Beijing (AFP)

He finally passed his Bach at 38 ... After three decades of effort, Lang Lang, global pop star of the piano, launches his version of the Goldberg Variations on Friday, a "wonderful composition" to "remedy" the madness of the piano. Covid era.

On the keyboard from the age of 3, the most famous of Chinese musicians tells, during an interview with AFP, his life as a concert performer - deprived of stage due to an epidemic - and promises that his children will do whatever they want ... as long as they learn the piano.

To tackle the monument that are the "Variations", one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire due to its great variety of styles, Lang Lang drew on his past as a child prodigy.

“I played so much Bach when I was little,” he recalls, leaning on a Steinway in a large hotel in Beijing.

The 30 Variations, Lang Lang played them "already at the age of 10" and knew them entirely by heart seven years later.

“Memorizing them wasn't that hard, because I started early,” he says.

- "Caught in fear" -

From there to dare to record them ...

“It took me 27 years to get ready,” he laughs.

"I have never worked so long on a work".

Because technique is one thing, making music your own is another.

“I waited for years to get to know the piece better. When I started recording it, I was scared and recorded something else,” he says under his thick, carefully neglected hair.

"If I don't feel that a work becomes part of me, if I don't fully understand it, I don't feel comfortable recording it".

The album, distributed by Deutsche Grammophon, is in two parts.

A studio version and a concert version, recorded in March at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, the stronghold of Johann Sebastian Bach where the German composer is buried.

Record length of the concert (played without sheet music of course): 95 minutes.

- "Healing power" -

The pianist, born in Shenyang (northeast) in 1982, has made a name for himself with the great romantic composers.

But for him, Bach (1685-1750) suits our time, shattered by the coronavirus epidemic.

"Music is a good remedy in these particular times. Bach, if we compare him to other great composers, has an even greater healing power," he believes.

Ocher suit and matching sneakers, the virtuoso remained a workaholic during the epidemic, which he spent in Shanghai.

"I re-studied some of the great romantic pieces that I hadn't performed for quite some time: Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky ... I didn't cool my hands."

About his hands, Lang Lang will not admit how insured they are.

"It's ridiculous, very expensive," he admits.

"What I missed the most is the stage," says the artist, who used to give at least 90 concerts a year around the world and had to cancel more than 70 dates.

"I wait for the vaccine, I get bitten and I go on a trip," he stamps impatiently.

- Chopin in Paris -

The child who rehearsed between six and ten hours a day now plays only two hours on the piano he shares with his wife, the German pianist Gina Redlinger.

The couple celebrated their nuptials last year at the Palace of Versailles and offered a pied-à-terre in Paris.

"I love this city. It is perhaps not the most important for classical music, next to Berlin or Vienna, but it is Paris that has the most artistic sense", he believes. .

"One day, I was playing Chopin while looking at his house in Place Vendôme and I said to myself: this is where he composed certain pieces, it's the same setting, the same moon ..."

- "Work hard" -

Lang Lang, like millions of Chinese children, was pressured by his parents to become a piano ace.

He promises not to repeat the experience with his future children.

Well maybe not ...

"If he or she wants to become a pianist, it will take hard work. I don't know if I'll push them or not. I don't want to fight with them," he says.

But no way they play another instrument.

"I like the violin too, but the piano is the best part: it's easier to start ... and then it gets really difficult".

Despite the sweat left on the keyboards, "I fulfilled my dream, I have no regrets", summarizes Lang Lang.

And when he compares himself to top athletes, the maestro says to himself that he is lucky to be still far from retirement: "when I see Pollini or Barenboim, who are still playing, I'm just a baby ! "

© 2020 AFP