My latest CD mini-review for the WRTI E-newsletter. You can read all my CD reviews here.
Lang Lang, The Magic Of Lang Lang
Lang Lang plays Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Lu Wencheng, Schumann, Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Haydn, Xinghai Xian, David Foster
Deutsche Grammophon 001077402
It’s the touch. If you can silence all the hype about Lang Lang’s success—his jet-setting, his Olympic concerts, his entertaining stage presence, his leather jackets—if you can quell all that buzz, then you will be able to hear what it is that makes him the most spectacular pianist on the globe. It’s not hype that produces that crystalline sound, a singing quality that is both heroic and vulnerable, transparent and coy at the same time. It’s not buzz that teases out voicing of incredible delicacy and individuality, nuance and power.
This CD, The Magic of Lang Lang, encapsulates the artistry and wide repertoire of this man who can take a box of wood and steel and ivory and make music like no one else. What is this magic? Is it the jacket, the smile, the hype? No. It’s the touch.