The Painted Veil

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Total Tracks: 19   Total Length: 54:01

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In Defense of Lang Lang
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In Defense of Lang Lang

By Justin Davidson, eMusic Contributor

If Lang Lang were only a pianist, he might not be the greatest one alive. Listen to Nelson Freire's formidable and tender renderings of Liszt, Martha Argerich's elegantly wild Prokofiev, or Andras Schiff's penetrating Beethoven, and Lang Lang's take on each of those composers can seem callow, lacking or just odd. Still, none of those superb musicians adorn posters in the bedrooms of Chinese children, or has netted lucrative sponsorships, or was named one of… more »

They Say All Music Guide

Alexandre Desplat’s score for director John Curran’s film adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Painted Veil, about a British couple who travel to China in the 1920s, is not specifically Oriental in tone. But it does have a sense of reserve and a contemplative feel much of the time. The dominant soloist is young Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, although Vincent Segal’s electric cello is also given generous solo space. Desplat provides a lovely “River Waltz,” played both orchestrally and as a piano piece by Lang. “The Water Wheel” is a percussion-heavy cue with Desplat himself contributing. (He also plays flutes, piano, and keyboards himself on the soundtrack.) “Cholera,” a cue coming toward the film’s climax, has the repetitive rhythm of a Philip Glass piece, but that’s as assertive as Desplat gets in a score that manages to maintain a mood simultaneously restrained and ominous. – William Ruhlmann

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