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4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Introduction to a Chinese Classical Composer, April 25, 2003
This review is from: Sheng: Orchestral Works (Audio CD)
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.
So this is a great CD to use as an introduction to the composer. As far as I can tell the performances are terrific and the sound is full. Keep in mind, the work of this composer is not New Age (as Tan Dun can sometimes be.) He is modern, studied with arch modernists and still has much of that aesthetic in his work. Nanking particularly is not an easy listen. It is harrowing. But the work will stretch your ears and I believe it is well worth hearing.
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