The Wide Expanse of Lang Lang’s Program

Photograph of Lang Lang by Xin Qiu (courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

Last night saw the first solo piano recital of the season in Davies Symphony Hall. Lang Lang has been performing in Davies since October of 2020, when he made his San Francisco Symphony debut as a Shenson Young Artist. Since that time he has made regular appearances, including a contribution to the Gala concert for the Centennial Season. To be fair, he is not my favorite pianist; but I continue to be impressed by the diversity of his repertoire.

For all I know, I was the only one sitting in Davies who was not bubbling over with enthusiasm. From my more detached point of view, the occasion felt a bit like feeding time at the zoo! Nevertheless, I was impressed by Lang Lang’s approach to programming. The first half established a mature aspect of the First Viennese School, beginning with a relatively late composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the K. 485 rondo movement composed in the key of D major. This was followed by the “early” and “late” periods of Ludwig van Beethoven with two sonatas. The first was particularly familiar, the Opus 13 (eighth) sonata in the key of C minor, given the title “Pathétique.” The second was the penultimate sonata, Opus 110 in A-flat major.

The second half of the program was more “international.” It began in Spain with six of the movements from the Suite española composed by Isaac Albéniz. It then remained in Spain with one of the movements from Enrique Granados’ suite Goyescas, the movement title being “Quejas, o La Maja el ruiseñor” (the maiden and the nightingale). This was followed without pause by the second of Franz Liszt’s “Consolation” compositions, written in the key of E major. The “Liszt segment” then continued with the “Tarantella” movement from Venezia e Napoli, the “appendix” to the second “year” in the Années de pèlerinage cycle. Things then quieted down a bit with an encore performance of Claude Debussy’s “Clair de lune,” the third movement from his Suite bergamasque. There was a second encore with no announcement of title and far too many notes (particularly in light of the number of all the preceding notes during the evening)!

To be fair, I was impressed with the selection of every one of the compositions in the program; but, as in the past, I came away disappointed that the pianist seemed more interested in being a virtuoso pianist than he was in doing justice to each of those compositions.