B. J. Lang

Benjamin Johnson Lang (December 28, 1837 – April 3, 1909) was an American conductor, pianist, organist, teacher and composer. He introduced a large amount of music to American audiences, including the world premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which he conducted in Boston in 1875.

Benjamin Johnson Lang was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of a piano maker, music teacher and organist. By the age of 12 he was showing sufficient promise as a pianist to play Chopin's Ballade No. 3 in A flat. He began organ lessons at 12, and by 18 he was the organist of the largest instrument in Boston, the First Baptist Church on Somerset Street. He excelled in improvisation. In 1852, he took over his father’s organ teaching business. In 1855 he went to Europe to study in Berlin and elsewhere. He studied mainly under Alfred Jaëll, but also had some instruction from Franz Liszt. He had a lasting friendship with both Liszt and his daughter Cosima. He made his first public appearance as a pianist 1858, in Boston, where he spent the remainder of his life. That year he played the piano in the first Boston performance of Beethoven's Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3, with the Mendelssohn Quintette Club. From 1860 to 1870, Lang built a piano and organ teaching career of great success; he was considered a very thorough teacher and his pupils included Arthur Foote, Ethelbert Nevin, William F. Apthorp, and his own children, Margaret and Malcolm. His debut as a conductor was on May 3, 1862, when he gave Boston's first performance with orchestra of Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, which he presented twice in the same concert.

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