Lang Lang, Tan Dun , New York Philharmonic

The great thing about attending a world primer is that you get to hear a piece without any pre-conceived notion about what you are about to listen to. Unfortunately the silly people who run the education department of the New York Philharmonic decided to have a speaker tell us what we were to think about Tan Dun’s new piano concerto before we heard it. The speaker was described as a ‘composer’, although I don’t know or much care exactly what he composes. He also played a video of him interviewing Tan Dun who said his piano concerto was like martial arts. I don’t know what this middle brow drivel is supposed to add to the musical experience but I suspect its one of the reasons more people don’t take classical music seriously. Fortunately it was easy to ignore the assault on our intelligence once the musicians came onstage and the concert proper commenced.

The piano concerto was clearly written with Lang Lang in mind, both his fiery percussive playing he is known for and there more lyrical style he seems to be moving towards. The concerto makes ample use of percussion including the solo piano. This aspect of the music is undeniably exciting. This concerto also lets the soloist go in the area his going as he becomes more mature and gives him lots of melody to play, which he does with greater feeling than I remember him displaying in the past. It must be remembered that both Tan Dun and Lang Lang play western music and the fleeting influence of Chinese music is an influence in the same way the folk music has influenced European composers for the last 100 years. It is hard to really judge the success of a new work on first hearing but it was an exciting performance featuring one of music’s most charismatic players. Lang Lang, Tan Dun and the conductor Leonard Slatkin received an extended standing ovation from what seemed to be a sold out house.

After intermission the Philharmonic played the complete ballet music from Stravinsky’s The Firebird. Mr. Slatkin did not seem to have a strong unifying conception of the music but the Philharmonic played both ensembles and solos with grace and precision. The audience certainly seemed to leave the concert happily and it was a fun evening. I couldn’t help but think that it’s a bit ironic that Stravinsky has become the composers to pair with a modern composer to keep the conservatives in the audience happy. This concert repeated 4 times Wednesday – Saturday, I attended on Thursday.