Lang Lang - 7 encores!!

I attended Lang Lang's concert tonight. I am not a big fan of him, but I have to say, it is one of the most enjoyable concerts in recent years. I was sitting at the third row on the left hand side. This is a good seat in the sense that I could saw Lang Lang's fingers without seeing his face! His face always distract people because of his facial expression.

Lang Lang's technique is not a problem. As expected, he showed off his technique in the pieces he chose in the second half of the concert. The first half was musically more demanding. He started off with a Mozart Sonata (K330). I think he played the first movement too fast. But apart from that, his Mozart was quite mature. The Chopin that followed bored the audience, but I think Lang Lang played it very well, especially the Largo.

The second half of the concert started with Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. Again he played it a little bit too fast, especially Traumerei. The rest of the concert mainly comprised show-off pieces by Rachmaninov and Liszt. The last piece was the famous Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 (arranged by Horowitz). This piece sounds very difficult. It actually sounds to me that the pianist has got three hands!

What is interesting is that I was expecting at most 3 encores from Lang Lang, but he turned out played 7 extra pieces for the audience. Some were Chinese pieces, some were show-off pieces. He knew how to capture the hearts of the audience. I have to say he made all those attended the concert very happy. The concert hall (full house) was filled with joy and excitement. Nearly all people gave him a standing ovasion at the end of the 7th encore.

Donald Tsang also attended the concert, but he slept through the whole of the first half. Sometimes I think he is wasting the ticket.

I wonder when Lang Lang would reduce the number of concerts he holds and play some musically more demanding pieces, like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc.

He is only 23. What a career he already had. And what a future he has.