I haven't heard Julia Fischer live, but I did hear Jansen play the Tchaikovsky concerto with Cleveland/Ashkenazy, and it was a first rate performance that was musical--not "slash and burn" aggressive, but hardly lacking in fire. She had her own ideas about the music that did not say "HEY LOOK AT ME" like, say Lang Lang's "ideas" do in everything he plays. I'd happily buy tix again for Jansen.

In the hundreds of piano recitals and piano concerto performances I have attended over the last 40+ years (starting with James Levine playing Rhapsody in Blue at a Cleveland Orchestra children's concert, conducted by Robert Shaw!), I have never, ever seen someone use facial gestures to constantly and intentionally draw attention to his own "bright ideas" as Lang Lang does. I cannot watch him on video, and when I listen to his recordings, my reaction is... meh...

Andre Previn on Lang Lang:

Quote:
(Previn) is particularly irritated by Lang Lang, the hugely successful Chinese pianist who throws himself about at the piano like Elton John. "It's a circus act, you know? Why doesn't he just come out and juggle? He's an amazing pianist, but I can't watch, not for one minute. And yet he is probably the biggest box-office success in the world, for a classical musician." Mind you, he says, there have always been people willing to muck around to get publicity. "And sometimes, in the case of Bernstein - well, even there, I wasn't all that crazy about it, but I thought the music-making was quite remarkable." He doesn't think Lang Lang will last. "People will get tired of all the shenanigans."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/01/classicalmusicandopera.usa

With all the great young pianists to listen to (Sudbin, Yundi Li, P. Lewis, etc. etc.) the only times when I noticed Lang Lang were when passing by Mont Blanc display ads at malls, with his cartoon hair and I-Suffer-Beautifully-for-Art look on his face.

Quote:
The only times when I noticed Lang Lang were when passing by Mont Blanc display ads at malls, with his cartoon hair and I-Suffer-Beautifully-for-Art look on his face.

Nicely put. His Chopin Concerto recording was the last straw for me. I haven't heard any others that were as irritating as his.