e has performed at the Grammy Awards, China's 60th Anniversary in Tiananmen Square and headlined hundreds more concerts around the globe, demonstrating enormous skill and an emotional, physical response to the music in every performance.

Some of Lang Lang's extraordinary talents can perhaps be attributed to his love of the piano -- which he says is "something I feel very close to."

He goes as far as to describe the instrument as "maybe my greatest friend."

He also reveals the perfectionism that drives him, saying "sometimes you are not satis�ed with yourself and sometimes you are not satis�ed with the piano, so you �ght!"

It has propelled Lang Lang to the very top of his profession, touring at a frenetic pace and collaborating with his musical hero, Herbie Hancock, in a jazz-meets-classical concert series.

Worldwide his in�uence has inspired millions of children to take up the piano -- it's called the "Lang Lang e�ect" -- and a variety of highly sought-after goods now bear his name, including Steinway's only personally-branded piano.

As a child Lang Lang's father pushed him hard to succeed, projecting his own dreams onto his only son -- a product of China's One Child Policy.

At the age of nine, Lang Lang gained a place at the Central Music Conservatory in Beijing and moved there with his father, who quit his job to concentrate on his child prodigy's career.

It is a time that Lang Lang remembers as one of the most di�cult in his life.

"When we moved to Beijing [my father] became very strict and very strange ... I don't know what was the reason," he told CNN's Rosie Tomkins in an exclusive interview for Revealed.

His problems were compounded by his music teacher consistently telling him he was talentless and, �nally, expelling him from the school.

"I got �red by the piano teacher six months later. It totally destroyed my piano dream ..."

It was at this point that Lang Lang remembers his father, enraged by his failure, telling him he should throw himself o� their tenement building.

"[My father] became really kind of nuts ... One time he just asked me to jump the building, to �nish ... it was really tragic," Lang Lang said.

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