Lang Lang in recital at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia

Monday, May 25, 2026, the Santa Cecilia Room of the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone hosts the return to Rome of Lang Lang. The Chinese pianist, among the most famous and followed of his generation, returns to the’National Academy of Santa Cecilia after just over two years, as part of the 2025–26 Chamber Music Season. The evening will be broadcast live from Rai Radio 3.

The program opens with the sign of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with the Rondo in D major K 485, a page of brilliant and concentrated elegance that the Salzburg composer wrote as an independent piece in 1786. It is succeeded by Mozart Ludwig van Beethoven with the Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, known as Great Pathétique Sonata: composed in 1798–99, it is among Beethoven's piano works best known to the general public for the expressive intensity and dramatic force of its three movements. The second sonata in the program by Beethoven is the Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110, the penultimate work in the catalogue: written in 1821, it belongs to the late period and is distinguished by its introspective depth and contrapuntal complexity, particularly in the Arioso dolente and the concluding fugue. Beethoven's presence in the programme takes on added significance given the bicentenary of the composer's death, which occurs in 2027.

The second part of the recital turns towards the Iberian musical landscape. Isaac Albéniz is represented by a selection from the Spanish Suite Op. 47: six of his eight songs — Granada, Catalonia, Seville, Cadiz, Asturias is Cuba —each of which immediately evokes a region or city of the Iberian Peninsula through rhythms, melodies and colours typical of local traditions. Following, Enrique Granados with Quejas, or La Maja y El Ruiseñor, the fourth song of the Goyescas op. 11: composition inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya, among the most poetic of the Spanish piano literature of the early twentieth century. The program closes with two pages of Franz Liszt: the Consolation No. 2 in E major, soft and meditative, and the Tarantella from Venice and Naples, with which the concert concludes in the spirit of virtuosity and rhythmic fire.