In the early morning of October 21, 2021.
Warsaw, Poland.
The 18th Chopin International Piano Competition came to an end.
Pianist Liu Xiaoyu, 24, won the championship.
This is one of the highest standard piano competitions in the world, which can be called the "Nobel" of the music industry, which has attracted worldwide attention.
But Liu Xiaoyu is not the first Chinese to receive this honor.
21 years ago, a genius teenager turned out to be a child.
He became the first Chinese to win the competition.
He is also the youngest champion in the 73 years since the start of the tournament.
His name is Li Yundi.
He was 18 years old.
Overnight fame.
Time has changed. 21 years later, on the night Liu Xiaoyu won the award, 39-year-old Li Yundi was arrested for prostitution.
Netizens said.
In the morning, the Shaw champion came out.
In the evening, the Shaw Champion went in.
"Your husband is a prostitute."
"Get a divorce."
Don't blame the confusion of netizens.
Li Yundi and Lang Lang do have many similarities.
Age-equivalent.
They are all piano prodigies who became famous at a young age.
When people reach middle age, they also love to participate in variety shows.
The two are almost half of the entertainment industry.
But in fact, they have already embarked on two very different paths.
Li Yundi to the left, Lang Lang to the right.
In 1982, the "king of the piano" Rubenstein died.
This year, two prodigies were born at the same time in distant China.
Lang Lang and Li Yundi.
One in northern Shenyang.
One in southern Chongqing.
The difference between the north and the south is as great as the experience of the two when they were young.
When Lang Lang was still in his mother's belly, his father Lang Guoren bought the piano.
As a young man, he missed the musical road.
This was a hurdle that he could not pass in his life, and his heart was like a knife when he thought about it.
He did not know that this obstacle of his own would become the nightmare of his son's life.
The first step was for Lang Lang to walk out of Shenyang.
In order to defeat all the children who learned to play the piano in Shenyang, he formulated an extremely strict practice plan for 5-year-old Lang Lang.
When he relaxed a little, he yelled.
"Why waste your time, go back to your piano!"
In contrast, Li Yundi was much happier.
Lang Lang learned to play the piano at the age of 3, and Li Yundi was 4 years late.
Previously, he studied the accordion.
In the summer, he went to class with the accordion on his back and covered his body with prickly heat.
His mother was distressed, and took out all her savings of 4,000 yuan and bought him a piano.
Although he learned late, Li Yundi's talent was obviously better than Lang Lang's.
The first time he saw his mentor Dan Zhaoyi, Li Yundi surprised him.
"Listening to him play the piano, it's hard to imagine being a kid under 10 years old."
At that time, he wrote down a dream in his diary that he would grow up to be a pianist.
At this point, fate may have changed.
After being invincible in Shenyang, Lang Guoren took Lang Lang to Beijing.
He resigned from the formal establishment of his hometown's security brigade and took his 9-year-old son to Beijing to study. Rent a basement in Yangqiao, Fengtai District.
Garbage is everywhere and flies are flying everywhere.
Like homeless homeless people, father and son have no financial resources.
All rely on her mother Zhou Xiulan to work in her hometown, saving more than a thousand yuan a month to survive.
Beijing winter is more than ten degrees below zero.
I don't have money to buy a heater, what should I do?
Every day before going to bed, he put several layers of clothes on Lang Lang, and then climbed into bed in advance, warmed the bed, and then asked Lang Lang to come and sleep.
Li Yundi went all the way.
It seems that there are noble people to help you all the way.
At the age of 12, Li Yundi applied for the Affiliated Middle School of the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. At the same time, it also received an invitation to the "Huapu Cup" National Children's Piano Competition.
However, the date of this competition collided with the exam time of Chuan Yin Fu Middle School.
Teacher Dan Zhaoyi immediately contacted the organizing committee of the competition and adjusted the time of the competition a day forward.
Li Yundi successfully won the championship of this competition.
At the same time, he was admitted to Chuanyin High School with the first place result.
When Li Yundi was proud of his youth, Lang Lang's father and son were still struggling to survive in the basement of Beijing.
But that's not the hardest part.
The most bitter thing was that Lang Lang was abandoned by the teacher.
One morning, it was raining heavily in Beijing.
As usual, Lang Guoren told Lang Lang to get up at 5:30 to practice.
Then, riding a second-hand bicycle, he braved the rain to take his son to the teacher's house for piano lessons.
Lightning and thunder in the sky
The ground is windy and rainy.
The father and son were drenched in a soup chicken and almost fell in the rain.
But when I arrived at the teacher's house, I was poured down by a basin of cold water.
The teacher sat down at the piano and said coldly.
"I decided not to teach your son anymore."
Lang Lang listened, lowered his head in grievance, and sobbed quietly.
"I don't understand, my son is a genius!" Lang Guoren's face was like dead ash.
"Your son is not a genius, he doesn't even have the talent to go to the conservatory, go back to your city and he will never become a pianist."
The teacher's words were like knives, inserted into the hearts of the two men.
After saying that, I threw them out.
This incident directly triggered a life-and-death battle between father and son.
After coming out of the teacher, Lang Guoren became wrong.
Cloudy and cloudy.
Lang Lang was scared.
One day he rehearsed in the school choir and came home an hour late, delaying the practice time.
Lang Guoren was furious and rushed over to pick him up and questioned him.
"Where have you been?"
"You ruined your own life and my life!"
"Die! You should die! We have lost everything. Death is the only way out! ”
As he spoke, he dragged Lang Lang to the balcony and grabbed a bottle of antibiotics from the table and forced him to say.
"Either eat this bottle of medicine or jump down!"
Lang Lang was so frightened that he desperately tried to break free and smashed his hand against the wall.
"I hate my hands, I hate you, I hate the piano!"
These hands, which had been Lang Guoren's hope, were suddenly smashed awake.
Release the son and kiss his fingers and cheek.
"I don't want you to die, I just want you to practice..."
As he spoke, tears welled up.
And Li Yundi continued to be proud of the spring breeze.
In the second year of his enrollment at Kawanosuke Junior High School, he transferred.
For a sum of money.
In 1995, 13-year-old Li Yundi went abroad for the first time to participate in the competition and won the third place.
When they passed by the Shenzhen Art School on their way back to China, the principal warmly welcomed the family.
He was also offered a full exemption from tuition and invited to enroll.
After deliberating, the family gladly agreed.
For geniuses, where to read may not be so important.
On this side, Lang Lang's musical life has finally blossomed.
Nine months after being rejected by his teacher, Lang Lang took the entrance examination for the Central Conservatory of Music.
When he plays, he is full of passion.
Like a small throbbing flame, full of tenacious and vigorous vitality.
In this exam, Lang Lang was admitted.
1st place.
In the year of the 21st century, 18-year-old Li Yundi won the "Chopin International Piano Competition" in one fell swoop.
Before that, no Chinese had ever won the first place.
The best result was in 1955, when Fu Lei's son Fu Cong won the third place.
A new star is rising.
The domestic media reported on him with great fanfare.
The Shenzhen authorities also held a grand triumphal ceremony for him at the airport.
The News Network reported on the crowd welcoming him.
In the picture, the young Li Yundi smiled triumphantly.
The flowers and applause around him made him deeply intoxicated.
Soon after, he was invited by Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to perform in Hong Kong.
The ticket price of that concert was raised from 500 yuan to 2,000 yuan.
A ticket is hard to come by.
The Canadian director also filmed a documentary for him, "New Romanticism: The Biography of Li Yundi", which was talented and talented, and he was known as "Takuya Kimura".
Lang Lang never enjoyed this kind of treatment.
Even a year ago, he became popular in the United States.
On that day, the original pianist Andre Watts suddenly had a high fever, and Lang Lang, as a substitute, was able to appear at the Lavinia Music Festival to perform with the best symphony orchestras in the world.
It was the best he could play.
It was as if I wanted to play out years of blood and tears.
Finally, all europe and the United States met this 17-year-old Chinese piano teenager.
"It was like I was grabbing a rocket and my career took off."
When the curtain came down, his father, Lang Guoren, sat down on the stage and listened to the thunderous applause in his ears for a long time.
Tears.
The following year, the Philadelphia Orchestra went to the Great Hall of the People to give a recital concert, and specially invited Lang Lang to be a soloist.
But Chinese hadn't heard of him.
The Chinese show agent who docked disagreed, said.
"Recently, other young musicians have won awards at major international competitions, and Lang Lang is not a big star in China."
It was at the insistence of the Philadelphia Orchestra that he successfully stepped onto the stage of the Great Hall of the People.
In 2003, Lang Guoren took the erhu into the Carnegie Hall of Music in the United States and played a song "Horse Racing" with his son.
Having fulfilled his wishes, he finally stretched his perennial frown.
Mother Zhou Xiulan said: "How great is the glory of my son on the stage, how deep the pain and emotion in my mother's heart are." ”
Also in this year, 21-year-old Li Yundi and Lang Lang signed the same classical music record company, DG Records.
Both became famous at a young age, but this was the only time the two met in their lives.
After that, it was a fork in the road.
In 2001, Li Yundi appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala for the first time.
The title of "Prince of the Piano" immediately spread throughout China.
Notorious.
But he chose to leave and went to a small town in Germany alone to attend a conservatory.
Mother Zhang Xiaolu is very supportive of this.
She said she didn't ask for anything, and she was most worried that her son would put too much pressure on herself.
How can he be stressed when he is not around his parents and is extremely talented?
Many students can't reach the level they can't reach after practicing for several days, and Li Yundi can easily achieve it.
So what to do at other times?
Love.
In 2006, Li Yundi was photographed shopping with his girlfriend Michelle Lin.
He drove a Ferrari and gave his girlfriend a valuable diamond ring.
Not long after, he set his eyes on Tang Wei again.
Unfortunately, Tang Wei was not easily captured by him.
In 2008, Li Yundi was photographed having dinner with star Peng Dan, and rumors spread out.
In 2009, he was photographed having dinner with a mysterious woman, behaving intimately, and was rumored to be sister-brother love.
In 2013, Li Yundi officially announced his love affair for the first time, and his girlfriend was named Tian Fei.
Compared with Li Yundi's life, Lang Lang's life is much more boring.
As a child, he practiced like a defiant player.
Eye myopia to more than 700 degrees.
Got otitis media and gastroenteritis.
During those years, he maintained the rhythm of 120 concerts and recitals a year.
What concept? In general, pianists play between fifty and sixty times a year.
Lang Lang was twice as much as them.
Almost every 2 days, he would go to a different city to play.
After Li Yundi heard about it, he said he could not understand.
"It's said he performs 100 shows a year, which is a staggering number. But everyone's opinion is different, and I feel that I can't afford such a heavy performance task. I played 7 times in a row, and finally the freshness and desire to express it were almost gone. ”
At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Lang Lang was invited to play at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Since then, he has taken over the endorsement.
Walk into the White House to play.
Appeared on the Forbes Celebrity List.
Interviewed by the famous American magazine "People Interview".
Play at the Grammy Awards.
Be an Olympic torchbearer.
......
While the business map was slowly unfolding, Li Yundi was rumored to have terminated his contract with DG.
He said lightly.
"Pianists should be gradual, have time to study, read, live well, and broaden our hearts.
I have long-term plans for my career, so I don't mind taking it slow, I still have a long way to go. ”
It's just that this road is not a winding artistic road, but a road to the entertainment industry.
At the Spring Festival Gala in 2012, Li Yundi and Wang Lihong played a program together at the Spring Festival Gala.
One is the Prince of piano and the other is the Prince of Pop Music.
The audience snorted.
I couldn't help screaming when I saw them in the same frame.
The benefits of speculating cp for Li Yundi are obvious.
That year, his Weibo followers quickly rose to more than 10 million, officially stepping into the top of the popular classical music circle.
The flowers are becoming more and more attractive to the eye.
After seeing the fame and fortune of the entertainment industry, how can Li Yundi sink his heart and become the "piano prince" who reveled in Chopin?
In 2015, Huang Xiaoming's baby "Wedding of the Century".
In those days, when the Chopin Competition was held, Li Yundi should have appeared on the scene as a judge.
But he chose to go to the wedding and did not go to the competition site for 2 consecutive days.
A month later, he went to South Korea to perform.
Play his most famous and mastered Concerto No. 1.
But his memory was confused, and he forgot what to play.
After performing the first movement, the audience asked for a refund.
There are many similar "car accident scenes".
At the Zhongshan Music Hall, after Li Yundi played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, fans commented that "no matter from the phrases, breathing or finger running, control, accuracy, none of them are qualified."
At the Workers' Gymnasium, when playing "Wild Bee Flying", Li Yundi made a serious mistake.
"About 20 percent of the notes don't play at all, and they're inexplicably confused."
Zhou Guangren, a tenured professor at the Central Conservatory of Music, hated that iron was not steel.
"He took Beethoven's 'Pathos' that I taught him, and he played it so much that I couldn't sit still underneath, so ashamed that I was ashamed."
Some media found his former mentor Dan Zhaoyi, who refused to be interviewed and only sent a paragraph to the media.
"First be a man, then an artist, a musician, and finally a pianist, the other way is not going to work."
Then one year, Lang Lang went to Oxford University to give a lecture.
The student asked him, "What do you think is the relationship between talent and hard work?" ”
Lang Lang said: "Some abilities are indeed innate, but talent does not mean that you can achieve greater with fewer abilities. ”
Karma is good at being diligent and playful.
Li Yundi couldn't go back.
But at this time, Lang Lang also encountered his own dark moment.
In 2017, his rhythm was completely interrupted.
I developed tendonitis in my left arm.
He was forced to push off all the shows and shut down for three months.
In 2020, a sudden epidemic once again interrupted his journey to the stage.
"This year, I probably had more than 80 concerts, all canceled."
But he couldn't sit idle.
During that time, he and his new wife, Gina, appeared frequently on the show.
Almost screen-dominating.
This is his consistent style, to do it to the extreme diligence.
In "Journey Around the Youth 2", the 38-year-old world-famous pianist takes off his suit, puts on his pajamas, and puts on a cute headdress.
Laugh and scold with comedy stars Yang Di, Jia Ling, and Shen Teng.
At first, he didn't fit in.
I don't understand everyone's laughter, and I am at a loss.
Because in those stems, he hid his missed childhood.
Gradually, he realized that pure, simple happiness.
At that moment, he was like a child who hadn't played enough.
But even so, he did not forget to practice.
No matter where you go to record the show, you always bring your own piano.
"How did you feel today?"
One time in the morning, Jia Ling asked him.
"Today I'm comfortable."
"Because I can get up late today, I practiced for a while. After practicing I feel like today, wow... My heart has fallen, so comfortable! It's a feeling of being on land. ”
On October 21, 2021, Li Yundi was arrested for prostitution.
The traces he left on the Internet have all been erased.
Hyperphone has been shut down.
In "The Thorny Brother", all the fragments of him have been deleted.
The Sichuan Conservatory of Music took off the sign of "Li Yundi Piano Studio".
The Chinese Musicians Association canceled its membership.
It is conceivable that in the future, it will be difficult for him to turn over.
A piano genius, fell down.
Just half a month before Li Yundi's accident, Lang Lang was touring abroad.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Chicago Symphony Center, Carnegie Hall in New York.
Tickets for all three offline shows were sold out.
In 2011, piano master Mitsuko Uchida looked down on Lang Lang.
"Let's talk about the Lang Lang phenomenon in ten years, maybe by then he has disappeared."
In 2007, Li Yundi's autobiographical documentary "New Romanticism", said conductor Seiji Ozawa.
"I'm interested in how he grew into a great pianist over the next decade."
But they all looked at it wrong.
Li Yundi, Lang Lang.
Fate has already given hints.