When Lang Lang was nine, his father told him to kill himself. Four years before, his father had decided that his only son should become the No 1 classical pianist in China. He gave up his job as a policeman and took his son to live in Beijing, leaving Lang Lang’s mother behind, planning to get the child into the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
However, his teacher in Beijing, nicknamed Professor Angry by Lang Lang, had other ideas. “Professor Angry didn’t like me and she always gave me a hard time,” he remembers. “One afternoon she said that I had no talent, that I shouldn’t play the piano and I should go home. She basically fired me before I could even get into the conservatory!”
Unbelievably, when Lang Lang’s father heard the news, he demanded that the boy take his own life. “It’s really hard to talk about. My father went totally nuts,” says Lang Lang quietly. “He said: ‘You shouldn’t live any more – everything is destroyed.’” The father handed his son a bottle saying, “Take these pills!” When Lang Lang ran out on to the balcony to get away from him, his father screamed: “Then jump off and die.”
“I got totally crazy too,” says Lang Lang. “I was beating the wall, trying to prevent myself from being a pianist by destroying my hands. I hated everything: my father, the piano, myself. I went nuts too. And then somehow, we just stopped. My father went out or I ran out – I can’t remember, but somehow we stopped. After that I didn’t want to play piano any more. I said, ‘OK, fine. Let’s go home.’”
Now 28, Lang Lang has surpassed his father’s ambition. The musician’s recitals and concerts sell out in every major city in the world and he is the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Vienna and Berlin philharmonic orchestras.
Lang Lang has played to President Obama at the White House and before a global audience of billions at the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. The “Lang Lang effect” is credited with inspiring China’s 40 million classical piano students and, in 2009, he was listed in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. His name, Lang Lang, has even become a trademark.
Now the pianist is based in New York and lives a rock star lifestyle, but he began his career in a Beijing slum under a super-strict regime of practice overseen by his unforgiving father, Lang Guoren. Lang Lang explains: “I started lessons when I was three and a half. In the beginning I just played a little but, when I was five, I played my first recital, and from that point my parents had high hopes for me, especially my father.”
Lang Lang’s parents are from Shenyang, an industrial city north-east of Beijing. They married at the end of the cultural revolution. Lang Lang says: “People were starting to connect with the west, and the piano was becoming an important instrument. My mother had always wanted to be a musician and my father played in the air force orchestra before the budget was cut and he had to become a policeman. My parents bought our piano before I was born – it cost half their annual salary.”
Born during China’s one-child policy (which is still in operation), the young musician became his parents’ sole focus. When Lang Lang was nine, his father and his piano teacher decided that he must leave Shenyang for Beijing, home of the Central Conservatory of Music. If his father had been strict before, he soon became a lot harder.
Lang Lang explains: “My father quit his job as a policeman and we went to Beijing. My mother didn’t come – she needed to earn money for us. Twenty years ago, the trains from Shenyang to Beijing were slow and took a whole day or night. As we had to save money, my mum couldn’t always come to see me. I really missed her. It was a bad time. I didn’t want to leave my home town where I had my friends, relatives, my mum and our little apartment.”
Lang Lang and his father rented a room in a slum where five families shared one sink and one toilet. Their room was furnished with their piano and a bunk bed. “We rented the cheapest place in a bad neighbourhood,” says Lang Lang. “The walls were thin – almost like paper – and the neighbours were pissed off because I practised at 5am. They would throw punches at our door and I was scared that I would get beaten up.”
In Beijing, Lang Lang’s father had to be both mother and father. Lang Lang says: “He didn’t like to cook or do the laundry, because my mum had always done it. We couldn’t do much, because we only had Mum’s salary and had to pay for expensive piano lessons once a week, and if there was a competition, twice a week. It was really hard. My father became strict and strange. In the morning I practised for one hour, and after school I practised the whole afternoon and early evening and then I would do homework. I was practising 65% of the time. My father and I always had arguments about how to play this or that. He had a very strong personality and I also have quite a strong personality, so there was a big clash. Sometimes he hit me – not hard though, he was just trying to scare me. He yelled really loud too.”
Lang Lang’s father does not understand English, but in the past, he has spoken about the way he pushed his son. He said: “The way I see it is, pressure always turns into motivation. Lang Lang is well aware that if he fails to be outstanding at playing the piano, he has nothing.”
Lang Lang disagrees. “I think that attitude is wrong because there are a lot of things you can do in the world,” he says. “When I was nine, I didn’t like my father. I knew he had dedicated his life to me, but I thought it was too much. I found the pressure unnecessary because I was a workaholic from the very beginning. I could understand if I was lazy and didn’t care, but I didn’t need that kind of push, because I knew what I wanted.”
Indeed, the musician has always had as much faith in himself as his father has. But it was after Professor Angry had told Lang Lang some home truths, that the boy’s relationship with his father hit an all-time low. But they did not return to Shenyang afterwards. “For three months, I didn’t touch the piano,” says Lang Lang. “We stayed in Beijing, I don’t know why. Probably because having to go home would have resulted in shame for us.”
Then one day at school, his fellow students hectored Lang Lang into playing some Mozart. He laughs: “They asked me to play, and I said no, I don’t play any more. Then they just applauded and applauded. They gave me a score and forced me to play. I started and realised that I actually loved to play the piano. So I went home and told my father, ‘Find me another teacher, I’d like to play again.’”
So began 19 months of intensive practice as father and son redoubled their attempts to get Lang Lang into the conservatory. Finally, when Lang Lang was 10, he was admitted on a full scholarship. Lang Lang and his father remained in their slum until he was 15, when they left for America to continue his studies in Philadelphia.
Lang Lang says: “When we came to America, my father could see that the American system was much more relaxed. At that time he said he still believed in the Chinese way. But as we met different musicians from different countries, his opinion changed. He is 58 now and his personality has totally changed, he doesn’t push me any more. When I turned 22, he let go.”
Asked whether his father feels bad about the way he hot-housed his only son, Lang Lang replies: “I think he does. When journalists ask him about it, he starts to cry.”
Does Lang Lang think he would have succeeded without his father? “Yes, absolutely,” he says emphatically. “Over the years I have seen so many different cultures and different ways of bringing up kids. I believe that no matter how you train your kid, you need to give them love. Sometimes my father pushed me too much, but he loved me.”
Nowadays, Lang Lang’s father stays at home, managing his son’s affairs in China, and the pianist’s mother travels with him.
He explains: “When I was a boy, I didn’t spend so much time with her, so now I really like her with me. My mum stayed at home for years, working, so now it’s time for her to see the world.”
Lang Lang Inspires (17-22 May) is part of Southbank Centre Celebrates Festival of Britain, southbankcentre.co.uk