Musings of a Melloviolist

I hope a certain someone laughed at the title (hi lav).

The other night I got to see Lang Lang in concert. A friend of mine and I decided to go see him the day before the concert, but neither of us had tickets, so we pretty much booked it to Royce Hall almost two hours before the concert and waited for the box office to open up in hopes of getting student rush tickets. Student rush tickets were $66 each. And it was worth every penny.

His program consisted of Schubert's Sonata in A major D. 959, Bartok's Sonata BB 88, Sz. 80, a handful of Debussy preludes, and Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise Op.53 in A-flat along with the Op.10 No. 3 etude for his encore piece. Lang Lang is known for the almost child-like enthusiasm that he brings to the concert stage, and that's what people both love and hate him for. But interestingly enough, he treated the Schubert sonata, which made up the entire first half of the program, as a piece of music that required maturity and dignity, and it was amazing how much poise he put into it. And rightly so, considering the D. 959 sonata was one of Schubert's last masterpieces that he wrote before his death in 1828. He had this graceful soft touch that was just absolutely sublime. The Bartok that followed afterward, returned a more familiar side of Lang Lang that I had appreciated because it brought energy to the piece and energy to an aging audience that might've fallen asleep during the Schubert.

Speaking of an aging audience, I took note that my friend and I were the only ones of our age group without our parents accompanying. The majority of the audience had heads of silver strands and bald spots. And it got me wondering, why are we the only kids in the audience? Lang Lang is one of the leading pianists of our generation, in fact he's only 25. And yet his main audience is comprised of people who are about three times his age. At the end of a concert the Grammaphone organization presented him with a plaque for his contribution to music education (he had just established a foundation under his own name dedicated to education in the musical arts), and it made me realize how important my decision to double major in education really was. Even though chamber music is still my first love, I realized how important it is to continue to bring music education to the classroom, to try and bring enlightenment to kids who listen to crappy music and knock some real music into their heads. It's now more than just a safety net for my dad to sleep soundly about, but an important thing I might have to do if the whole international superstar quartet job doesn't happen.