Lang Lang Plays Disney Review 2023 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
The world of classical music would certainly agree with that assessment. Now in his early forties, Lang Lang has performed regularly with top-flight orchestras around the world, from Berlin and Vienna and in the US to performances in his native China. For this special, Lang’s piano is joined by a full orchestra on stage at Royal Albert Hall, and the fleets of strings and brass, harpists, bassoonists, and massive timpani drums fill out the arrangements of classic Disney stuff like the “Beauty and the Beast” theme, “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins, and a “Whole New World” from Aladdin, which finds the pianist in a contemplative solo mood.
“One of the challenges of this project is actually quite hard,” Lang Lang says in one of the brief interview segments that accompany the performances in Lang Lang Plays Disney. “How to make already existing great melodies from Disney films itself into a pianistic work with orchestra? You have to rewrite a lot of things.” Not that he’s taking a red pen to these enduring compositions. But the arrangements shift and the emphasis differs for what is being undertaken with the instruments at hand. And to that end, the special brings us into the rehearsal rooms at Henry Wood Hall in London, where Lang Lang, his conductor, and their fellow musicians speak a language of bars, octaves, arpeggios, and measures as they work out how they’ll interpret the material and bring it to life.
Lang Lang has been lauded for his technique, in addition to a flair for showmanship that has helped him infuse new energy into the classical music form. But for the material in Lang Lang Plays Disney, the pianist says that it’s not just about technique for technique’s sake. Sure, his hands will fly up and down the keys with astounding technical ability. (He definitely does that a lot.) But of that style of playing, Lang says, “It has to serve the music one hundred percent.” And onstage at Royal Albert Hall, which becomes a supporting player as the lighting shifts with each mood, Lang applies a touch that’s careful and quiet or giant and forceful, depending on the requirements of each particular piece.
Go ahead, just try and shake the lingering waterfall melody of “Beauty and the Beast” after hearing the man of the hour play it on his gorgeous Steinway Black Diamond grand piano. You won’t be able to. Going into Lang Lang Plays Disney, just know that all of the Mouse’s biggest melodies are gonna play on repeat in your head for weeks. It’s actually ideal that this concert special did not choose the stretch-it-out route. Not that Lang Lang doesn’t deserve the full documentary treatment; it’s all valid, what we see here of his rehearsal process and how he describes what music means to him. But while it provides a little bit of structure with cutaways to that effect, Lang Lang Plays Disney is truly illuminated in its central performances. With stage and house lighting to match the mood and visuals of each piece – lush reds for the music of Mulan, a shimmering icy blue for “Let it Go” from Frozen – the special evokes each touchstone of the Disney brand as it showcases Lang Lang’s virtuosic playing.
Of course, he performs each piece without flaw. But he also plays with an intensity that brings you inside these exceedingly well-known melodies. Take “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” for example, which becomes a solo piano bop here. It certainly has the original spirit of the most memorable and meme-able song from Encanto. But in Lang Lang’s hands, it also retains the shape of a classical music performance. It becomes a new way of hearing something you already knew, and in this context, that’s what makes them memorable all over again.
