Pianist
Music that changed me
Chinese pianist Lang Lang has won plaudits for his mastery of the classical repertoire, performing with conductors including Daniel Barenboim and Simon Rattle. But his extrovert performances of works ranging from Chinese folksongs to Metallica and Herbie Hancock have also inspired millions of children to learn the piano. On his new album, The Disney Book, he presents iconic movie melodies, reimagined in new versions written especially for him by some of the world’s leading arrangers.
My all-time favourite piece is TCHAIKOVSKY’s Piano Concerto No. 1. I listened to it in my little dormitory at the Shengyang Conservatory, and I was amazed at how powerful classical music could be. Before that I had listened to beautiful Mozart, but one day I heard these huge chords at the opening of the concerto, and I thought, ‘Wow! This is something.’ Later, this concerto launched my career when I played it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra [standing in for André Watts], and I’ve played it many times since.
As a ten year-old in 1992, I watched a video of Glenn Gould playing JS BACH’s Goldberg Variations. I’d never heard Bach played this way. Such a strong personality! You think of Bach as being economical, but the way Gould played it was like a Picasso – he totally changed the shape, the melody, the voice, the articulation. It was the same material, but he turned it into another, amazing creature. More recently I played the Goldberg Variations in concert and I’ve recorded two versions: a live recording at [Bach’s own] Thomaskirche, Leipzig; and another in the studio. Glenn Gould said it’s much better to record in a studio, and I agree, but there’s something about the spontaneity of a live concert – those special moments that you don’t get in the studio.
As students, we are always practising exercises by composers like Czerny and Moszkowski, but CHOPIN’s 24 Études are on another level. They are not just about pure technique – they are about serving the music. This is why we have to practise: to make the bridge between the mechanics and real music, and this is what Chopin delivers in his Études. The first one I played was the ‘Black Key’ Étude, Op. 10 No. 5, and that was a very difficult piece for me at eight years old. Each year I learnt five or six more until, at 13, I played the complete Chopin Études in concert.
Luciano Pavarotti’s performance of ‘ Nessun Dorma’ from PUCCINI’s Turandot has to be one of my five choices. He had this special skill of making sunshine in the music. There other great artists like Plácido Domingo or Jonas Kaufmann, but Pavarotti is
