SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Tan Dun and Mahler: Lang Lang (piano), London Symphony Orchestra, Tan Dun and Daniel Harding, Barbican Hall, London 21.04.09 (JPr)

Tan Dun: ‘Eroica’ Internet Symphony (2008)
Piano Concerto, ‘The Fire’ (2008)
Mahler: Symphony No.1 in D (1888)


At the end of the first half of this concert one of this country’s foremost commentators on classical music stood up and loudly pronounced ‘That was an hour of unbelievable trash’. The composer/conductor Tan Dun had spent a long time with a touching – if difficult to follow – spoken dedication of his Piano Concerto to Anthony Minghella who along with his wife had given him advice for the composition. Regrettably walking past this open-minded(?) critic when he mouthed off was none other than Carolyn Choa, the late Mr Minghella’s widow!

The very popular pianist Lang Lang is in the middle of a UBS Soundscapes residency with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s. He certainly draws in a crowd of loyal compatriots who otherwise would not go to the Barbican and to their credit most stayed for the Mahler although a few who were probably part of Lang Lang’s circle and were there for the UBS hospitality on offer (which surprisingly included the loud-mouthed critic mentioned above) obviously had left, judging by the gaps that appeared in the stalls in the second half of the evening.

Tan Dun conducted his own compositions at the start of the concert. He was born in China but moved to the US in the 1980’s and  is best known for his 2001 Oscar-winning score for ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and latterly his opera The First Emperor which was premièred at The Met in New York in 2006 with Plácido Domingo in the title role. As two examples of his compositions we had his 2008 five minute ‘Eroica’ Internet Symphony and the Piano Concerto from the same year, ‘The Fire’.

The five-minute symphony reminded me of those wonderfully comic musical evenings with the late Victor Borge who would play the last chords of something and tell the audience how many hours we had saved by not having to hear the rest of the piece! This piece was commissioned by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, initiated by the YouTube website in partnership with New York’s Carnegie Hall and the LSO. The Orchestra was assembled through a video audition process (musicians around the world downloaded sheet music and submitted videos of their performances in the hope of being selected) and were rehearsed for three days in preparation for a performance at Carnegie Hall  conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas on the 15th of April.

Tan Dun says that  his inspiration came through street noise from around the world broadcast during the Olympics. He first played the central melody of the piece on three brake drums he found in a garage, and then he transposed it onto the piano, later developing the piece from there. He apparently saw in the sketch,  elements of Beethoven and hence this resulted in what he announced as being ‘deconstructed Beethoven’. It begins with the harp, plucked strings, xylophone and what looked like large alloy wheels being banged. After 30 seconds, the timpani heralds the entry of a lone trumpet which then gets the support of other members of the brass section for what the composer called his ‘Olympic’ theme. This alternating percussive and romantic sound world builds up a head of steam throughout the last few minutes to a stirring conclusion with music that is not quite Western,  yet neither are its Eastern influences generally authentic enough. These thoughts persisted through the following Piano Concerto and perhaps ‘Chinese Impressionism’ is the correct phrase for this type of music? It could have been an extract of film music and for me the trumpet theme was more redolent of Dvořák’s ‘New World Symphony’ rather than Beethoven.

Tan Dun wrote in the programme that his Piano Concerto ‘searches for the harmony between contrasting forces: water and fire, percussion and strings, simplicity and complexity, love and its confrontations.’ He describes his soloist, Lang Lang, as being both ‘Water’ and ‘Fire’ and has elsewhere said that Lang  he ‘is the perfect pianist for his work in that he has a natural way of bringing these extreme contrasts out, of making the piano - essentially a percussion instrument because the strings are hammered and not bowed - really sing like an ehru (Chinese violin). Lang Lang's highest achievement is the way he can bring out the piano's eastern side, by making it both water and fire. This is the real, deeper purpose of art and music in China.’

When I have seen Lang Lang before,  he has always seemed rather like a Chinese-Liberace on the piano stool,  but on this occasion he was somberly attired and his performance seemed very restrained. Maybe this was because this work doesn’t actually give him much to do in its 30-minute expanse, even though it was specially written for him. He has performed the work before but still needs the music, which he seems to follow too closely for the good of his performance.

The concerto begins with an ominous trill deep in the bass notes of the piano, over which the orchestra enters featuring the drums very heavily. Then there is some episodic accented playing, some fast repeated notes from the soloist and some runs along the keyboard. Particularly when competing against the orchestra’s more rhapsodic moments such as in the second movement, the piano concertos of Rachmaninoff seem called to mind. Sometimes – at least from where I sat – Lang Lang seemed to fight a losing battle to be heard against the massed ranks of the always reliable LSO, playing at their most committed for their ever-smiling conductor,   with fortissimo strings, the clanging of the alloy wheels and clamorous brass. Occasional jazz-influenced moments lead to the third movement which gives us more lyrical ‘Chinese Impressionism’,  though the percussive impulse that has been present throughout is never far away. The work  ends in another big movie-music climax and a ‘duet’ between the piano and the xylophone, vibraphone and marimba. The last image of the performance was of Lang Lang banging the keyboard with, what looked like his elbows,  as if to underline that the piano can be thought of as a percussion instrument. Will this Piano Concerto have a life beyond Lang Lang or those wanting to promote Tan Dun’s music? I doubt it.

The novelty of the first half was almost bound  to overshadow the performance of Mahler’s First Symphony after the interval. Undoubtedly, the symphony could only pall in comparison to the visceral cinematic thrills of the Tan Dun works but Mahler’s youthful composition heralded a ‘new world’ of music of its own when premièred in 1889. From the sustained pianissimo of the ‘dawn’ introduction to the rampant tumult of the ending with the horns and a trombone standing, Daniel Harding maintained a varied, though never seemingly unhurried, pulse with little rhythmic or dynamic exaggeration.

Though a much slighter figure than Gergiev,   Harding was hunched over his score and flailed batonless hands in a manner very reminiscent of his Ossetian colleague's work with the always excellent LSO.  There was a nature-inspired, youthful and fresh spontaneity to the first movement with the highlight being the otherworldly offstage brass and  the exquisite wind solos. The following Ländler had the appropriate lilting bucolic lumpen charm of well-fed country folk and in the third movement he eloquently juxtaposed - without unnecessary parody - the duality of the melancholic funeral march with the jaunty faster Klezmer-like music which so perplexed the audience hearing the work for the first time. The kaleidoscopic finale was simply thrilling and the conclusion that Mahler’s hero had survived all his travails, to live and love again was never in any doubt.

Jim Pritchard 


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