{"id":51363,"date":"2018-03-02T18:43:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T23:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=51363"},"modified":"2018-03-02T18:45:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T23:45:03","slug":"scrutiny-lang-lang-remains-inimitable-despite-injury-at-the-toronto-symphony-orchestra-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2018\/03\/02\/scrutiny-lang-lang-remains-inimitable-despite-injury-at-the-toronto-symphony-orchestra-gala\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Lang Lang Remains Inimitable Despite Injury At The Toronto Symphony Orchestra Gala"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lang
Lang Lang and Peter Oundjian (Photo: Jag Gundu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s every classical pianist\u2019s worst nightmare.<\/p>\n

It was this time last year when it was reported that Chinese star pianist Lang Lang was suffering from tendonitis in his left forearm. In the interim, his appearances have been severely curtailed, basically limited to the highest profile events, such as the June 2017 Hong Kong concert marking the 20th-anniversary of its return to China, and the Carnegie Hall opening night gala last fall. In those concerts, Lang sat beside one of his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, playing only with his right hand, while using his left to conduct, beat time, turn pages, or simply rested on his thigh.<\/p>\n

Now a year later, the injury has proven stubbornly persistent. In an interview with the South China Morning Post<\/em> last December, Lang Lang said he was \u201c200% confident\u201d of making a comeback in the summer. Well, we\u2019re not quite there yet. At the TSO Gala last evening, Lang appeared with 15-year old Maxim Lando in the special arrangement of Gershwin\u2019s \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d\u00a0 Lando is an alumnus of the Lang Lang Music Foundation, set up by the pianist some ten years ago to promote emerging talent.<\/p>\n

Speaking to a sold-out house including a full choir loft, conductor Peter Oundjian waxed rhapsodic (pun intended) about his first collaborations with the young Lang Lang fifteen years ago, and how impressed he is with the pianist now as a mentor himself, to the next generation of pianists. Lang Lang took this occasion to thank the outgoing TSO Music Director for their years of music-making together, and to offer his good wishes going into the future.<\/p>\n

\"Peter
Peter Oundjian, Lang Lang, and Maxim Lando (Photo: Jag Gundu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The evening opened with Paul Dukas\u2019s The Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice<\/em>, played by the combined forces of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. I didn\u2019t do a systematic count, but just looking at the jammed stage, there must have been some 150 musicians!\u00a0 Given the huge forces, it could easily have turned Wagnerian in decibels \u2014 I was expecting a big blast of sound.\u00a0 But Oundjian kept everything under control.\u00a0 The musicians playing with rich, vivid tone, plenty of drama, enthusiasm and humour but not the bombast, capturing perfectly the mercurial nature of this delightful work.<\/p>\n

After a long, 10-minute plus pause for resetting the stage seating, the TSO played Ravel\u2019s Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2<\/em> with lovely, mellow, translucent tone from the strings and the woodwinds, in a beautifully sustained, gorgeous, continuous sonic outpouring that just gave me the chills. This is one of those concerts where it\u2019s quality and not quantity that counts. The first half has about 30 minutes or so of music, and the Gershwin piece in the second half was maybe half that. If you add the two unannounced short pieces by Lang Lang and Lando, plus the encore, it was still only an hour or so of music. But when it\u2019s as exquisitely played as the Ravel, it\u2019s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

The second half opened with the two young pianists playing two \u201cstarters\u201d not in the printed program \u2014 \u201cAquarium\u201d from Carnival of the Animals<\/em> by Saint-Sa\u00ebns, and an exuberant rendition of \u201cAmerica\u201d from Bernstein\u2019s West Side Story. <\/em>\u00a0Lang Lang took the treble position, playing only with his right hand. From my vantage point in the mezzanine, I was just a bit too far to really see their hands clearly, but no doubt it was Lando doing the lion\u2019s share of the work. Still, it was obvious that they formed an organic whole. If I hadn\u2019t known there were two pianists playing, I would not have guessed.<\/p>\n

\"Peter
Peter Oundjian (Photo: Jag Gundu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Their seamless collaboration continued in the special transcription of Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>, a quintessentially American, feel-good piece that always leaves the audience smiling, yours truly included. \u00a0Rubato<\/em> is the name of the game in this work, and to be sure, I think there was plenty of it this evening! There were some extra interpolations by Lang Lang as well. Having seen him many times, I was struck by how restrained he was, without his customary histrionics. Perhaps it\u2019s part and parcel of being part of a duo instead of solo? \u00a0Well, not to worry \u2014 by the time the grandly melodic theme rolled around near the end of the piece, Lang Lang couldn\u2019t restrain himself anymore, his inherently flamboyant nature burst through for all to see, and the audience lapped it all up. The artists were rewarded with thunderous ovations. He, in turn, gave the faithfuls a short bon-bon from The Nutcracker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My final thoughts? To be perfectly honest, I would have preferred a healthy Lang Lang with his big technique and, yes, even his over-the-top exuberance. But looking on the bright side, we got to hear the prodigiously talented Maxim Lando. But it\u2019s worrisome that a whole year has not been enough for recovery. Given the big technique the public has come to expect from superstar pianists, they tend to push themselves and injuries are all too common.\u00a0 The greatest artist are only human, and nobody can defy the laws of nature. Let\u2019s just hope that Lang\u2019s injury is no more than a blip in his career which hopefully will be long and illustrious, and his next Toronto visit will find him good as new.<\/p>\n

LUDWIG VAN TORONTO<\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to an injury, and playing with only one hand, Lang Lang gets a little help from his friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":51367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14761,76,19,36,52,63],"tags":[1904,17293,3360],"yst_prominent_words":[17288,7870,17289,17285,7519,17107,17292,11137,11131,7637,11138,11136,11126,7871,6850,17286,17103,17287,11765,6827],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/03\/Lang-Lang-Peter-Oundjian-laughing-@Jag-Gundu-1-copy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-dmr","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51363"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51373,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51363\/revisions\/51373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51363"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=51363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}