If you had any doubts about Lang Lang’s classical superstar status, the first of his two London appearances this week would have clarified matters. The cavernous Royal Albert Hall was packed, the merch sold out long before the interval ended and his two encores were filmed by a sea of smartphones. The audience listened politely to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture and Venusberg Music – a deluxe-finish if otherwise functional performance under Mark Wigglesworth – but roared into life when Lang Lang entered. There were numerous leisurely bows before he played a note.
The notes poured out by the fistful in Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No 2, from industrial-scale opening chords to passages where Lang’s fingers skimmed the keys apparently without effort, the melodic tumult glinting like priceless gems. There were a few precious quiet moments with Lang bent double over the piano and a glimpse of humour in his sudden slowing for the second movement’s ungainly oompah romp. Mostly, though, this was a showcase of virtuosic pianism as sonic warfare. Lang launched the finale with such a catastrophic explosion that a child in the hall’s upper reaches burst into tears.
Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals makes witty, characterful use of its instrumental forces. In Lang’s hands and those of his wife, Gina Alice, this piece, too, was largely dominated by its pianists. They faced off across their Steinways, arms arcing balletically, every entry played as if the main event. Only in The Swan did the couple allow cellist Richard Harwood into the spotlight in an exquisite but all-too-brief instance of genuine musical dialogue. Even Gina Alice was quickly dispatched at the end to allow Lang Lang to play two rapturously received solo encores – a Liszt Liebestraum and a Chopin mazurka.
This was, without question or apology, a one-pianist concert. Yet it was the RPO’s piano-free performance of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, a hiatus amid the emphatic pianism, that was most musically satisfying. It was played as if the orchestra had let a collective breath out, the opening melody slowly spooling, the musical chinoiserie delicate and luminous, the string sound all rich cashmere.
• Second performance on 23 November at the Royal Albert Hall, London
