Various Composers - Memories Lost (Chen Sa)

Information

• Fazil Say - Silence of Anatolia (Piano Concerto No. 3), Op. 11
• Hsiao Tyzen - Farewell Étude, Op. 55
• Yu Julian - Impromptu, Op. 9
• Chen Qigang - Instants d'un opéra de Pékin
• Wang Xiaohan - A song in the childhood (from 'A Lost Diary')
• Hsiao Tyzen - Memory (No. 2 of 'Memories of Home', Op. 49)
• Wang Xilin - Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 56

Chen Sa, piano
Taipei Chinese Orchestra
Chung Yiu-Kwong, conductor

Date: 2014
Label: BIS Records
https://bis.se/label/bis/memories-lost

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Review

PERFORMANCE: **** / RECORDING: ****

This the most interesting and successful recording of new Chinese music I have yet heard, even if it emanates from Taipei, and if the opening work is by a Turk dedicated to evoking his homeland. But Fazil Say’s concerto has been transcribed for piano and Chinese instrumentation, so I think that counts as Chinese too, particularly the way Sa Chen and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra play it. Its opening movement is ethereal, its second has a Prokofiev-like aggression, and its third and fourth are gently ruminative, but with quintessentially Chinese orchestral timbres.

This is followed by five solo piano pieces which are all in some degree pervaded by nostalgia for home, family, and village, with several drawing on the tunes, rhythms, and effects of Chinese opera. Qigang Chen’s piece, heavily influenced by Messiaen, represents a lovely melding of East and West, while Xiaohan Wang’s offers delicately inflected minimalism in the Chinese folk style.

But the piece de resistance is Xilin Wang’s concerto, a strikingly assured work inspired by rage at the crimes against artists during the Cultural Revolution. His first movement, which allows Sa Chen to display her virtuosity, has savage momentum, and is followed by a mystical passacaglia. The finale is brilliant and fascinating, as the sheng mouth-organ replaces the clarinet of the original Swiss version, and the Chinese winds and strings create a sweet swirl of microtonal figurations.

-- Michael Church, BBC Music Magazine

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Chen Sa (born 21 November 1979 in Chongqing, China) is a Chinese pianist. She won 1st prize in the 1994 China Piano Competition, 4th place in the 2000 Chopin Competition, a prize in the Leeds Competition and was 3rd in the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition. Chen has performed with many prestigious orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, with renowned conductors, such as Simon Rattle, Myung-Whun Chung and Vasily Petrenko. She is a Steinway Artist, and is also an enthusiastic chamber musician.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa_Chen

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