Keeping Current

The backing tracks process is nearing its terminus, which means I'll be able to get back to posting regularly next week. A young professional musician's life comes in clumps of projects and deadlines, with several ending up in a single week, followed by a drought of work. The "clumps" don't predispose themselves to consistent weblog maintenance.

People keep writing about Lang Lang. "The Tiger Woods of classical music." Give me a break. Earl Wild, a real pianist if there ever was one, deemed him "the J-Lo of the piano." But he's lionized on 60 Minutes - that was probably the last straw for me with that show. In some circles he's rightly known as "Bang Bang," such as in a great newsgroup quote from someone who shall name anonymous (since I'm using it without permission):

I'd like to hear a Lang Lang Winterreise with Bocelli. Bo Bo meets Bang Bang. Schubert dies again.

Lang Lang's sideshow act completely lacks any substance, artistic introspection or intrinsic value. How dare he call himself a pianist. This is what classical music would sound like if Russell Watson, or Vanessa-Mae, or Charlotte Church were to take up serious literature. And the deaf media fawn over him because he plays fast and is animated at the instrument... Charlatan! Hack!

He hijacks the music by glossing over all detail and forethought that went into the material, and placing the focus squarely on him, the selfish, self-indulgent performer. I have no more admiration for him than I do for vapid, tasteless singers who insist on injecting their own self-aggrandizing cadenzas into opera literature.

The reason this is all so offensive is that the intent is to promote himself, not great music, and it's clearly evident in the way he plays; the elicited reaction is supposed to be "My God, is he going to make it?" or "I can't believe he can do that!" instead of transporting the audience to a place that only the music can take us. Music and artistry are completely lost in his playing, and he should be ashamed of himself for it. And he's sloppy. And musically immature. I read a Gramophone interview where he came up with such original and insightful gems as "Classical music should sound as fresh to us today as it did when it was written" and "This chord here - this is the farmer."

This tirade has been brought to you by an article appearing in the Globe and Mail yesterday - "Music's symbol of a China rising." Right. If anything, Lang Lang is a symbol of a superficial China, a poster boy for counterfeit musicality. He continually defecates in the artistic reservoir, and the media celebrates him for doing so.

In other news, Slate is reporting in a shocking new development, that weapons sites in Iraq were plundered immediately before and after the invasion. I guess this was completely unexpected... Not only that, but now the equally surprising possibility is floating around that said weapons were stolen by other Arab dictators.