What Makes Lang Lang A Great Pianist?

[greghudon]

He is great but the greatest? He does make 10 times as much as any other pianist. He does fill the halls.

[apianbelle]

He is a pianist, of course. but he's a performer above that.

[dr.peterjosephzisa]

Technique he has. A showman he is. A thoughtful expressive creative musician he is not. “Full of sound and fury…signifying nothing.”

[YueLi-vwrg]

Personal preference is somewhat boring, because you can like/dislike any pianist by any standard you want. Here's the interesting question: is it possible to have standards that are more objective in selecting the best/greatest pianist? A few standards are potentially applicable: 1) music awards, 2) concert ticket sales and 3) album sales. By all three standards, Lang Lang is definitely a great pianists. In fact, I can argue that he's among the top 3 living pianists, in light of his album sales (just check billboard charts in the UK and US) and music awards (i.e. Germany's Echo Klassik, Austria's Klassik Amadeus Music Award, Holland's Edison Klassiek, France's Victoires de la musique classique, Britain's Gramophone Hall of Fame & Classic Brit Awards). These are all concrete and big achievements for any classical musician. Yes, Lang has been disparaged for countless times by audiences. But I wonder who can beat him in concert ticket sales and album sales. The market response is very clear now. Yes, Lang has been frequently criticized by music experts. Well, Beethoven's symphony no.6 and Tchaikovsky's piano concerto no.1 have been subject to experts' strong criticism in the debuts. The fact is, given the positive market response, experts' criticism barely matters... Interestingly, if I need a valid reason to disparage Lang, I'd probably say that he's never got a Grammy award. That's all I can say about his bad side...

[luisalbertocarrasconfrutos]

Great Musician, Amazing Pianist, Great Performer, Great Showman ❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[FredericChopinReal]

A few people who are far better: Yuja wang, Martha Argerich, Evengy Kissin, György Cziffra, Mark Andre Hamelin, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubenstein, Sung Chan, Seong Jin Cho, Yunchan Lim, Khatia Buniatishvili, Anna Fedorova, Nikolai Lugansky, Daniil Trifonov, and a lot of other people.
But yes, he is definitly great

[riggedgame]

He's good and gets more hate than I think he really deserves but I don't really consider him the best.

[steveblack]

Now you know what makes Lang Lang a good pianist, but what makes Ling Ling the greatest violinist? Perhaps you already know the answer...

[emjizone]

Expressive… of many things that have nothing to do in what he plays. Show-of and disrespectful of the emotions of authors. I recognise his skills but hate what he does.

[mateuszkozieja]

He is not the greatest, l believe there are better than him he is one of the best but not THE best and also l'd rather he respects the 'feel' of composers more as he does with Beethoven and his concertos

[Michachel]

How can lang lang be the greatest when we have trifonov

[weetabixharry]

Lang Lang is incredibly skilled, but for my personal taste, I prefer Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman or Yuja Wang.

[georgepantzikis]

Mathra Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Sokolov, to name three off the top of my head, are better pianists than Lang Lang. Even among the new generation of pianists, Yuja Wang is just as virtuosic and has considerably greater depth of interpretation and emotion than Lang Lang.

[UnBarney]

He’s the greatest because *oil change go weee*

[EmiIyOD]

Lang lang, more like short short LMAO (Lang means long in Dutch)

[leonardofernandes]

They:lang lang
Me: ahh yeah... the classic Ling ling of piano

[rgre]

Daily reminder that there is always an Asian better than you😂

[jamessherlock]

Anyone who "Performs" while playing needs the cover slamming on them fingers its so cringe inducing.

[sudharmansitaraman]

The greatest? Probably not. Especially with Argerich, Kissin, Yuja Wang, he does seem to have better brand value, however. He has the skills, but sometimes he is overrated, though by no means a bad or even average performer.

[angelobonacci]

Grande tecnica sicuramente ma non è sufficiente questo x essere un grande pianista....