“It was late one afternoon this spring, and Madison Square Garden’s 19,000 seats were empty as Billy Joel and Lang Lang began jamming onstage,” writes Michael Cooper in Wednesday’s (7/24) New York Times. “They were rehearsing a duet of Mr. Joel’s ‘Root Beer Rag’ during the soundcheck [for Joel’s show]…. With Mr. Joel’s band looking on in surprise, the two launched into the thunderous opening of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1…. Mr. Lang … still has his chops, after a career-threatening injury to his left arm in 2017…. He is returning in earnest this fall…. He insists he is not the same man, or musician…. ‘I used the time,’ Mr. Lang said … ‘to rethink everything I do.’ … Mr. Lang … must navigate the next leg of the journey from wunderkind to mature … artist. Such transitions are not easy…. Franz Welser-Möst, the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, who has known the pianist since Mr. Lang was a teenager … says, ‘He has matured. A lot.’ … [The pianist] plans to cut back to 70 or 80 [concerts] a year … to … live his life, as well as to devote himself to educational projects.”
Posted July 29, 2019
