Sunday, July 27, 2025
7:00 PM
Lang Lang is the soloist in the beautifully romantic Piano Concerto No. 2 by Saint-Saëns in a program led by Andris Nelsons that also includes Gabriela Ortiz’s exuberant La Calaca, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Lang Lang, piano
Gabriela ORTIZ La Calaca, for string orchestra
Camille SAINT-SÄENS Piano Concerto No. 2
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, Pastoral
For more information on Tanglewood concerts, visit the BSO box office.
To hear an with Lang Lang about Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 2 and his memories of visiting Tanglewood for the first time, use the audio player below and the transcript underneath.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Tanglewood with Lang Lang, the pianist who is here to play with the Boston Symphony in Saint-Saëns's Second Piano Concerto. Lang Lang, thank you so much for a little of your time today. I appreciate it.
Lang Lang A pleasure. Thank you for having me, Brian.
Brian McCreath I am so interested because, when I got a hold of the commercial release that you did with Andris Nelson's and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, I got the impression from the way that you wrote about this piece that Saint-Saëns has been lurking in your mind and in the background of your musical life for years and years, no matter what else you're working on. So tell me about your relationship with Saint-Saëns's music in general, and what you find so valuable in his music.
Lang Lang So first of all, I started listening to this [Second Piano] Concerto when I was a kid. And I still remember the first time I saw one of my very good friend, Yefim Bronfman play it, and it was so beautiful. I thought, this is a concerto I must play in the future. And then I started to learn the piece. But I don't know why I just never had a chance play it [Lang Lang laughs] until like three years ago when we were wanting to do a French album. And then, of course, in the French repertoire, there are a lot of impressionists. And it's nice to have that for half of the album, I would say, but we also need some concrete, emotional, structured piece. And that comes to this great Saint-Saëns piano concerto. This is kind of like a more Germanic tradition, but with a French flair. Even the second movement you hear is Mendelssohn, and then the first movement begins with Bach. They often say that this piece begins with Bach and finishes with Offenbach. I'm not so sure about that, but I mean, but it kind of has a point, right?
Lang Lang But what I love about the piece is that it has these virtuosic parts, but is also has these very colorful parts that, for pianists, you can go very soft and very colorful, and you can have many levels of dynamics in this piece. He wanted the orchestra to play soft as well. The second movement, it's basically a midnight summer dream from innocence: it is so beautiful, so light. You see the butterflies all over the place. And then—it's very interesting—the slow movement is the first movement. So basically you have to start with this slower approach, because otherwise there's no chance. If you don't have that then the whole piece is falling apart. It's only fast and faster and faster. So the first movement is a key to really expressing the emotion. And I think it's also [a piece that] the orchestra musician likes to play. It's not played as often as some other pieces, so when they start performing this piece, they enjoy doing it. They feel like it's fresh. It's something else. Something German combined with French, [Lang Lang chuckles] French combined with German.
Brian McCreath Yeah, and it's a piece that seems to have so much opportunity to do it a little different one time and a little bit different another time. I wonder, when you sit in the Koussevitzky music shed with the open walls and the 5,000 seats there in front of you, does that affect the way—especially when you open the piece with this beautiful deep slow movement— does it maybe affect the way you approach that differently here?
Lang Lang I mean, look, for an outdoor space... Some outdoor spaces are very hard to play in because it's impossible to hear the details. But in beautiful Tanglewood, it's almost like an indoor theater, almost. Everything is so precise here. Of course, it's not exactly like the Boston Symphony Hall where you hear the top note much easier. And here, sometimes [the sound] can be mellow when you have a lot of people and then birds singing and then—I heard even a bear interrupted the rehearsal once. Actually, you might ask the bear to play Saint-Saëns 's "Carnival of Animals." [McCreath laughs] But here, it's the best acoustics that you can get on earth for the outdoor theater. It's really almost like indoors.
Brian McCreath That's fascinating. Wow. Well, you just you did such a beautiful job describing this piece and the way that the different movements interact with each other. But tell me: from your own just technical approach to it, what are the biggest challenges of playing the Saint-Saëns 's Second [Piano] Concerto?
Lang Lang You have to be very, very careful when you play this piece. You cannot play this piece with real loud power. You have to have this kind of controlled but also very sparkly virtuosity, and you have to be really quick on the reaction of the change of mood. It's very fast. It's not like the Mozart or Mendelssohn type of contrast, it's very fast. Yeah, it's certainly not like Beethoven or Brahms. This is like a really quick. Like, every four bars there's something going on, some fairies coming in or something. So you have to be very careful to be with the orchestra. It's almost like chamber music. You have be very precise. But of course, with Maestro Nelsons, we we already did the recording, and then we actually played it once in a symphony hall. So this is actually our second time playing with the Boston Symphony. Today, we actually fixed a few things here and there, and had a little rehearsal to see who's playing softer. [Lang Lang laughs] You know, piano or orchestra? It was a bit like that.
Brian McCreath Tell me more about working with Andris and what that's like. You've worked with him probably on many occasions beyond just this one concerto. But what is he like as a collaborator?
Lang Lang I love him so much, because one of his most important mentor was Mariss Jansons, and I also had a very close feeling and emotion towards Mariss. And I felt this incredible connection between Mariss and Andris. I mean, there's really a direct line you can feel which is quite unique. They have this very emotional way of conducting, of interpreting music, but at the same time, it's so precise. Everything is so precise, and this is very similar to the instrumentalist world. Sometimes you have a very logical player, with everything so clear on every detail, but maybe it's not very warm, not very emotional on the person-to-person level. And somehow Andris has this ability to have the warmest heart, combined with the coolest mind. And this is why I love him so much because this is something that I think is very rare.
Brian McCreath I've talked to a lot of people about working with Andris, and nobody's ever quite put it like that. That's really beautiful, the way you're describing the way that his interpretations, and his personality add up to something almost unique. So thank you for that. That's wonderful.
Lang Lang Yeah, I'm just saying the sincere feelings from my heart. It has been a really great honor to work with him for many years and so many special occasions—and next year we're doing a very important project together—and I'm always very grateful when I make music with him. He's really giving you everything.
Lang Lang Also, sometimes when you're doing the "Carnival of Animals," the big conductors, they don't really care about it. It's like, okay, family concert, young musicians. But the thing is, I remember our recording last year, the opening night, with my wife Gina Alice. Andris rehearsed the piece as if it was Brahms's Second Piano Concerto. This precision, and I never hear such a perfect bird sound! [Lang Lang imitates a bird, and both he and McCreath laugh]
Brian McCreath That's really wonderful. Thank you.
Lang Lang Also, I want to share one extra input for my feeling towards Tanglewood. I actually came to Tanglewood in 1996. I was 14 years old. This was my first trip to America. I was one of the festival students at Walnut Hill. And then one evening, they said, "Okay, would you guys come to Tanglewood to hear André Watts playing MacDowell's Second Piano Concerto?" And I said, of course I know André Watts, but I didn't know MacDowell. So I said, "That's great. Let's go." And then we took a bus ride for almost like two hours. And this was the first time I saw everyone wearing a white jacket, because I didn't know that was the summer tradition in America at that time—it's my first trip as a student to America. And it was so beautiful. I mean the whole mood in Tanglewood has always given me such a deep impression. And then it was really great to come play for the first time in 2000 and then many, many times after that. So I'm just really, really happy to be back.
Brian McCreath That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that story. What a memory. One of my favorite things is to talk to people about their first time coming to Tanglewood, and that sounds like an amazing memory.
Lang Lang Yeah, it was my first trip to the U.S., first trip to a summer festival, and the first time I heard some unusual repertoire with the Boston Symphony, live.
Brian McCreath Oh, that's fantastic. Lang Lang, thank you so much. It's really nice to meet you and to spend a little time with you and we're so looking forward to the Saint-Saëns concerto. Thank you.
Lang Lang Thank you!