Piano Book 2

Whatever their creative field, any world-class artist worth their salt feels the weight of responsibility in passing knowledge and skills to the next generation. Lang Lang, arguably the most famous pianist in the world, has devoted much of his career to “paying it forward” through a variety of activities, including the Lang Lang International Music Foundation and his Piano Academy series of music tutorials. And, in 2019, Lang Lang’s Piano Book, an album of piano pieces, all performed by the pianist himself, designed to inspire beginners in their quest to discover exciting repertoire. Piano Book 2 builds on its success, with pieces designed to take students to the next level. “With the first Piano Book, I wanted to encourage beginners and show that even the simplest pieces can have beauty,” Lang Lang tells Apple Music Classical. “This time, I wanted to take a step further with pieces that are still accessible, but that challenge young pianists to grow. It’s about the next stage of discovery, when you start to realise how much colour and character you can bring out of the piano.” Piano Book 2 features a kaleidoscopic range of repertoire. First, there are plenty of well-loved classics, ranging from Chopin, Mendelssohn and Mozart to Satie, Rachmaninoff and Liszt, including the latter’s Consolation No. 2. The Consolation, suggests Lang Lang, is a great example of a piece that’s both fairly accessible to many early-stage pianists, and a piece that packs huge emotional power. “On the surface, it looks simple—the notes lie quite comfortably under the hands,” he says, “but the challenge is in the sound. It’s all about voicing, about creating a singing tone, about timing the rubato so that it feels natural. Every phrase has to feel like breathing. That’s much more difficult than playing big virtuosic runs.” That’s also true with pieces such as Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 or Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 which should all, in Lang Lang’s view, be more widely performed by today’s concert pianists. “A piece doesn’t have to be technically difficult to be profound,” he says. He refers to the great Vladimir Horowitz who often used to play Schumann’s “Träumerei” as an encore instead of something flashy and virtuosic. “Horowitz was right—‘Träumerei’ or a simple piece by Bach can move people to tears. Sometimes, these so-called ‘easy’ works carry the deepest emotions.” Piano Book 2, however, is much more than a well-curated collection of classical favourites. There are also brilliant arrangements of beautiful film soundtracks, among them Ennio Morricone’s yearningly nostalgic central theme from Cinema Paradiso, and Yann Tiersen’s quirky “Comptine d’un autre été” from 2001’s Amélie. And there’s video game music, too, in the form of Yu-Peng Chen’s magical “Lover’s Oath” from Genshin Impact and the now much-performed “To Zanarkand” from Nobuo Uematsu’s music for the 2001 Final Fantasy X. You’ll also encounter one or two popular contemporary solo works that Lang Lang’s piano pupils have recently shared with him. Joe Hisaishi’s Spring and Tony Ann’s ICARUS are two pieces that Lang Lang is keen to pass on. “The standard repertoire is beautiful, of course, but music is a living art form,” he adds. “When students play contemporary works, they realise that composers are still writing for them today. It opens their ears to new sounds, rhythms, harmonies. And it also makes the old masters feel fresher, because you hear them in contrast.”