Gran Turismo 5: The Official Soundtrack

by Lang,Lang

Overview

One doesn't usually think of the soundtrack music for a video game being performed by a classical pianist, but then there aren't that many classical pianists under 30 who like to turn up on their album covers in leather jackets, as Lang Lang does for Gran Turismo 5. Notwithstanding that image, however, the soundtrack consists entirely of his piano performances of some very familiar classical pieces, done in traditional style. Things start slowly with Liszt's Liebestraum No. 1 "Hohe Liebe," but the music becomes gradually livelier, notably in the playful version of The Nutcracker No. 14 Pas de Deux "Var. 2 Danse de la Fee Dragee" by Tchaikovsky and the appropriately martial Polonaise Op. 40 No. 1 "Military Polonaise" of Chopin. Lang missteps with his version of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," playing stiffly and formally when the ragtime requires swing and swagger. But his version of III. Precipitato from Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 by Prokofiev is confident in presenting its complex, atonal passages in speedy fashion. It's hard to say how all this works as accompaniment to the game, but the classical playing is accomplished. ~ William Ruhlmann

Product Details

Release Date:	12/21/2010
Label:	Sony Classical
UPC:	0886978293329
Rank:	141884

Tracks

1. Liebestraum No. 1 "Hohe Liebe"
2. Etude Op. 10 No. 3
3. Orchestral Suite No. 3~Air on the G String
4. The Planets, Op. 32~Jupiter, the bringer of jollity
5. The Nutcracker~No. 14. Pas de Deux "Var. 2. Danse de la f¿¿e drag¿¿e"
6. Polonaise, Op. 40 No. 1 "Military Polonaise"
7. Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 "Tempest"~3. Allegretto
8. The Entertainer
9. Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 "Minute Waltz"
10. Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat major, Op. 83~3. Precipitato
11. Cantata BWV 147~"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Lang Lang   Primary Artist,Piano

Technical Credits

Johann Sebastian Bach   Composer
Gustav Holst   Composer
Robert L. Smith, Jr.   Engineer
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky   Composer
Frederic Chopin   Composer
Lang Lang   Liner Notes
Ludwig van Beethoven   Composer
Shinpei Yamaguchi   Producer
Olaf Heine   Photography
Scott Joplin   Composer
Franz Liszt   Composer
Sergey Prokofiev   Composer