Sensory overload is all in the mind, but tonight it took over all of me.

Somewhere between the toughest Liszt etude played double time and the
neighing of horses in the duet with the erhu, my otherwise somewhat
disciplined monkey-mind up and left the building.

One moment, the monkey and I were in Herbst Theater, at Lang Lang's second
San Francisco Performances recital in two years; the next, we landed on the
deck of Kon Tiki, a half a century ago, in Polynesian waters.

Look!  There is Thor Heyerdahl, asleep.  The sailors are yelling at him to
wake up and see the incredible fish they just caught, a symphony of colors.
Heyerdahl opens one eye, takes measure of the weird creature, says "There
is no such fish," and goes back to sleep.

Back to Herbst again.  Monkey mind says: "There is no such pianist," and
I agree, but we don't go to sleep.  We are stunned, amazed, want more.  We
get more.  This time, "real music." The Liszt transcription of Schumann's
"Widmung," sung from the heart, the piano disappearing.  This too he can
do.

"Lang" means either "blue" or "man" in Mandarin.  This is Blue Man.  He
is a literally incredible pianist and a pretty good musician too.  But why
should a 19-year-old have a sign on his back: "Kick me, I am not perfect"?
Because where he is perfect already, superlatives fail.  If he went into
another line of work as an acrobat, he would be twirling a thousand plates
simultaneously.  Monkey sees, monkey doesn't believe.

In the five years since I asked Yuri Temirkanov who his favorite young
musical protege was and he virtually stammered about "this young Chinese
boy who will become the greatest pianist in the world," Lang Lang went
on to conquer concert halls (playing several times with Temirkanov) and
started recording, but nothing can substitute for the LIVE experience of
this magical business.

What makes the Lang Lang phenomenon even more remarkable is that there is
nothing simple about it.  His concert is just one damn thing after another.
In fact, the first half gave no indication of what was to happen in the
second.

The opening Haydn Sonata in E could have been played by a number of
other pianists.  It was impressive in that Lang Lang's technique is
so overwhelming that you just tune it out as a given, but it wasn't a
particularly great musical experience.  In fact, the second movement was
utterly unidiomatic, a kind of measured, stately Bach-like performance,
pedantic at that.  The Presto picked up, but it was still "no Haydn."

And then came, immediately and stunningly, the Mendelssohn Fantasies or
Caprices, Op. 16, in a heartfelt, quietly passionate, superb performance,
the pianist's love for the piece palpable, moving.  What next? Nothing
expected.  Lang Lang vaulted across the stage, jumped the piano and started
banging out the Schubert Fantasy in C Major so thoughtlessly that both the
Mendelssohn magic and my new respect for him started diminishing.  Soon
enough, however, something resembling Schubert emerged and if not all, most
things were right with the world.  All in all, however, this first half
made for an interesting, impressive, "good/bad" concert, Blue Man nowhere
to be seen.

He did arrive after intermission and warmed up for the major exercise with
two Chopin pieces, a decent Waltz in A-flat Major and a lyrical-not-maudlin
Nocturne in D-flat Major.  And then came the Liszt Paganini etudes, leading
up to No. 6 in A minor and the single most, yes, incredible performance in
all my years.

I know pianists with fingers of steel and those with hands without bones.
Lang Lang has "normal" hands.  What he does with them cannot be described
because there is no comparison.  Not the young Andre Watts, not the young
Van Cliburn, not even the new crop of Russian wunderkind, perhaps not even
- forgive me - Horowitz on a bad day.

The fluency, the stainless-steel legato in the midst of the greatest storm
of notes must be experienced to be believed, and still you'd have trouble
raising the jaw again and closing the mouth.  It's too bad that in the past
I used the line "must not miss" for other musicians; it should have been
reserved for Lang Lang and his Liszt.

The first encore was an exotic, delightful surprise.  Who'd enter the
stage but Guojen Lang, the pianist's father, an erhu virtuoso.  They
performed the popular Chinese piece "Racing Horses," the two instruments
trotting, competing, passing one another, at the end, the erhu (the
winner?) neighing uproariously.  Then the superb Schumann and the weird,
unplayable miniature Scriabin "Mosquito" (with the ease of "Chopsticks") .
. . and the mind-boggling consideration of where this 19-year-old may be
heading.  Yes, there is no such fish.

Janos Gereben/SF
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