Fauré
Pavane, Op.50
Beethoven
Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat, Op.19
Shostakovich
Symphony No.10 in E minor, Op.93
Lang Lang (piano)
Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit
Reviewed by: Kevin Rogers
Reviewed: 25 October, 2011
Venue: Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City
The posters with “sold out” plastered over them for this concert said it all. In the Isaac Stern Auditorium the buzz was great: snippets of conversations included, “I wasn’t going to come, but then I heard that Lang Lang was playing” – confirming that this was a ‘celebrity’ concert in the worst (is there any other?) sense. Lang Lang proved himself to be exactly that: an entertainer, his adoring public – some offering flowers to the Ronald O. Perelman Stage where he accepted them – lapping up what he offered: but he had absolutely no affinity with the music or the orchestra. The Beethoven had begun in promising fashion: a brisk tempo (though the reverberant hall robbed the music of its crispness) but failed to keep Lang Lang on track, his eccentricities deviated wildly and the concerto lost all sense of line, though he did produce a honed and pleasurable tone from his instrument. He made misplaced attempts at humour in the cadenza, and his introduction to the central Adagio lacked any sense of solemnity. Lang Lang’s encore, Liszt’s ‘La Campanella’ (Paganini Etudes), was played as a party piece.
The concert had began with a polished and lovely performance of Fauré’s Pavane, contemplative moments eschewed for broad sweeps (the Philadelphians’ strings sounding gorgeous, and the flautists a dream). Quite aside from the Beethoven was the audience’s behaviour during most of the concert, some of the worst it has been my displeasure to endure. A near-constant rustle of paper, late-comers taking an age to find their seats (leaving Dutoit standing on the podium counting to about seventy before he could begin the Shostakovich) and flash photography!