Riding the wave
   By David Patric Stearns
   Inquirer Music Critic

   Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does Philadelphia-based pianist Lang Lang.

   Through a truly harmonic convergence, the 21-year-old is on
   posters all over record stores, promoting his new CD, and on the
   covers of England's two best classical music magazines.  He also
   has product endorsements that will yield him a Cadillac.  For
   serious music people, this is the summer of Lang Lang.

   There's more: On Tuesday's Live From Lincoln Center on PBS,
   fellow guest soloist Stephanie Blythe was in full costume and
   makeup, ready to sing, but was stricken with an infection.  So,
   after playing Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No.  1 to the usual
   rousing audience response, Lang Lang filled the void left by
   Blythe with 16 minutes of Liszt's fantasy on themes from Mozart's
   Don Giovanni.

   The New York audience at the Mostly Mozart Festival couldn't
   help erupting in the middle of the Liszt, as if cheering a grand
   slam at Yankee Stadium.  In light of the subsequent media coverage,
   we can be glad WHYY-TV (Channel 12) delayed the telecast until
   5 p.m.  tomorrow (so as not to upset the loyal viewers of Nova).

   Only a few years ago, the China-born graduate of the Curtis
   Institute of Music was shoehorned into a one-bedroom apartment
   on Spruce Street with his parents and a Steinway grand.

   Now, it's eerie how everything goes his way so completely and
   relentlessly.  As originally planned, the PBS program might have
   been a hodgepodge of arias and concertos.  As it fell together
   - with superb, French-accented playing from the Mostly Mozart
   Orchestra under its new music director, Louis Langree - the
   concert became strangely perfect, with Lang Lang on the first
   half, Beethoven's Symphony No.  4 on the second.

   The fact that Lang Lang is also on the August covers of both
   Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine is the classical-music equivalent
   of Bruce Springsteen's getting the Time and Newsweek covers
   simultaneously.

   And we all know what this could mean: backlash, when the public
   feels an artist is being forced on them.

   The classical world mostly seems so enthralled with Lang Lang
   at the moment, can this happen to him?  It's inevitable, says
   a New York publicist who's known for her strategies.

   Lang Lang is so hearty, he could probably outmaneuver the
   Terminator.  Navigating backlash, however, is trickier, given
   how all this publicity took on a momentum of its own.  Scheduling
   Lang Lang, says Live From Lincoln Center producer John Goberman,
   "isn't a hard decision.  There are plenty of kids who are really
   good, but you see this guy play, and it's a few-in-a-lifetime
   kind of thing."

   The covers of the London-based magazines came together thanks
   to both Lang Lang's coming appearance at the popular Prom Concerts
   at Royal Albert Hall and Deutsche Grammophon's rush-releasing
   his disc of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos.  Yet something
   else was afoot.

   Lang Lang's previous recordings hadn't inspired great affection
   among the BBC editors, so when they asked me to write a short
   profile of the pianist, I assumed it would be discreetly tucked
   away.  Instead, it was splashed across two pages dominated by a
   Lang Lang photo, with my words beneath his elbow.

   Reviews of the disc have been good to excellent.  But talent
   guarantees nothing.  Already, the Chicago Tribune's usually
   even-tempered John von Rhein is expressing impatience with Lang
   Lang's extravagant physicality and some of the musical mannerisms
   that go with it.  Since Lang Lang has played in Chicago more
   than any other American city, might this be the start of backlash?

   Even though Lang Lang stayed on the right side of overboard in
   the PBS telecast, the cameras revealed what may be the real
   problem: His movements and facial expressions anticipate -
   unintentionally - what he's about to deliver at the keyboard.
   In a sense, he's opening your presents before Christmas.  This
   may never change.  I've seen videos of Lang Lang at age 12, and
   he was always a mover.  Audiences will get used to it - or not.

   But will Lang Lang, like so many classical artists, be induced
   to stray from his core repertoire into cheesier realms?  How
   about The Lang Lang Tango Album?

   My conversations with him suggest that his interest in pop music
   doesn't extend beyond Chinese folk songs and maybe the soundtrack
   from one of his favorite films, Gladiator.  He seems to actively
   dislike most of the rest.  That, alone, should keep Lang Lang
   out of the Liberace Zone.  His plans for European debuts involve
   serious repertoire only, such as Mozart and Beethoven.

   Though I've found the oft-made comparisons between Lang Lang and
   golf champ Tiger Woods to be bogus, the key to their longevity
   is the same: Woods needs to keep his head down and eye on the
   ball - literally.  And Lang Lang needs to do the same - figuratively.

Vivien Leong <[log in to unmask]>