Last night pianist Lang Lang returned to Davies Symphony Hall for the latest installment in the Great Performers Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony. The program book listed only one selection, Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 988 set of 30 variations on an aria theme, best known as the “Goldberg Variations.” In all likelihood the program was planned as a follow-up to Lang Lang’s “Deluxe Edition” album of BWV 988, released by Deutsche Grammophon at the beginning of this past September. This was a four-CD collection with two CDs allocated to a studio performance and another two containing a single-take recording of the music performed in recital at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach worked as Kapellmeister (music director) from 1723 until his death in 1750.
My first encounter with BWV 988 in performance took place when I was living in Israel in the early Seventies. However, since I have undertaken my writing gig, I have accumulated a fair number of recordings and attended a fewer number of recital performances. In that moderately rich context, the experience that stands out the most is the performance that András Schiff gave in Davies in October of 2013. The booklet for that recital included a variation-by-variation account of a “journey” for both performer and listener, and I now keep that booklet in the same folder as my CD recordings.
Listening to Lang Lang performing this music in Leipzig, I never had much of a sense of a journey. Nevertheless, there was a clarity to his account of the bass line that definitely fell in line with Schiff’s approach to the music. More important is that his overall rhetoric involved a sensitivity that I had not encountered in previous Lang Lang performances. His account of the 25th variation, given an explicit Adagio tempo marking, may have distinguished itself with a duration significantly longer than any of the other variations; but that duration did not disrupt any sense of overall flow.
Sadly, Lang Lang in San Francisco was a far cry from Lang Lang in Leipzig. Many of his familiar antics were back in play with exaggerated approaches to both dynamics and phrasing that ran the gamut from merely annoying to painfully aggravating. The duration of the Adagio variation may have filled the same clock time as it occupied in Leipzig; but, in last night’s rhetorical context, it felt as if it endured forever.
Indeed, duration seemed to weigh heavily on much of the audience over the course of the performance. The first signs of people leaving their seats to exit the hall arose long before the “Overture” variation that marks the halfway point. The rate of departure was never more than a modest flow; but it was clear that many (most?) in the audience felt that they had enough long before the performance of BWV 988 had concluded.
My guess is that Lang Lang was aware of this audience behavior. However, he probably also knew that the original title page stated that the music was composed (in English translation) “for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits” and accepted that no concert hall (at least in this country) is ever filled with connoisseurs! This may explain why he took his “first encore” before beginning BWV 988.
I call this an “encore,” because it was not listed in the program. The selection was Robert Schumann’s Opus 18 “Arabeske” in C major. To some extent it left the impression that Lang Lang was warming up his mannerisms before unleashing them on BWV 988, but at least the Schumann selection had the virtue of brevity.
The most pleasant surprise came at the every end of the evening. The encore that followed BWV 988 was the Chinese folk melody “Mo Li Hua” (jasmine flower). This is probably the most familiar citation of traditional Chinese music that Giacomo Puccini appropriated for his Turandot opera. (It is sung by a children’s chorus during the first act.) Lang Lang’s account was a bit heavy on the embellishment. However, the overall rhetoric was one of quietude, which was most welcome after such a heavy-handed and disconcerting approach to Bach.
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