Saturday night was a very unusual night in Carnegie Hall. Angel Blue, the starry soprano from California, sang a recital with Lang Lang, the superstar pianist from China. Big-time pianists sometimes accompany singers. Evgeny Kissin has played for Matthias Goerne. So has Daniil Trifonov. Yefim Bronfman has played for Magdalena Kožená. So has Mitsuko Uchida. Horowitz played for Fischer-Dieskau (how ’bout that?).
The first half of Saturday night’s program comprised Fauré, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Strauss. Ms. Blue came out in a smashing yellow dress. Lang Lang carried his own computer tablet, containing his sheet music (so to speak). Is that legal? Do union rules permit a musician to carry his tablet? In the normal course of things, this task falls to stagehands.
Of Fauré, Ms. Blue and Lang Lang gave us three songs. The first was “Clair de lune.” As the pianist played the introductory measures, he was very free—free with tempo, free with rhythm. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “If he does this with a singer, throughout the night, the recital will not go well.” “Claire de lune” went pretty well, actually.
The next song, “Mandoline,” didn’t. Lang Lang slapped and slopped his way through it. The song was without its pulse, grace, and charm.
After the third Fauré song (“Fleur jetée”), Lang Lang played something by himself: Clair de lune, this time the famous piano piece by Debussy. In it, Lang Lang was bizarre, beautiful, and rather impressive. For years, I have said of him, “He never plays badly. His fingers—his fabulous technique—will not permit that. But he often thinks badly.”
Angel Blue owns a beautiful, lush voice. In this recital, she was at her best in the lush songs—lush and rhapsodic ones. She was less successful in the nimbler, subtler songs. Intonation was not always certain. Also, she could not be certain what Lang Lang would do. How could one be? For all his gifts, “supportive accompanist” is probably not one of them.
I have said he never plays badly. But he messed up a simple Strauss song or two. He may well have been sight-reading. In “Cäcilie,” he did something really bizarre. He stomped, hard, on the sustain pedal, stomping the floor at the same time. He did this twice. I accord broad latitude to Lang Lang, that brilliant and idiosyncratic guy, but this was vulgar.
The audience applauded after each song—each Strauss song and all the others. Even Strauss’s ethereal, transcendent “Morgen!” Ms. Blue looked out as if to say, “Really?” “Befreit” is another transcendent Strauss song. The audience applauded before Lang Lang had even concluded it.
Intermission lasted for about forty minutes, rather than the usual twenty. When Ms. Blue came out, it was in another smashing dress: a sparkly number, blue and black. The second half of the program began with three songs of Lee Hoiby—songs made well-known by Leontyne Price.
The first was “Lady of the Harbor,” written in 1986 for the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. “A rock-and-roll song,” is how the composer described it. He further said, “It only lasts a minute or two, but it’s a kick-ass song.” (Hoiby made these remarks in an interview with me.)
Lang Lang didn’t have a clue how to play it. Moreover, he missed notes—rare for this pianist, let me stress.
Next came “Winter Song”—which suffered from a soupiness, in my opinion. Without a basic pulse, a certain steadiness, this excellent song is not itself.
Third of the Hoiby songs was one of his real show-stoppers: “There came a wind like a bugle.” (Aaron Copland, too, set this poem, by Dickinson.) Ms. Price used to sing this song her own way, interpolating. Ms. Blue sang it as written. Once more, the pianist did not have a clue. The soprano was drawing out the climax—and Lang Lang came in before he was due.
What a mess.
A stagehand brought out a stool. Upon it, Angel Blue sang an Arlen song and a Gershwin song, with a microphone. She has an affinity for this music. She can “cross over,” like Eileen Farrell, Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, and many another. Soon, she dispensed with her microphone. Not often does a singer go from unamplified to amplified and then back to unamplified. I found this a little jarring.
At some point, Lang Lang played another piece by himself: a simple piece, a lovely piece, Copland’s Story of Our Town. Lang Lang was simple and lovely in it. This may have been his best playing of the night.
Ms. Blue ended her printed program with spirituals, the last of which was “Ride On, King Jesus,” in the Hall Johnson arrangement. (That was Leontyne Price’s frequent program-ender too.) Ms. Blue personalized some of the spirituals, referring to her own child and father. She sang the spirituals—all of them—with skill and soul.
Music has a way of bringing people together. Here was Lang Lang, of Shenyang, China, playing spirituals. Franz Rupp, of Schongau, Bavaria, played them for years and years, hundreds and hundreds of times. (He was Marian Anderson’s accompanist.)
There was one encore, “O mio babbino caro,” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. The aria was made into a duet. At Ms. Blue’s side was a thirteen-year-old girl, whom she has been mentoring (or so I gathered from what Ms. Blue said to the audience beforehand). This was a sweet gesture.
And an unusual cap to a very unusual evening.
