Lang Lang – Finding the Inner Voice

The Goldberg Variations are a demanding repertoire. Lang Lang invites you to an encounter with this colossus of music literature.

Lang Lang invites you to an encounter with this colossus of music literature at a time (perhaps not accidentally) when he is re-organising and realigning his life, newly married and after he has had his first long concert break. Accordingly, we encounter a new Lang Lang in this film: more experienced, more thoughtful, more transparent and more concentrated.

With the Goldberg Variations, Lang Lang opens a new chapter in his long career. “Turning the page” could be his motto and that of the film that follows him on his interactive journey into the Bach universe. We accompany him in his research and in his attempt to comprehend Bach, almost haptically, by visiting places where Bach was active. We follow him when he deals with baroque playing techniques and, in doing so, also examines his own playing postures, and we are with him when he distils his own version from all the suggestions and presents his results for the first time to a curious public: Be it his former patron, friend and conductor Christoph Eschenbach, the well-known harpsichordist and pianoforte expert Andreas Staier, the audience in Wiesbaden at Lang Lang's first concert with the new repertoire, or the audience in the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas’ Church) in Leipzig.

We also meet his German-Korean wife Gina Alice Redlinger, a pianist herself, she accompanies him most of the time, talking about the time they spent together, her part in his current work, and about how a young woman can exist alongside such a famous man.

Original title Lang Lang - Goldberg Variations - Finding the Inner Voice
Genre Documentary
Production year 2020
Duration 58 mins
Production Company 3B-Produktion, Deutsche Grammophon and ZDF/3sat
Director Andreas Morell
Main Actor Lang Lang, Christoph Eschenbach, Andreas Staier, Gina Alice Redlinger, Zhu Ya Fen …