The Washington Post 4/15/06:  Washington got another chance to grapple with the ongoing Lang Lang debate – shameless crowd-pleaser?  The brightest new star in the piano firmament? Or, God help us, both? – on Thursday night, where the young Chinese virtuoso brought his shock-and-awe pianism to The Music Center at Strathmore.

Lang Lang’s an engaging player, there’s no doubt. He has drama to spare, and the kinetic display (flailing arms, flying torso, and a head that appears to be getting periodic electric shocks) can be fun to watch. Besides – underneath the gymnastics, it’s clear that there’s some serious musical thinking going on.

So why, then, doesn’t he put it more to work? Friday’s program started with a nifty little gem – Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat Major (K. 333) – but Lang Lang glossed over its subtle emotional language and played it merely for pretty effect. Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, though, fared better.  It’s a passionate work, forgiving of Lang Lang’s heart-on-sleeve excesses, and he made real poetic sense of it.  A selection from Enrique Granados’ "Goyescas" came crisply alive, and six short traditional Chinese works were charming, unpretentious and refreshingly non-virtuosic.


  But the program ended with two works chosen blatantly for their show-stopping factor. Franz Liszt’s arrangement of the death scene from Wagner’s "Tristan and Isolde" was made to be milked -- and milk it Lang Lang did, to every last gulping sigh and heart-throb.  And Liszt ‘s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, which closed the program, was just an entertaining display of thump-and-bump pianism –  noisy, furious, and signifying, in the end, pretty much nothing.