Monday 8 September 2008

REVIEW OF LANG LANG'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: MY STORY


LANG LANG
JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: MY STORY
With David Ritz
Published by Spiegel & Grau


A mere 26-year-old Chinese pianist writing about his own life may seem like an act of superstar hubris. However Lang Lang is currently China’s new icon for the Beijing Olympics and classical music’s hottest property. His rags to riches story is an interesting and sometimes heartrending one.

Born in an air force barracks in Shenyang to a telephone operator mother and erhu-player turned policeman father, life was always going to be a difficult one in China’s single child family. When he showed a modicum of talent on the piano at the age of four, it was to be exploited to the hilt à la Mozart.

The chief protagonist was to be his father Lang Guoren, who is the epitome of competitiveness (being Number One was an obsession and mantra), kiasu-ness* and stage father of the worst kind. His harrying and brow-beating of the youngster is described in lurid detail.

The book seems to portray paternal (and maternal) love and over-arching ambition as the secrets to Lang Lang’s eventual success, but the truth is probably much more than that. A combination of phenomenal talent, digital dexterity, good luck, good timing, competition triumphs and genuinely caring mentors also played a big role. To his credit, his teachers Zhu Ya-Fen, Zhao Ping-Guo and Gary Graffman loom high in his account.

No success story is without an element of opposition. One “Professor Angry” at the Beijing Conservatory is made to look like Villain No.1, fellow Chinese pianists are referred to as rivals, while scoffing music critics seem oblivious to his blinding “genius”. Like in Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), the world of heroes and victors has little time for snivelling and green-eyed non-entities.

Ultimately, this appears to be a hurried attempt to cash in on Olympic euphoria and interest, as the final chapters skim through his concert life rather superficially and little is written about his best-selling recordings on Deutsche Grammophon.

His co-writer David Ritz (better known for his biographies about jazz musicians) seems to have little knowledge about the classical canon and the factual gaffes they make are quite risible.
*Kiasu-ness: Literally "afraid to lose out" in Hokkien (a Chinese dialect), commonly used term in Singapore to refer to competitiveness with its less savoury aspects, in particular a sore lack of graciousness.

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