LANG LANG UNVEILS “THE SWAN” FROM HIS UPCOMING ALBUM
OUT TODAY, THIS BRAND-NEW ARRANGEMENT IS THE LATEST SINGLE FROM
LANG LANG – SAINT-SAËNS: LISTEN TO “THE SWAN” HERE
THE ALBUM PRESENTS SAINT-SAËNS’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 AND CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS
ALONGSIDE OTHER FRENCH CLASSICS AND RARITIES
A FILMED CONCERT PERFORMANCE OF CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS PREMIERES
ON STAGE+ ON 10 FEBRUARY
LANG LANG – SAINT-SAËNS IS RELEASED IN ALL FORMATS ON 1 MARCH 2024
“People think Carnival of the Animals is just for children, but there are a lot of clever ideas underneath all the fun”
Lang Lang
9 FEBRUARY 2024 (TORONTO, ON) — A new single from the forthcoming album Lang Lang – Saint-Saëns is released digitally today, 9 February. Lang Lang plays both parts in a piano four-hands arrangement of “The Swan” (“Le Cygne”) from Saint-Säens’s Carnival of the Animals, a work which has attracted millions to the world of classical music, especially children. “I first heard Carnival of the Animals early in my childhood,” says Lang Lang himself. “And ‘The Swan’ is the most famous movement of all.” It is also the only part of the composer’s “Grand Zoological Fantasy” for two pianos and orchestra that was published during his lifetime, in a version for cello and two pianos. Since then it has undergone many more adaptations and transcriptions, including this arrangement by pianist and composer Emile Naoumoff.
Lang Lang – Saint-Saëns will be issued by Deutsche Grammophon on 2 CDs, 2 LPs and digitally on 1 March 2024. As well as featuring a full performance of Carnival of the Animals, it presents Lang Lang’s interpretation of Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The artist is joined in both works by the Gewandhausorchester and Andris Nelsons, while his wife Gina Alice is the second pianist in Carnival. The album also includes a dozen pieces for solo piano or piano four hands – a mix of neglected gems by female French composers and Belle Époque favourites.
The former group comprises D’un jardin clair by Lili Boulanger (1893-1918); Valse lente by Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983), released as a single last month; “La toute petite s’endort” from Miocheries by Mélanie-Hélène Bonis (1858-1937); Étude No. 10 by Louise Farrenc (1804-1875); and “Romance sans paroles” from Quatre pièces romantiques Op. 30 by Charlotte Sohy (1897-1955).
Alongside these rarities, Lang Lang has chosen a series of other smaller-scale works by more familiar French names. Among these are Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte; Fauré’s Pavane; and Debussy’s Petite Suite, a duet with Gina Alice.
Of the album’s two large-scale orchestral works by Saint-Saëns, the Second Piano Concerto is, according to Lang Lang, a “magnificent but underrated Romantic masterpiece”. As part of the pianist’s Saint-Saëns project, a film of the work made live in concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus will be available to watch on ARTE on 24 March 2024 and will get its first STAGE+ screening on 28 March, which is World Piano Day.
As for Carnival of the Animals, the artists’ reading of “Aquarium” is already available digitally, complete with performance video. Today’s release of “The Swan” will be followed by that of “Fossils”, alongside the album, on 1 March. A filmed version of the full work from the Gewandhaus stage, with Andris Nelsons, Gina Alice and Lang Lang, premieres on STAGE+ on 10 February.
Lang Lang continues to perform Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 this season, with forthcoming dates in Berlin (Staatsoper, 11 March; Philharmonie, 12 March), San Diego (12 April), Cleveland, Ohio (2/4 May) and Paris (12 June). He and Gina Alice play Carnival of the Animals in Paris on 14 June.