Gao: Works For Piano

Description

Connection
Aptly described as "music which wants to be heard with ears of a child, full of wonder and amazement... deep and vulnerable", Ping Gao fuses the sonic aromas of East and West in a unique way, reflecting the appeal of his music throughout the world. The Sichuan-born composer finds a kindred spirit in Yubo Zhou, whose fragrant transparency and splendidly virtuoso performance create a poetic banquet for the ears.

Nostalgia
This portrait of Ping Gao put together by the highly acclaimed pianist Yubo Zhou is as colourful as it is multifaceted. Musical images and associations are formed from a poem or a simple sentimental memory. Window at dusk refers to the lingering but gradually fading light of dusk and captures the moment of inspiration of the composer "looking out into the distance, letting my thoughts churn and float in the embers of the setting sun".

Invocation
In the composer's imagination, the movements of Floating Shadows are dramas of light and shadow. The sonata begins quite distant and ethereal, with many fluttering ideas and fantasies. This is followed by a darker tone permeated by a deep elegiac mood. The Presto finale flies by like lightning, with ideas from earlier movements emerging and subsiding amidst a torrent of notes.

Reminiscence
The four-part piano cycle Wanderings was created in 2020. "It was a time of complex and conflicting emotions and thoughts, and these pieces of music were, in a sense, a reflection of those restless moments" describes the composer. Each piece in the cycle is longer and more complex than the previous one, building to a long, gradual crescendo throughout the entire work.