. It is so subtle, I cannot hear it.

Both links work. Try right clicking -> Save as...

What is a .ogg file? My computer doesn't seem to want to play it.

Ha! Even my computer doesn't want to hear it...

Download WINAMP

A lot of politics can go into forming a review. I have no knowledge of any of these reviews here, but I have seen reviews written with alterior agendas separate from the performance itself. Everybody gets paid for what they do, and that money can carry with it political pressures. (I once saw a review written by a critic that DIDNT SEE the performance.)

Oops... I have a Mac (well, not oops... ) Winamp only works on Windows. I get the idea, though.

For mac: http://www.whamb.com/

It is a good player with ogg support

I've seen LL play live many times over the years and I've met him several times; from the age of 17 to most recently after his Kimmel Center performance. I think he gets both exaggerated praise and criticism. He's accomplishments, however, I greatly admire. To have abivalent or even negative feelings towards someone's playing is one thing. To mock and ridicule a person is another.