There are pianists who play the notes, and pianists who play the notes AND the room. Lang Lang has always been firmly in the second camp, and that is precisely why critics have spent decades unsure what to do with him. Too theatrical, too demonstrative …simply too much! What they are now reluctantly beginning to acknowledge is that he has done more to bring new audiences to classical piano music than many of his generation, and that it isn’t just hype – the playing is actually very good.
I owe him something of a personal debt on that score. Lang Lang was one of the people who led me to piano music as an adult, and I have seen him perform at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome more times than I can easily count. Over the years I have also met him at CD signings on several occasions after performances, always finding him warm, approachable, and very generous with his time.
In March 2014, I was in the audience for a concert with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Antonio Pappano, in which Lang Lang performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. I’d been a bit slow off the mark buying my ticket, so I opted – for the first time – for seats behind the stage. The moment his fingers hit the keys I noticed the slight muffling of the piano, the lid angled away from where I was sitting. It was a small imperfection in sound, but more than compensated for by the close proximity to Lang Lang himself and the chance to watch his interaction with Pappano – something I wouldn’t have been able to fully appreciate from the stalls.
On the off chance that there might be a signing afterwards, I had brought along my copy of his memoir, Journey of a Thousand Miles, published by Aurum Press in 2009 (as well as a CD, naturally!)
My foresight paid off. There was indeed a meet-and-greet in the Auditorium bookshop after the performance, and I came away with something rather special: a large, sweeping signature in black marker pen on the half-title page, a warm smile and a brief exchange, and a concert ticket stub that I tucked into the copyright page on the spot, where it has remained ever since.
Journey of a Thousand Miles is not a rare book. But this particular copy carries a date, a context, a ticket stub from row 3, and a signature that covers nearly the full width of the page, including a smiley, as you would expect from a pianist who has never been accused of doing anything quietly. The photograph, which I snapped at the signing table that evening, captures him mid-signature, marker in hand.
I’ll be seeing him in concert again this May … fingers crossed there will be another signing!