Lang Lang With The Seattle Symphony

Lang Lang With The Seattle Symphony

Sunday, October 11

2 PM

Coriolan Overture - Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491

Allegro

Larghetto

Allegretto

Lang Lang, Piano

-Intermission-

Sections from Gli uccelli - Ottorino Respughi

Prelude

The Hen

The Cuckoo

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 - Edvard Grieg

Allegro molto moderato

Adagio

Allegro moderato molto e marcato

Lang Lang, Piano

This concert was a huge disappointment to me, particularly given someone of Lang Lang's stature. I was most disappointed in his use of "artistic license". It's one thing to make a good thing of ritardandos and accelerandos, but when you completely use it to obliterate any sense of rhythmic integrity (for example the piano's first entrance in the Grieg), the notes turn into noise that lacks any direction, and completely changes the tone of the music. Additionally, he would keep on looking out at the audience, much like a pop "artist", and it seemed to detract from his focus as well, as there were multiple technically difficult passages that were not soundly played. Perhaps he should focus less on the onstage persona and more on the onstage performance. The music wasn't helped by the musician selection of the orchestra itself, as it seemed that the orchestra decided to forgo the idea of using its best musicians and instead, especially for the strings, use the oldest musicians under contract, and the quality greatly suffered as a result.

Also, since Lang Lang is a major Chinese celebrity, the Chinese turned out in major force. I for one generally cannot stand having a large group of Chinese people around me at an event that's not catered towards Chinese people, as they tend to misbehave and I look bad and get lumped in with them because I'm Chinese. This case was no exception of their misbehavior. Firstly, this resulted in some clapping between movements. I suppose it also doesn't help that half of the Chinese people were either pianists or their parents, none of whom have any understanding of orchestral music as they're too narrowly focused on their piano. Additionally, there was so much picture-taking and use of cell phones during the performance itself, and the performance was not treated with any type of formality (just like most Chinese events where silence and good behavior is not required). Also, the coughing and other noise-making was in no way silenced at all, compared to seasoned concertgoers who would at least try to muffle their sounds if possible. Needless to say when it comes to large groups of Chinese people we can't have nice things.