Review: Lang Lang Opens Carnegie Season With a Gershwin Gimmick

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/arts/music/review-carnegie-lang-lang-chick-corea-gershwin.html

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Carnegie Hall’s opening night gala is both a festive concert and an important fund-raiser. Programs typically include some audience favorites or lighter works, which is understandable.

The centerpiece of this season’s opening on Wednesday, featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra, was Gershwin’s enduringly popular “Rhapsody in Blue.” But with Carnegie’s blessing, the performers turned this classic into a shameless gimmick.

The problems stemmed from the superstar pianist Lang Lang. Last April Mr. Lang announced that he had injured his left arm and would have to withdraw from months of performances.

But as Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, explained in an interview, Mr. Lang was distressed at the prospect of missing his planned performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody.”

“If this had been a normal part of the season, maybe he would have withdrawn,” Mr. Gillinson said, but the gala was a “huge celebration, a big deal.”

The solution, Mr. Gillinson explained, “kind of evolved.” Mr. Lang invited the great jazz composer and pianist Chick Corea to essentially divvy up the solo part of the piece into their own version for two pianos. And Mr. Lang asked his 14-year-old protégé Maxim Lando to, well, lend a hand (actually two). Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, signed on to the idea.

So on Wednesday Mr. Corea had one piano to himself, while Mr. Lang and Mr. Lando shared the other. Mr. Lang played with his right hand and, true to his histrionic ways, often made sweeping gestures with his left one, while Mr. Lando dispatched the left-hand portion of the arrangement — though he often jumped in with both, for an unusual total of five hands. Mr. Gillinson said that Mr. Lang thought the performance could be “fun for the audience” and might “add a dimension” to the piece.

The glib, flashy and self-indulgent musical results were not much fun. The performance came across like a publicity stunt.

I’m not suggesting that Gershwin’s work, presented here in the familiar version orchestrated by Ferde Grofé, should be treated as sacrosanct. The music is rich with strands of big-band jazz, blues and Tin Pan Alley touches. Both Mr. Lang and Mr. Corea interpolated improvised riffs into their parts. During a few stretches Mr. Corea took command, especially during an extended cadenza full of jazzy reworkings of the music.

For a more rewarding solution to Mr. Lang’s indisposition, Mr. Corea might have simply replaced Mr. Lang as soloist and presented his personal take on Gershwin. That’s what the adventurous jazz pianist Aaron Diehl did on Alan Gilbert’s last opening gala program with the New York Philharmonic in 2016: He played Gershwin’s Concerto in F essentially as written, with great style and flair, but folded in passages of tasteful improvisation that truly added a fresh dimension to the work.

Instead, on Wednesday at Carnegie Mr. Corea mostly mixed it up with Mr. Lang and his protégé. Whenever Mr. Lang added short, cutesy runs to the piano part, Mr. Corea responded with his own playful squiggles, making Gershwin’s crisp, fleet piano part sound flashy and slick. From what I could tell Mr. Lando boasts technical skill and exuberance and gamely did his part, though he seems in danger of adopting his mentor’s exaggerated hand gestures.

The rhapsody sounded at once glib and inflated. Mr. Nézet-Séguin grabbed every chance to make the most of the music’s long stretches for orchestra, like the Andantino section when the strings swell playing Gershwin’s soaring melody. The great Philadelphia musicians milked it for all it’s worth.

The program also helped kick off a yearlong celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday, which comes next August. Mr. Nézet-Séguin opened with Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from “On the Waterfront,” a 22-minute work that rarely turns up on orchestra programs and is drawn from some 35 minutes of raw, tender and poignantly tragic music for Elia Kazan’s classic 1954 film.

And then for something that turns up all the time: Mr. Nézet-Séguin ended with the Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.” After the gimmicky Gershwin, I was actually eager to hear this staple again. Though Mr. Nézet-Séguin sometimes pushed passages to extremes of brassy volume and pummeling energy, he also brought out inner details often glanced over. Bernstein’s piercing harmonies during subdued passages came through with extra intensity.

Music lovers who cherish Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” should not worry that this rendering will do lasting harm. The piece will survive its service as a source of fun for Carnegie’s gala audience just fine.