By stricter tempos, I mean
a) a tempo where the music can be heard. In this performance, when Lang Lang begins the dances after the Friska, they are played so quickly you can't really hear them. Fortunately, we all know the piece so we can invent in our minds what the melody should be if he played it so you could discern it.
b) consistent tempos. The dances are played successively at very fast tempos, then suddenly stetched out, then sped up again. There is no actual tempo to the piece, just fragments of tempos. Romantic composers in particular will tell you where they want one section or another sped up or slowed down. Lang Lang ignores all this. He loses the benefits that a consistent tempo can provide - the chance to let the listener hear how the music is constructed, and an opportunity to build up and release tension. The only tension in this interpretation comes from hair-raising technical feats.
Consider also that his little candenza passages in the opening are so compressed they become like smudges on a painting. He seems to play these faster than any other human just because he can, but the music in my view suffers. I would like to differentiate the notes in these brief candenzas to enjoy them more. In fact, think how more effective they would be if Lang Lang added some dynamic shading to these ornamentations, played at a speed where you could hear it.
It's not that Lang Lang won't play the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 at a fast enough tempo to make it enjoyable, but not so fast that it blurs by. Check out his performance of it on the television program Wetten das..
Here you can actually hear the melodies. Notice that the audience begins clapping along in fun. That's great! But unfortunately, Lang Lang quickly shifts his tempos from section to section and the rhythmic clapping dies out all too soon. Still, as a performance it is more interesting and musical (to me) than the one in Houston.
Topic: worst thing I've ever heard!