Customer Reviews

3 Chinese Piano Concertos

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This CD contains well-known Chinese piano literature that is rarely heard of in the USA. It has a good selection of piano literature from China and is a great introduction to some of China's best composers in the 20th century.

"The Moon's Reflection Over The Second Spring" (Chu Wanghua) is definitely my favorite track and this arrangement with a traditional ensemble is gorgeous. "100 Birds Singing In Homeage To The Phoenix" (Wang Jianzhong) contains very ethnic sounds, achieved by the creative use of ornaments, especially in the opening of the piece. The piece "Autumn Moon Mirrored In The Lake" is a setting of a popular Cantonese folksong by Chen Peixun. Evocative of a Chinese harp, this piece is mostly pentatonic and pianistic with many arpeggios and trills. Another piano standard is "Flute and Drum At Sunset" by Li Yinghai. This CD is definitely worth listening to gain more insight on 20th century Chinese music.

If you are like me, you have listened to many different renditions of Yellow River Concerto, starting with the conservative Ormandy version. This effort by Eileen Huang and China Central Orchestra, though perhaps more interesting and dramatic than the Ormandy version, falls short in many ways--mostly technically.

If you know the piece well, you'd notice that the orchesta stumbles in the first 2 or 3 seconds--then the erratic small errors continue throuhout by both Huang and the orchestra. When the first piano solo section kicks in, Huang gets throuh the beginning fine, though somewhat tentatively, then she trips as the second four-time-repeat signature theme occurs--as does the orchestra... It's a mess.

This continues all the way, until they let you down with "Defend the Yellow River," with numerous small errors by both Huang and the orchestra.

All in all, Huang remains tentative throuhout, making countless errors, and the orchestra doesn't really help.