Shande Ding: Long March Symphony

Liang Ning was born in Guangdong and entered the provincial Arts Academy in 1974, later joining the Guangzhou Philharmonic Society as a soloist. She started to study with Shen Xiang in Beijing in 1979 and went on to further study at the Central Conservatory, later earning a master’s degree at the Juilliard School. Liang Ning has performed outside China, winning the gold medal at The Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki in 1984. She is also a winner of the Metropolitan National Council Competition, the Rosa Ponselle International Vocal Competition, the Loren L. Zachery Competition, and the Luciano Pavarotti Competition, establishing herself in the eyes of Western critics as a singer of great ability. Liang has already been heard in many of the world's leading opera houses. She is the first Chinese singer ever to perform principal roles at such international houses as Milan’s La Scala (Idamante), the Metropolitan Opera (as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier), and Vienna State Opera (as the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos). She also performed at the Hamburg State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Royal Opera, Convent Garden, Deutsche Staatsoper, Bologna's Teatro Comunale, Opéra Marseilles, Royal Opera La Monnaie in Brussels, Israeli Opera and many others. Having made her Metropolitan Opera début as Octavian, Liang returned to the Met and sang the role of the Shaman in the première of Tan Dun's opera The First Emperor. She also sang the role of Lu in three different productions of Tan Dun's opera Tea at Suntory Hall, Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2002, with the Netherlands Opera in 2003, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic staged by Chiang Ching in 2007.

The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments. In form it resembles a pear-shaped lute, but the use of Western instrument names to describe Chinese instruments can be misleading. The term “lute” is, incidentally, also used by some to describe the horizontal plucked instrument, the Qin, an instrument for the scholar and gentleman in earlier times. The pipa is said to have derived its name from its sound. The pi was played from right to left, the pa from left to right, upwards. This form of instrument was foreign in origin but by the time of the building of the Great Wall of China, it had come into fairly wide use. The earliest surviving example is from the eighth century A. D., and certainly in the time of the Tang Dynasty (A. D. 618-906) it enjoyed very great popularity. Lam Fung has been well-known as a player of the pipa and the zheng. He has taught extensively in Hong Kong, and was Principal of the Western and Chinese Music Academy. He has been instrumental in promoting traditional Chinese music in Hong Kong as well as countries abroad where he performs frequently, particularly Singapore and Japan. He was leader of the plucked strings section in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. He made a dozen of pipa recordings to great critical acclaim. He founded the Shatin Chinese Orchestra in the nineties and has been conducting their concerts frequently.

Ella Kiang has apeared regularly on radio and television in Hong Kong. She has performed La Boheme, Faust, Cavalleria Rusticana, and many more. Chang Hae-Won is one of the leading pianists and piano professors in Korea. She was acclaimed by the Music Critics' Circle of Korea as Musician of the Year. She was also the first Korean to be awarded the Konzertexamen Diploma.

The Hong Kong PHilharmonic Plays Well-Known Theme Songs of T

An-Lun Huang: Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op. 25b

Modern Chinese music continues the national tradition of following a program, or at least evoking a mood. Cheerful or melancholy impressions of the countryside are frequent. At the same time the musical material used is often borrowed from folk song, or in direct imitation of it. In writing or the violin, many composers have in mind the sound and technique of the two-string Chinese instrument, the erhu. This involves many more glissando than are now customary in Western music, the finger sliding from note to note on a string that has no finger-board to support it. The erhu is, o course, capable of considerable agility, but it relatively limited in range.

The two kinds of Chinese music most widely heard are folk songs and songs made popular by television. This release includes a number of melodies taken from Hong Kong television series, as well as Chinese folk songs and melodies drawn from Chinese operas. Chinese music is traditionally programmatic, based on a character of story which is similar to Western programmed music, whether in narrative or evocative description. A highly respected and influential figure in Asia's orchestral music scene, Yip Wing-Sie has been the Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic since 2002. The Hong Kong Philharmonic is a vital part of Hong Kong's cultural lie, as the city's largest and busiest musical organization.

The Song of Yang Guan: Ancient & Modern Chinese Classics

Violin Concerto "Hung Hu" & Other Popular Chinese Orchestral

...Like [Joaquim] Homs, [Josep Soler (b. 1935)] also is influenced by composers of the Second Viennese School, but also by the music of Bach, Palestrina, and other musicians of those eras. This is readily apparent in the Partita (1980); the titles of the eight movements (Sarabande, Allemande, and so on) refer to models offered by Bach, but the music itself speaks in a modern tongue. Soler's expertise in counterpoint (he wrote a text on the subject in the same year that he wrote the Partita) is apparent. A three-minute Sonata Fragment from the late 1950s is Bergian to the point of homage. "The Song of God," a sonata from 1993, is almost eccentrically individual. Speaking of eccentricity, I note that the annotations claim that this music exemplifies "a process of natural stylization, in which we can observe the disappearance of all tendency towards exasperation, or violence toward the materials employed, and the renunciation of any hint of avant-gardism, leaving only the distillation of what is most deeply inherent to it: its very essence." I haven't the faintest idea what that all means, but somehow it seems to describe Soler's music to a tee. My comments concerning the approachability and integrity of Horns's compositions need to be applied even more strongly here.

In the absence of a score or a performance tradition I can refer to, it seems to me that Masó's pianism exceeds the music's technical and intellectual challenges (this also was Story's impression in the aforementioned review). He is recording all of Gerhard's music for Marco Polo, and the complete piano music of Mompou for Naxos (another worthy project), so it appears that this repertoire is his bread and butter (or should I say pan y mantequillal). The engineering is not completely successful in coping with the challenges of recording the piano, but it is good enough.

If you're looking for piano music that's as free of gimmicks as it is full of challenges, then one or both of these discs should satisfy you.

-- Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE [9/1999]

BALAKIREV: Chopin Suite / Overtures

LIADOV: Baba Yaga / Enchanted Lake / Kikimora

SCHUMANN, R.: Humoreske, Op. 20 / REGER: Variations and Fugu

STRAUSS, R.: Symphony No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 12