Customer Reviews

Tan Dun: Bitter Love

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been a fan of Tan Dun's music since his "Ghost Opera" with Wu Man & the Kronos Quartet. Now, he's most famous for his ethereal score to the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." "Bitter Love" (from Peony Pavillion) finds him stretching himself and his listeners in another direction. This piece (or collection of songs) is scored for pipa (this time by the impressive Min Xiao-Fen), soprano (a stellar performace by Ying Huang), baritone chorus, and assorted percussion and electronic devices.

The range of this is staggering. Some moments sound very traditional and Chinese ("Gentle Showers"), some quite modern and western . Most of it though is some combination of the two. As disturbing and bizarre as that may sound, its actually works quite well. Tan Dun incorporates the best of both worlds (and as many will recognize, some of this served as source material for the "Crouching Tiger..." score, as one will notice in the "I Once Dreamed" section.)

Amazing voices (how such a big sound comes out of such a little woman is beyond me), quirky rhythms, great use of modern technology and liberal sampling from Chinese operas makes this a must have hodge-podge! This is where modern "opera" (if you can call it that) should be. I didn't quite give this five stars because I've heard better works by him, but this is still a high recommendation especially when compared to most music these days.

I saw the Peter Sellers opera "Peony Pavilion" at UC Berkeley several months ago -- though in some ways it was difficult for Western audiences to really enjoy, the staging and Tan Dun's music were outstanding, and I kept looking for the CD on Amazon. Once it was released, I ordered it right away, and I must say, the melding of East and West, classical and modern, is beautifully achieved in a very accessible and memorable fashion. I definitely recommend this album for everyone -- the first listening may be a little difficult, but subsequent listenings allow one to get past the strangeness and really appreciate the beauty and poetry of the music. My favorite tracks are "Against Time of Desire", "I Once Dreamed", "To Come", "Stir My Belt Ornaments", and "Secrecy Departing" (it looks like I'm most fond of the tracks with singing monks in the background!).

Contemporary classical music has made for itself a reputation of bizarre inaccessibility, breaking every rule in earshot that touches on harmony or lyricism. Tan Dun, in his Peony Pavilion, has taken a slightly altered approach -- in melding the superficially disparate sounds of ancient East and modern West, he creates a piece that is, for lack of any other classification, contemporary classical. And he does it with considerable skill. Though a bit foreign at first, the music grows on you, and you discover (primarily rhythmic) novelties at each hearing.

Ying Huang steals Dun's thunder, however. Her pure, clean tone, crystal clear, fills the CD with astounding energy and vitality. Her unconventional diction and phrasing haunt the ear, and her coloratura training shines true at the extreme highs and lows Dun has written in his score. If the first minutes of the track "Against Time of Desire," Huang singing a recurring motive unaccompanied, do not entrance you, you are missing out on a gem of a voice.

Critics may see in the blending of pop (synth instruments and ocean/wind sounds, the recently "re-discovered" sound of chant, vocal percussion, and voice-overs, to name a few) with traditional Chinese music (some wonderful pipa music is buried in there) as a gratuitous attempt to appeal to a larger audience and de-mystify the modern state of classical music, with classical music duly suffering. Though I believe these claims are unfounded to a degree, there are points when I could do without a man barking like a dog, and I feel that the East is a bit betrayed and overwhelmed by the West at points.

Nonetheless, after the first two or three listenings, I completely disavowed any urges to return the CD and listen to it quite contentedly and frequently now.

If you're unfamiliar with Chinese Opera this album may be shocking. But, once you take the time to listen this is a beautiful experience. Tan Dun's blend of eastern and western musical traditions is brilliant. Ying Haung's voice is clear with tones "razor sharp."

I would recommend this to anyone. Truly, a wonderful musical experience.

A soprano; a tenor; a monk; a baritone chorus; an infant; unconventional Chinese orchestration mixed with bits and pieces of Peking Opera; folk tunes; lots of percussions, these are the sounds with which the story of Peony Pavilion is musically revealed. Rather than an opera, it is a musical dream or a conception. Chinese traditional culture is always a rich resource for musicians (especially Chinese musicians) to tap into, and Tan Dun is one of those who know exactly where to get his inspirations. The work is a collage of various individual and seemingly disparate elements of West and East, ritual and sensual, ancient and modern, only that Tan displays them with a sense of assimilation at times, and antithesis at others. As always, Tan's unique music perspectives, distinctively modern though they are, are fulfilled by returning to the original purity and simplicity of the basics and down-to-earth folk music elements.

Ying Huang's pure soprano displays the poetry of the music beautifully. With sensuous approach, her singing is well attuned to the music's aura of longing and exotic beauty. The fabulous baritone chorus from The New York Virtuoso Singers gives a touch of the western opera and provides an indispensable layer to the otherwise rather thin orchestration.

But the music is not for everyone, nor for everyday. Despite its depth and range, it could be a strange land for the ears not tuned to its novelties and diversities, and as for that matter, one may wonder how much of the profound emotions Tan meant to deliver has actually reached the audience at general level.

'East meets West' appears to be the hallmark for this work of avante garde Chinese composer Tan Dun.
Well, I love Chinese music, been listening to large volumes of Chinese operatic recordings and performances for more than 40 years - from the southern Cantonese to the north-western Qin and Yu operas, and even more the Eastern Kun operas and Huang Mei lyrics.
What is being achieved in this album? I would hesitate to call it East meeting West.
Fine, it is original. Fine again, that Miss Huang Ying is a lyrical soprano with a good voice and sound technique.
But please do not mistook the work as having any lineage with the Chinese operatic tradition: it has virtually none of such.
The choice of singer alone reveals that there is no regard to the authentic Chinese operatic tradition: a Western lyrical soprano is UNABLE to bring out the style and sonics in Chinese traditional-styled melodies. For such performer, go for the celebrated Chinese soprano Miss Wu Bixia instead, the pioneer of fusion of Chinese and Western vocal styles.
Very much unlike the more recent work of Tan "The First Emperor", this album endeavours to present music that is off the beaten track. However, the result is that it is off track. The stuff here, I dare say, accounts for more than half of the adverse criticism of that opera, a much more valid work in all respects but for these 'grey area' elements.
Chinese operatic arias are much more than wailing and whining. Musical lines are more melodious, harmonics much clearer.
The blurred effects here are not authentic Chinese style.
I envy those who are able to enjoy this album.

BITTER LOVE is a selection of songs from Chinese contemporary composer Tan Dun's 1998 version of the classic Chinese opera "Peony Pavilion". Soprano Ying Huang has the spotlight, with the New York Virtuoso Singers and the NChiCa-Orchestra performing and the composer himself conducting. The staging of the opera, produced by Peter Sellars, was toured around the world, but no video recording was made. These fourteen songs are all we have, but make a conveniently concise single-disc presentation.

Tan Dun's updating is drastic, maintaining the text (in English translation by Cyril Birch) but with totally new music. The traditional music of "Peony Pavilion", of which "Hang the Curtain Down" might be the most well-known, is nowhere to be heard here even in brief quotation. Instrumentation consists of pipa (a Chinese flute), percussion, several midi instruments, electronic sampler, and water gong. The rhythms, the scat singing, and the electronics make this work quite outside both the Western and Chinse traditions, and lovers of chillout projects such as Thievery Corporation may find this CD to their liking. Ying Huang's singing, however, displays the mannerisms of Beijing opera, so the work is a real fusion of styles.

Were this the only work by Dun, it might seem fresh and admirable, but it compares poorly to some of his recent works like THE MAP and the WATER PASSION. Some novel ideas, such as the mix of Chinese and Western instrumentation and the use of water for sound are present, but all in all the musical material here is very limited and repetitive. Perhaps it would be another matter entirely if I were watching a live performance where the orchestra is meant to accompany action onstage, but on its own the music isn't rich enough. Furthermore, Sony's packing of the material, with very unhelpful liner notes, makes it look as if Tan Dun's talent is being used to advance some mission of world music crossover gimmickry. I regrettably cannot recommend this like I can other works by Tan Dun, who is generally one of the most interesting living composers.

This piece of music either creeps up on you out of nowhere - like a tarantula imitating a meteor streaking out of outerspace - or it "conveys" itself to you like a waiter extending to you a glass of dark wine - or a film that seeks to shock you with an unexpected silence and a pagan cry. You must be the judge. But if you are faint hearted - quick to flee sexuality in all of its forms - you should go nowhere near this piece. And and if you are bold and brazen and hot for simplistic outrages you should probably bury your head in the sand. This work is for mature listeners only. By "mature" I mean a listener who is willing to cast to the side - as if she or he is flinging to the wind cherry blossoms in autumn - all grotesque fundamentalisms of ANY KIND. The music begins with a luminous voice slowly moving out of darkness. The voice wanders around in the dark over a deep abyss but I do not sense that the abyss is strong enough to terrify that wondrous voice. And the full piece, as it develops, may be best called "The Complicated Tales Of Incandescent Bliss". This piece of music is hideously subversive. I say that with a tongue in my cheek and a fart in my belly. The mere "subversive" is hideously dull. For a century now we have lived with a million, billion artists who wished - desperately wishing to canonize their egos - to "subvert" things. "Bitter Love" is horribly subversive. It is horribly subversive because it does not aim to be "subversive". Its power comes from a source that is not easily described. I am not a witch, but I would like to pretend that I am a witch gazing with my dark-gold eyes into a blasphemously kitsch crystal ball. I would say, gazing into profound fires, that I see a century of struggling, sick, twisted artists striving to catch up to "Bitter Love". It is dark without that pretentious quality that defines the run-of-the-mill Goth. It is bright without protestatiing itself before the blasphemously sentimetality of movies like "The Sound of Music". It plays havoc with our senses without toadying up to the most stupid features of the avant-guard. "Bitter Love" will shock you even while it consoles you.