Three Pianists and an Orchestra

According to Zarin Mehta, the New York Philharmonic’s president and executive director, the decision to open the season with three concert programs featuring rising stars of the piano world – Russian virtuoso Evgeny Kissin, China’s Lang Lang, and American Jonathan Biss – was serendipitous. “It’s just a matter of logistics,” he told me. “These things depend on when the artists are available.” Nevertheless, the coming weeks offer a fascinating opportunity to glimpse the direction of classical pianism today.These artists are set apart from one another not only by place of origin and training, but by musical personality and the stages of their careers. None are new to the Philharmonic. “We’ve worked with Kissin many times,” said Mr. Mehta. “Lang Lang, who has become a sensation in the last year or so, played for the Philharmonic’s music director, Lorin Maazel, at my suggestion, and so did Jonathan Biss. Lorin liked them both very much. Both played with us last year.”Though barely into his 30s, Mr. Kissin is the elder statesman of the group – he has, after all, been turning heads since the age of 15, when his live concert video from Japan, “Kissin Plays Chopin,” first reached these shores. Just four years later, his Carnegie Hall debut prompted one reviewer to question how many of the professional pianists in the audience “went home and burned their instruments in despair.”He demonstrates an instinctual flair and natural gracefulness, especially in the Romantic repertoire, in addition to draw-dropping technical control. His playing is highly polished but has no hint of insincerity or pretension, and it is filled with a dark sensuality typical of the Russian school.Though he is capable of milking a poetic phrase by Chopin or Scriabin for everything it’s worth (his gorgeous new Sony CD of music by Scriabin, Medtner, and Stravinsky is highly recommended), Mr. Kissin has often struggled with the structure of larger works – music in which a grand, complex architecture requires of a performer less spontaneity and more careful analysis and strategic pacing.This week, he’ll be playing Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, a piece he has performed for over a decade. Years ago, he told me that he found Beethoven difficult because “it’s not enough to have a romantic, lyrical gift. There has to be something else for which you have to mature.” It will be interesting to hear what he does with this concerto these days.Lang Lang is newer on the scene. Born in 1982 in Shen Yang, China, he took first prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition for young pianists in 1995 before coming to the Curtis Institute to study with Leon Fleisher. A remarkable series of events catapulted him to national attention.“I played an audition at the Ravinia Festival for the festival’s then-manager Zarin Mehta and for pianist-conductor Christoph Eschenbach,” he recalled recently. Maestro Eschenbach said he only had 20 minutes to spare. “I played Haydn, and he asked for Brahms. And after Brahms he asked for Rachmaninoff. Then Chopin. Then Beethoven. So the audition went on for 90 minutes. And he totally forgot about his rehearsal. He asked me, if I were going to play a concerto, what would it be? I told him Tchaikovsky No. 1.The next morning, I got a phone call. ‘Wake up! Andre Watts can’t play in this evening’s gala concert.’ And I was asked to play the Tchaikovsky First in his place.”Mr. Lang, who has since soared to stardom, has been criticized for the physical animation he exhibits – which typically brings audiences to their feet – and the super-charged approach he often takes with the bravura repertoire. There is no questioning the talent, however. He once played Scriabin for me in a small classroom at Juilliard, and the performance was simply ravishing.Mr. Mehta reports that his physical attitude has toned down, though he never doubted that what the pianist had been exhibiting was a “natural exuberance.” “I heard him play Bartok’s Second Concerto in Chicago,” Mr. Mehta said, “and conductor Daniel Barenboim said it was the best he had ever heard. Having exposure to different repertoire and to serious people who can guide him is clearly having an effect.”“I don’t think I was ever ‘over the top,’ and that I’ve somehow calmed down,” Lang Lang said in response to my question about the matter. “Once you have a career on a fast track, you get both wonderful reviews and some that are not so great. I take it all as encouragement, and always try to improve myself.” His Chopin Concerto No.1 with the Philharmonic will allow him to address a more intimate kind of work than blockbusters like the Tchaikovsky First Concerto or Rachmaninoff’s Third.“Chopin is passionate but very pure,” Mr. Lang said. “It’s very moving, and the lines must sing. When I play it, I feel like I am reading the heart of the composer.”The 24-year-old Jonathan Biss is a different kind of musician – a classicist who won’t necessarily play the most dazzling virtuoso works. Mr. Biss, who will play Mozart’s Concerto in A,K. 488 with the Phil, told me he sees his job as conveying accurately the emotional world of whatever composer he is playing.Musically, he is a world apart from the high-spirited Mr. Lang. “Jonathan may end up specializing in the Mozart and Beethoven Concerti,” Mr. Mehta said. Though young, Mr. Biss has already worked many orchestras besides the New York Philharmonic, including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He received a Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award.“I’ve been giving concerts seriously for about seven years now,” he said. “And I have found that just going on stage with an orchestra is always a learning experience. What has changed most for me so far is the comfort level – the feeling that I know how to sound like myself, no matter who is conducting.“But I can’t say enough about how lucky I feel to be playing with the New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel,” he said. “I’ve never played with anyone else whose ears pick up my intent so quickly. It’s unbelievably liberating. He knows exactly what I’m going to do. And he has such remarkable technique as a conductor that he can have the orchestra reproduce it effortlessly.”Audiences have the opportunity to measure for themselves how these three artists are developing. Has Mr. Kissin mastered the formal elements in Beethoven’s great concerto? Will Mr. Lang take the gears out of “overdrive” to execute the Chopin with subtlety and nuance? Can Mr. Biss’s conservative approach bring the necessary luster to Mozart’s lyrical masterpiece? Stay tuned.

Three Pianists and an Orchestra

Three Pianists and an Orchestra

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