China Philharmonic Orchestra's ambitious third season started with rising pianist Lang Lang's Tchaikovsky Concerto No 1, and Mahler's profound The Song of the Earth with lasting thunderous calls of Bravo and Encore at Poly Theatre Saturday evening.

The musical extravaganza and the magical musical performance forecast a high-profile 2003-04 season. Yu Long, the orchestra's artistic director, expressed great confidence the musicians he directs can become the best orchestra in China, tops in Asia, and well-known to the world.

"We invited Lang Lang to be featured at our opening concert, not only because he is a Chinese-born pianist, but because he is a hot, rising international star who has co-operated with the Berlin Philharmonic and the top five orchestras in the United States," Yu said.

The 21-year-old pianist demonstrated his sensitivity and virtuosity throughout his most requested repertoire, Tchaikovsky's First Concerto in B minor.

Tchaikovsky concerto

How many times can a pair of ears listen to a nearly overwhelming warhorse like Tchaikovsky?

Then, Lang Lang started playing Saturday night and reservations vanish. There was youth, freshness, force and agility, with no hint of the routine.

Lang's powerful and very personal reading of the Tchaikovsky concerto demonstrates that he does not let bravura technique get the better of his musical judgment. The concerto is the standard work against which all pianists must measure themselves, but Lang reminded the audience that the concerto is genuine music and not merely a flashy barn-burner of fast octaves.

Lang Lang himself admits that it is a hard piece to conquer, and a challenge for any pianist to put ones own stamp on, especially after hearing so many others playing the piece before.

"First, you must respect everything that's written in the score. Then you need to play not only with your heart, but with your soul, because this piece has real emotional power," the musician explained.

"At the beginning of the second movement, everything is reborn, you have the most beautiful flute solo, and when the piano comes in, it's like waterfalls... so beautiful and so pure. When I play that movement, I just enjoy myself. I'm not on earth, I'm in some heavenly place."

It can be reasonably argued that Lang Lang's powerhouse technique does not alone justify his fast-growing reputation and all of the accompanying promotional hype. Yet he also shows much potential as an interpreter, and a steady, balanced career trajectory should yield even greater artistic growth from this exciting young pianist.

Throughout the concerto, the Chinese Philharmonic supplied imaginative and colourful accompaniments, showing sensitivity and a close rapport between Lang Lang, the orchestra and conductor Yu. The result was a sheer delight to the senses.

Yu was ideally supportive, neither disappearing into the background nor pulling the music around. Like the gifted pianist he is, Lang was sensitive enough not to believe that this concerto just plays itself. He shaped the music naturally.

Upon the warmest "encore," Lang played the lyrical Chinese song My Motherland and a variation of Johann Strauss' The Bat.

With a Chinese heart, Lang emotionally interpreted the popular melody of his motherland.

Vocal duet succeeds

The second half of the concert featured the other two Chinese vocalists, tenor Warren Mok and baritone Liao Changyong.

Under the baton of Yu, the orchestra demonstrated its ability to perform such a big and challenging piece.

Usually the work features a tenor singing the first, third and fifth songs while a mezzo-soprano sings the second, fourth and last piece.

Though Mahler also brackets a baritone as an alternative of the mezzo-soprano, this practice is still the exception. One reason must be the fact that male and female singers alternating makes for a greater melodic contrast.

But it could be said that it seems more natural for a man to be relating these poems -- the poet speaking. And Saturday's concert has shown that two male singers can be made to contrast: Mok heroic and passionate, Liao reflective and elegant.

The first movement sung by Mok, illustrated energy, hedonism and terror in the face of life, all seen by a drunkard trying to get along by deadening his pain through alcoholic oblivion.

Mok's opening of the first song, Drinking Song of Earth's Sorrow was huge and commanding with a real weight of tone that pitches the audiences into the hurly-burly just as it should.

Tenor Mok is an artist of rare intelligence and he shows this in spades. True, his voice may not be so powerful, but he makes up for this in drama.

The second movement, featuring Liao, was a quiet meditation on autumn as metaphor for the loneliness of the individual in the face of life and its inevitable end.

Liao's entrance was arrestingly ripe and he acquitted himself well. His grasp of the words was impressive and he responded perfectly to the restless accompaniment by Yu of the one real passage of warmth and feeling at the line "Sun of love, will you never shine again."

The third, fourth and fifth songs lighten the mood with descriptions of carefree days, sunlit uplands, and more drink, hints too from the Chinese scenes at the base of these poems unmistakably filtered through the darker-tinted glass of turn-of-the-century Viennese angst.

The last is one of the greatest pieces of music Mahler ever wrote: a 30-minute meditation on leave-taking with a funeral march at its core. It was a most impressive lyrical interpretation by Yu, with a modernist feel that reminded the audience the piece was written late in Mahler's life.

It features a long passage in which Liao gave the audience members comfort that "everywhere the lovely earth blossoms forth in spring and grows green again... forever, forever, forever."

The last song Farewell -- the really big test for the baritone -- is the centerpiece of the work. Liao darkened his tone for the opening and Yu supported him by making certain every note could be heard over the orchestra.

(China Daily September 2, 2003)