COMPOSERS: Rachmaninov
LABELS: DG
ALBUM TITLE: Rachmaninov Lang Lang
WORKS: Piano Concerto No. 2, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
PERFORMER: Lang Lang, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Valery Gergiev
CATALOGUE NO: 477 5231
Comparisons cry out to be made,
at the start of the Second Concerto,
between Lang Lang’s hypnotically
slow but utterly commanding funeral
bells, recent contender Stephen
Hough’s hyper-metronomic speed
(on Hyperion) and Rachmaninov
the pianist’s magisterial golden mean.
If, once the strings sweep in, the
flamboyant 22-year old man-of-themoment
suggests a peacock displaying
rather than the other two pianists’
eagles soaring, that’s not entirely his
fault: DG has placed its microphones
virtually inside the piano lid while
the orchestra appears to be in the
next room with the door open. It
says much for Lang Lang that even at
close quarters the tone never becomes
forced or clangorous, and even more
for Gergiev and his Mariinsky forces
that they project steely personality
and brooding atmosphere across the
great divide. And the Mariinsky strings
perfectly reflect the pianist’s utterly
original, cool and aristocratic handling
of the big tune in the finale.
There are plenty of original touches
in the Paganini Rhapsody, too: a grave
and ultimately hair-raising treatment
of the intruding ‘Dies irae’, teasing
freedom in the minuet variation and
plenty of dark temperament on the
climb to the high plateau of Var. 18.
The solemn final gesture, though,
encapsulates a lack of the wit and dash
that complement the comparable poise
of Nikolai Lugansky. David Nice