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January 6, 2006

Lang Lang

details:
John Pickard The Flight of Icarus (U.S. premiere)
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1
Haydn Symphony No. 99

I went to the SF Symphony on Friday night. Lang Lang, W.'s and my favorite guest pianist was playing.

First the bad:

The guest conductor I wasn't fond of. Between him and Haydn, managed to trick the audience into clapping about 200 measures before the end of the piece. Those kinds of pauses in a piece are tricky, but if the audience is engaged and the conductor makes the signal clear, no one claps. apparently everyone was ready to get out of there, and a big round of applause interrupted the piece--yours truly included. and this wasn't just a few people who didn't know what was going on... a good 30 percent of the hall. The best thing I can say is at least it didn't interrupt a piece I really cared about.

The opening piece, Icarus, was a nice little tone poem. Still, it lacked the arrative magic of a Respighi.

-/-

But really, this concert was all about LangLang, as evidenced by the crowds of families (mostly Chinese) with thier children, who left at the half, after LangLang's encore. (And who can blame them? They gotta get those kids to bed.)

We had seen him at his SF debut in 2000, when he was a fuzzy headed, gangly 18 year old. The contrast between his awkward appearance and obvious youth--and the beauty and joy of his music was a stuning contrast. Friday he showed up a bit older, but no less eye-catching. Now his buzzcut has grown into long gently waving locks, just above his shoulders; instead of a standard tux he wore a black felt suit, with a black collared shirt, no tie. Like a Chinese Jesus dressed for an Elvis Presley impersonators party.

young langlang

W. laughed when I said, "lookit, our little Lang Lang's all growed up!"

The Beethoven was nice, but it's not my favorite piano concerto. Call me an old codger. What did touch me was Lang Lang's encore--he played a chinese tune (I can't recall the name of it) in honor of the Chinese New Year at the end of the month. The melody evoked a quiet scene in a teahouse in a Shaw Bros. movie. and it was fun to imagine Lang Lang playing the accompaniment

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