Pipa Concerto

1. Pipa Concerto: 1. Pipa Sounds on the River

2. Pipa Concerto: 2. Pipa Ballade

3. Pipa Concerto: 3. Pipa Sounds on the River II

4. Heian Music-Scope: Darkness and a Wraith

5. Heian Music-Scope: A Forbidden Love

6. Heian Music-Scope: A Passage of Time

7. Heian Music-Scope: Friends in Fun

8. Heian Music-Scope: Longing for a Eternal Image

9. Heian Music-Scope: Pipa Interlude - Seaside Joy

10. East Arc: 1. Fantasy on Rice Fields

11. East Arc: 2. Pipa Nocturne

12. East Arc: 3. Dancing Along the Shore

13. East Arc: 4. Enka

14. East Arc: 5. Ancient War

Tracks:

Adagio, molto cantabile 3:54
Allegro moderato 2:01
Allegro moderato, tranquillo 5:12First recording by string orchestra
Estampie 4:02
Chorale 4:07
Double Fugue 5:12
Ductia 2:38
Lament 5:56
Canonic Variations 5:22
Little Fugue 3:12
Round in Honor of Hermes 3:04
Nocturne 3:45
Allegro 4:12
Troika 2:53
Three Sharing 2:50
Wind and Plum 2:58
Neapolitan 1:10
Threnody for Richard Locke 5:20
Estampie 7:18

Album Description

¥ The present recording traces the development of HarrisonÕs creativity over a half century Ñ from 1948 to his last large-scale composition (1997). ¥ The Suite No. 2 for Strings was written while Harrison lived in New York. Having spent his formative years in San Francisco, Harrison had a great deal of trouble adjusting to East Coast big-city life. A nervous breakdown required him to be hospitalized for about nine months. The Suite No. 2 dates from the year after this traumatic event, and signs of HarrisonÕs mental stress are apparent, particularly in the torturous and difficult second movement. But also in evidence is the tranquility he sought from religion during this period and the more transparent textures he would favor later. ¥ This CD presents the first recording of the work by a string orchestra Ñ HarrisonÕs original intent. ¥ The lengthy Suite for Symphonic Strings was a commission from BMI. By this time Harrison had returned to the San Francisco region. The bass and cello sections provide percussion accompaniment, the players hitting the bodies of their instruments with their fingers and using guitar picks on the strings to achieve a percussive pizzicato. This is the first recording of the complete nine-movement work. ¥ Harrison had been interested in Asian music since his early years. The late Concerto for Pipa is a model of HarrisonÕs trans-ethnicism, evoking the many influences that had attracted him over a half century. The work ends with an extended, medieval-inspired estampie, a virtuoso tour-de-force for soloist and orchestra. ¥ The concerto was written for conductor Dennis Russell Davies and pipa virtuoso Wu Man. ¥ Wu Man was cited by the Los Angeles Times as Òthe artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western World.Ó She has championed new pipa literature from composers including Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, and Tan Dun.

Average customer rating:

Great Introduction to a Chinese Classical Composer

Sheng: Orchestral Works
Sheng , Gondek , Qiang , Wong , and Hong Kong Po
Manufacturer: Naxos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:

The Music Of Chen Yi
H'un (lacerations)/Stream Flow
Bright Sheng: China Dreams; Flute Moon; Postcards
Lutoslawski: Symphony No. 3; Paganini Variations; Paroles Tissées; Les Espaces du Sommeil
George Crumb: Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death

ASIN: B00008IHVY
Release Date: 2003-03-18

Tracks:

Prelude
Fanfare
The Stream Flows
The Three Gorges Of The Long River
Chai Tou Feng
Sheng Sheng Man
Nanking! Nanking! A Threnody For Orchestra And Pipa

Customer Reviews:

Great Introduction to a Chinese Classical Composer.......2003-04-26

A few years ago, if someone had put a gun to my head and demanded that I name two Chinese composers quickly, well, let's just say I wouldn't be reviewing right now. Then along came Tan Dun and Bright Sheng and the atmosphere for Chinese composers became much brighter. Dun is perhaps the more traditionally Chinese...often his music seems more like a Taoist ceremony than a classical composition, brilliant though some of it is. Bright Sheng however, is more immediately attractive and understandable to westernized ears. But no less enjoyable!

Sheng is sort of a Chinese version of a neo-romantic. The three works on this disc are all for large orchestra. All of the hallmarks of the younger generation of neo-romantics are there, infectious rhythm, dazzling orchestration, expansive statements, a dissonant harmonic language that borrows equally from Bartok and Stravinsky with occasional hints of even wilder influences such as Varese. Grafted onto this is a melodic idiom taken from Chinese sources and you have a vibrant, muscular but pleasing music indeed.

The first work on the album is China Dreams. The genesis of this work was in a number of different commissions that the composer recieved over the years 1992-95. The work is brilliantly scored and is a lot of fun to listen to. Though in passages it is quite dissonant, it is always tonal and extremely lyrical or rhythmic. The work does have the feeling of an occasional work though...in some ways it sounds like four separate overtures collected together in one piece. Given the style of commissioning in major American orchestras currently, this isn't surprising. A composer of Sheng's stature in the 90s would have been more likely to build a career through small "program openers" than through a major work...he's now graduated to the major work stage!

The Two Poems are much more modernist in flavor. The vocal line is definately influenced by Chinese vocal traditions, and you can hear some elements of traditional techniques in the orchestration, but for the most part this sounds like music one would expect from a young Columbia student in the 80s...dissonant, atonal and in many ways quite violent. In this work you can definately hear the influence of Sheng's teachers Chou Wen Chung, and Mario Davidovsky.

The third work is the prize of the CD. Nanking, Nanking is an extremely moving work. It is a personal response to the 1937 Nanking massacre. The work is not light, as it shouldn't be. The idiom is heavy with dissonance and tragedy. The work features a pipa soloist. The pipa is a traditional Chinese lute, very difficult to play. Normally, I find such mixtures of western and eastern instruments gimmicky or at least problematic, but in this work the pipa is beautifully integrated into the texture, neither clashing with, nor subordinating itself to the primarily western idiom of the orchestra.