COMING OF AGE
Much has happened in the life of Lang Lang since he and I spoke face to face in the spring of 2019. DG had just released the Piano Book: a mixed bag of popular classics such as Für Elise, the ‘Raindrop’ Prelude and ‘Nimrod’ with a complimentary volume of sheet music. Now, 18 months on, the pianist is married, soon to be a father, and consumed with passion for another masterpiece of piano literature identifiable by its title alone, but cast on a far more imposing scale: the Goldberg Variations. What has changed?
One answer to the question is all too obvious: the pandemic has put paid to a chat in person. When we meet online, he in a Shanghai hotel room and me in my office in London, I find him as exuberant as ever, well past the honeymoon period but in love with Bach and, of course, his wife, the pianist Gina Alice Redlinger. ‘It’s great, married life,’ he beams. ‘It’s grounding. Once you start a family, it’s teamwork, rather than leading the individual life. You have to know what your wife wants
