Chu / Liu / Sheng / Shi / Xu / Yin: The Yellow River Piano Concerto / Chinese Solo Piano Works

Regular: £11.49

Sale: £11.49
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Cat No: 8554499

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943449929

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: CHU / LIU / SHENG / SHI / XU / YIN

Description
Yellow River ConcertoHappy LosoColourful CloudsChasing the Moon (Cantonese folk song) Seven Short PiecesBased on Inner-Mongolian Folk Songs Four Dances from TheMermaid Ballet SuiteRed Lilies Crimson andBrightThree Variations on anAncient Chinese MelodyThroughout the long history of China music has occupied an importantposition, in earlier times not least in its association with ceremonies ofultimate political significance. For the new rulers of China who came to powerin 1949, music continued to have a significant r??le to play in society and inpolitical education. This resulted in inevitable limitations and restrictions,while certain acceptable works enjoyed enormous popularity. One of these, the YellowRiver Concerto, was based on the famous Yellow River Cantata, a workdating from the period of the Sino-Japanese War. In November 1938, after thefall of Wuhan to the Japanese, the famous poet Guang Weiran (Zhang Guangnian)led the Third Resistance Theatre Troupe eastward across the Yellow River to thecentre of anti-Japanese resistance in the Luliang Mountains of Shanxi province.At the ferry near Hukou (Kettle Mouth), where the waters of the Yellow Riverflow down from a narrow gorge to form a magnificent waterfall, he listened tothe sound of the wind and the waves. When he reached Yanan in January 1939, hewrote the poem sequence Yellow River and recited it at a party on theeve of the Spring Festival. Greatly excited by what he had heard, Xian Xinghaiexpressed a desire to set the poems to music for the Theatre Troupe. Shelteringin a cave, the composer worked for six days without rest, to finish the vocalwork that has come to occupy a leading place in contemporary Chinese music. Thecantata was first performed on 13th April the same year and was soon to beheard throughout China as a symbol of resistance.Xian Xinghai himself was born in Macau in 1905, the son of a fisherman.After the death of his father he studied in Singapore, supported by his mother,who worked as a laundress at his school. He later returned to study in Canton.His musical training, which he had started in Beijing, continued at theShanghai Conservatory and in 1930 in Paris as a pupil of Vincent d'Indy. Hereturned to China in 1935, to be involved in active resistance against theJapanese. In 1939 he joined the Communist Party and spent the years from 1940until his death in 1945 in Moscow.The concerto derived from the Yellow River Cantata was devised bythe committee of composers then found advisable for such a task, Yin Chengzong,Liu Zhang, Chu Wanghua, Sheng Lihong, Shi Shucheng and Xu Feisheung. With asolo piano texture recalling the Warsaw Concerto as much as Rachmaninov,the work condenses the cantata, but carries the same heroic message. There arethemes representing anger, grace and nostalgia, illustrating various stages inthe story of the Yellow River, a symbol of Chinese civilisation, a source offertility but at the same time a force of nature that offered a certain dangerand had to be
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