Hi Lewis -
Lang Lang is just a kind of an extraordinary person. He had studied a while ( as far as I know ) in Ettlingen - near Karlsruhe where I live. So he plays the concerts here sometimes. I had never seen him live , but at least one of my students did. Surely his technique is fascinating - but there are so many very accompished pianists today who are far not that famous as Lang Lang. I heard some critiques about him ( concerning one of Beethoven pieces he played ) - the point was , one can not achieve everything with the technique only.
I like, for example, his Dragon Songs, but it is really smth. special. About his concert program - on my opinion, he could only win if he played a little bit more of "modern" composers ( Schostakovich, Ravel, Rachmaninov ) and was not that "public taste" oriented ( Mozart, Schumann ). This is only my opinion. I find, for example, that the concert program of , say, Martin Stadtfeld is more compicated and difficult too learn. Technically, they are both fantastic.
And as usual - it is great deal of PR about him . Lang Lang is for sure a great pianist, but I don't think he is the best of all.
Cheers, Andrew