Lang Lang’s Goldbergs are deeply felt
Michael Church is very impressed by the pianist’s pair of Bach recordings
JS Bach
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 Lang Lang (piano)
DG 481 8971 91:16 mins (2 discs)
Lang Lang has studied the Goldbergs for 20 years, and recording this work has been his dream. He played it from memory for Christoph Eschenbach when he was 17, and did so again for Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who told him he needed to communicate a greater sense of solitude; he consulted the harpsichordist Andreas Staier about pedal use, ornamentation, dynamics and the overall structure. In search for the right sound, he recorded the work for a live audience in Bach’s own church in Leipzig, then decided to complement that version with one recorded in the studio.
Listening first to the studio version, I was impressed by the immaculate playing, and by the fact that Lang Lang wears his heart on his sleeve throughout: this is in extreme contrast to András Schiff’s celebrated 2003 recording, in terms of both emotion (with Schiff, even the ‘Black Pearl’ variation emerges notably dry) and in tempo (Schiff’s versions are mostly much shorter). Lang Lang’s Black Pearl seems to make the world stand still, but there’s nothing mawkish about it.
The two halves of this album complement each other, yet they are almost exactly the same length. Such is the integrity of Lang Lang’s interpretation: he has deeply pondered every bar, and his edifice is rock-firm. But when you compare these recordings track by track, you realise that he was liberated by the presence of an audience. What can appear a trifle dainty and cautious in the studio gains in warmth and passion in the church. The beauty of his playing remains chaste, but it acquires theatricality: the platespinning trills of Variation 27 and the full-dress virtuosity of 28 lead exultantly to the expansiveness of the Quodlibet.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
This release is a reminder that he is a magnificent musician
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58; Mazurkas – selection Lukas Geniu as (piano)
Mirare MIR508 52:34 mins
It’s ten years since Lukas Geniu as won joint second prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and Chopin remains an important part of his musical life. In this new recording, balancing some of Chopin’s shortest pieces with his big, final sonata, the now 30-yearold Russian-lithuanian pianist continues to show an imaginative musical personality.
He opens with a flourish, performing the Mazurka Op. 6 No. 3 with arresting freedom and poetry. He mixes grandeur and delicacy – maybe not always enough of the latter – throughout his seemingly arbitrary selection of 11 of the 57 mazurkas; only the Op. 63 set is presented complete, and the disc’s relatively stingy duration leaves room for more. Some get quite fiery, in contrast to Berlioz’s first-hand account of Chopin’s own mazurka playing having the ‘ultimate degree of softness … the hammers grazing the strings’, so Geniu as’s conclusion with a haunted, hazy account of the posthumous Op. 68 No. 2 is all the more effective.
In the Sonata No. 3, Geniu as highlights its Romantic cladding more than its Classical foundations. His spacious opening movement is perhaps too rhapsodic, losing the thread, but Geniu as harnesses his individuality and virtuosic command to better effect in the other movements. In particular, the Largo has a wonderfully meditative quality and the finale’s eventual arrival in the major mode is properly uplifting. John Allison PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★