Music to My Ears
As a boy growing up in Shenyang, China, I practiced the piano six hours a day. I loved the instrument. My mother, Xiulan Zhou, taught me to read notes, and my father, Guoren Lang, concert of a local folk orchestra, showed me how to control the keys. At first I played on Chinese keyboards-cheap, but the best we could afford. Later my parents bought me a Swedish piano, but I broke half the strings on it Playing Tchaikovsky (柴科夫斯基). That’s when my parents and my teacher decided I was too much for such an instrument—and for our hometown. To be a serious musician, I would have to move to Beijing, one of our cultural capitals. I was just eight years old then.
My father, who played the erhu, a two-stringed instrument, knew that life wouldn’t be easy. Millions of pianists in China were competing for fame. "You need fortune," my father said. "If you don’t work, no fortune comes." "But music is still music," he added, "and it exists to make us happy."
To relocate to Beijing with me, he made a great sacrifice. He quit his concert’s job, which he loved, and my mother stayed behind in Shenyang to keep working at her job at the science institute to support us. They both warned me, "Being a pianist is hard. Can you live without your mother" I said, "I want my mother!" But I knew I needed to be in Beijing. In America, people often move and start over. But it is not in China, not in those days.
Suddenly my father and I were newcomers—outsiders. To the others around us, we spoke with funny northern accents. The only apartment we could find for the money we had was in an unheated building, with five families sharing one bathroom. My father cooked, cleaned and looked after me. He became a "house-husband", basically.
We lived far from my school, and since the bus was too expensive, my father would "drive" me on his bicycle every day. It was an hour-and-a-half trip each way, and I was a heavy boy, much heavier than I am as an . He did this in winter too. Imagine! During the coldest nights, when I practiced piano, my father would lie in my bed so it would be warm when I was tired.
I was miserable, but not from the poverty or pressure. My new teacher in Beijing didn’t like me. "You have no talent," she often told me. "You will never be a pianist." And one day. she "fired" me.
I was just nine years old. I was desperate. I didn’t want to be a pianist anymore, I decided. I wanted to go home to be with my mother. In the next two weeks I didn’t touch the piano. Wisely, my father didn’t push. He just waited.
Sure enough, the day came at school when my teacher asked me to play some holiday songs. I didn’t want to, but as I placed my fingers on the piano’s keys, I realized I could show other people that I had talent after all.
That day I told my father what he’d been waiting to hear—that I wanted to study with a new teacher. From that point on, everything turned around.
When Fortune Spots You
I started winning competitions. We still had very little money-my father had to borrow $ 5 000 to pay for a trip to the International Young Pianists Competition in Ettlingen, Germany, in 1994, when I was 12. I realized later how much pressure he was under as I watched footage (电影胶片) of the contest. Tears streamed down his face when it was announced that I’d won—earning enough money to pay back our loan.
It was soon clear I couldn’t stay in China forever. To become a world-class musician, I had to play on the world’s bigger stages. So in 1997, my father and I moved again, this time to Philadelphia, so I could attend The Curtis Institute of Music. Finally our money worries were easing. The school paid for us an apartment and even lent me a Steinway (斯坦威钢琴). At night, I would sneak into the living room just to touch the keys.
Now that I was in America, I wanted to become famous, but my new teachers reminded me that I had a lot to learn. I spent two years practicing, and by 1999 I had worked hard enough for fortune to take over. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra heard me play and liked me, but orchestra schedules were set far in advance. I thought I might join them in a few years.
The next morning, I got a call. The great pianist Andre Watts, who was to play the "Gala Benefit Evening" at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, had become ill. I was asked to substitute him. That performance was, for me, the moment. After violinist Isaac Stern introduced me, I played Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1. My father’s mouth hung open throughout the entire piece.
Afterward, people celebrated—maybe they were a bit drunk—and asked me to play Bach’s Goldberg Variations. So I played until 3:30 a.m. I felt something happening. Sure enough, concerts started pouring in Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Still, my father kept telling me, "You’d better practice!" But living in America with me was beginning to relax him. In Beijing I’d been fat—he made sure I ate—and he’d been skinny. Now I was getting thin. He wasn’t.
I wanted to do something special for him for all he had done for me. So when I made my Carnegie Hall solo debut (初次登场) in 2003 at the age of 21, I included Chinese music, t wanted to bring back our family’s Shenyang tradition of playing music.
My father and I had often practiced a piece called "Horses", a funny version for piano and erhu. That night in Carnegie Hall, after I played Chopin and Liszt, I brought Dad out on the stage, and we played our duet (二重奏). People went crazy—they loved it. My father couldn’t sleep for days. He was too happy to sleep.
There have been lots of concerts in Carnegie Hall, but for me playing there was especially sweet and made me recall the cold days in Beijing. Together, my father and I worked to reach the lucky place where fortune spots us, and lets us shine.
What happened when Lang Lang was eight years old