Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.There is no doubt who was the star of The Piano, the television series in which members of the public are filmed playing pianos at railway stations and emotions have run high as new talents are discovered, heartfelt stories told.When Lang Lang announced last summer that he was leaving the show, his admirers went online to say the programme would never be the same, though it is not as though the high-achieving Chinese pianist can be accused of resting on his laurels.This solo recital at the Barbican is just one stop on an extensive world tour that lasts well into the summer, as he takes the same programme to Spain, south-east Asia and Australia.Lang Lang\u2019s reputation is as a showman, but the programmes that he chooses for his recitals do not bear that out. During the pandemic he focused on Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations, as weighty a challenge as they come, and this recital tour offers core classics, even if they were sometimes given the showman treatment.\u00a0The programme started softly, softly, with Faur\u00e9\u2019s Pavane, tiptoeing into audibility. This was the piano arrangement of the slow dance usually heard in Faur\u00e9\u2019s gentle orchestral version. In Lang Lang\u2019s hands the music shimmered in a hazy glow, though the composer\u2019s own playing of it was said to be quite brisk, not indulgently romantic like this.Back in 2008, the year he played at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Lang Lang brought to London a performance of Schumann\u2019s Fantasie in C, which tipped over the edge into exaggeration and incoherence. There was something of that again here in Schumann\u2019s Kreisleriana. Here are the two sides of Schumann\u2019s personality \u2014 the impulsive Florestan and the dreamy Eusebius \u2014 and part of the challenge is to draw detail and expression from Schumann\u2019s intricate piano writing for each. While Lang Lang teases out Eusebius\u2019s inner thoughts nicely, he sees Florestan as an opportunity to play big, loud and fast, racing headlong to the work\u2019s finishing line, as if going for the gold medal in the 100-metre hurdles.A well-contrasted selection of a dozen Chopin Mazurkas after the interval restored a sense of proportion. These are wonderfully subtle pieces, which explore unexpected byways, as if wandering off the main path just to enjoy wherever the trail may lead. Lang Lang was at his best in some of the finest of them, like the pensively mournful Op.33 No.4, where the shifting sands of the harmony suggested the deepest of feelings below.After so much introspection the programme asked for a more extrovert ending. In Chopin\u2019s F sharp minor Polonaise that meant a real rabble-rouser \u2014 like being caught in the thick of a battle, all noise and fury, though it is good to know that Lang Lang can still throw off reams of double octaves as fast as anybody. Cheers and two encores followed.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606barbican.org.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.There is no doubt who was the star of The Piano, the television series in which members of the public are filmed playing pianos at railway<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-280969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280971,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280969\/revisions\/280971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}