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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can you give me a little tinkle or “Für Elise” and “Twinkle Twinkle?”
LANG LANG, PIANIST: Absolute. Yes. So, I will do the “Für Elise” first.
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AMANPOUR: Yes. It’s beautiful. I mean, it’s obviously for many, many young people, they would recognize that as perhaps the first piece they would learn.
LANG: Absolutely. Yes.
AMANPOUR: How difficult was it for you to learn? Especially — I mean, in China, was it obviously you were going to learn European music?
LANG: Yes. I mean, as a beginner, most of the piece, I would say, 80 percent are Western classical music and there’s another smaller percent that we are doing some kind of our arrangement from the Chinese folk music into the piano. Some interesting — they’re OK. Sure.
AMANPOUR: Just a Chinese folk music.
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LANG: Yes. This is kind of like a little happy cowboy song.
AMANPOUR: But I mean, did you grow up listening to music in your household? What was it like growing up?
LANG: Yes. So I had a very, very musical environment because my father plays traditional instrument, he’s orchestra — I mean, not he’s orchestra but he’s in the orchestra. And then — so, he had many colleagues. So, we all — both of my parents and me, we all live in the same dormitory as the other musicians and they all play a different type of music and all their children are into the piano playing.
AMANPOUR: So, it was considered something that you would have to do, you’d be expected to follow your parents in the musical —
LANG: It’s actually quite natural because everyone somehow as a piano in their home andeveryone just kind of start to try to who’s number one in the morning, like waking up to start, you know, push the keys/
AMANPOUR: How much practice do you have? I mean, you were young, you were a little boy and I think you had to do a huge amount of practice before breakfast —
LANG: Sure, sure.
AMANPOUR: — before going to school and when you came back from school.
LANG: Yes. I always had to show them. Like yes, it depends on how older you are. If you’re five, practice five hours. If you’re six, six hours.
About This Episode EXPAND
Christiane speaks with Lang Lang, the concert pianist and international phenomenon, and Larry Summers, former President of Harvard University and former Treasury Secretary, who talks Brexit and the recent college admissions scandal plaguing Ivy Leagues; Michel Martin interviews Arthur Brooks, author of “Love Your Enemies,” who argues America’s politics need less trolling and more respect.
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