Sparagmos

There is no one more fitting to play the hero in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto than the cultural savant of our time, Lang Lang, who possesses an acute stylistic extreme that outshines his intellectual and technical ardor. For this reason, it is hard to use his notoriety to undermine his genius, when his enormous indulgence is perhaps his soundness and what carries conviction.

Attesting to the strength of the spirit, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, as the Napoleonic Wars besieged his city of Vienna and too the decline of his auditory senses. Interestingly the last two movements blend together, but that is a red herring - the concerto is the boasting of the soloist, the pianist - it is not about compromise.

The concerto opens with the orchestra’s vigor, probably because it is the most significant they will ever sound in the entire piece. Immediately after, the solo piano responds to each chord with arpeggios, trills, and scales. It could not be more clear that the world is Lang Lang’s oyster, which we have sensed from the moment he entered the world stage, but also because Beethoven made it that way.

Lang Lang makes it look easy. His showy extremes detract from his true talent, which he provides in disquieting abundance (I had the great fortune of sitting above and behind him as he played and was not subject to his facial expressions nor theatrical movements). Gustavo Gimeno, conductor and music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for the past 10 years, had an excellent run with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas just 10 minutes earlier. He was somehow stately yet dramatic and charming, no recording has captured that tone before. Unfortunately I can only raise a metaphor about the food chain because I have never seen a man deflate as he gestures for more, for more grandiosity, but I have now; I have never watched someone create a one-sided battle and lose so distinctively, but I have now. So if Gimeno’s earnestness ceased to enthrall in comparison, then there must be a certain weakness to it, at least relatively, he has transformed into an exhausting self-monologue.

We enjoy artists of such originality for their authority, for their sacrifice to become the extreme, which are distortions of reality. Thus I can underscore the significance of Lang Lang and the appropriateness of him as tonight’s soloist. His desires are far from ours, yet over 200 years later, this template fits exactly the intention of Beethoven’s later concertos - to have a dominant and directional soloist. His explicitness is what best serves the needs of our spirit and what we have learned to respect. And in the respect we pay to such people, we also acknowledge the reaches of their artistry.