Bruno Galeron <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I would be very thankful if the list could introduced me with more Chinese
>music like that.

I used to have some fairly detailed essays up on music from the People's
Republic of China; but a change of service provider, some health problems
& other, nonmusical activities (including designing a space probe... don't
ask) have limited my ability to even keep myself informed over what's
happening behind the Bamboo Curtain, much less anyone else. Treat the
following as the _if this is Thursday, it must be Guilin_ overview until i
finally get my act together again.

Based on your familiarity with Naxos 8.554334, it would be simplest to
begin with two composers included on the collection:

HE Zhan hao (Chinese names are actually written in CLEMENTS Robert format;
so if you see TAN Dun cataloged under D, feel free to patronise the store
owner with extreme supercilliousness), cocomposer of LIANG Shan po/ZHU Ying
tai (aka The Butterfly Lovers concerto) is probably the most spectacularly
eclectic of PRChinese melodists; & probably the most consistantly enjoyable
living composer i know (with the recent loss of the Big USAmerican mystic,
Alan Hovhaness). A number of Asian recordings of HE's music are available;
with the two disc Shen zhen set produced by the composer under the title
Selected Orchestral Works of HE Zhan hao vols. 1 & 2 particularly
recommended. Another version of TBL is that recorded by Vanessa-Mae in her
China Girl set; although i can't imagine a less Shanghai interpretation of
this score... stylistically, VM places the starcrossed lovers firmly on the
banks of the elgar....

ZHU Xiao gu (cocomposer of The Parting of the Newly Weds) is another
formidable melodist; as a cf between his Dream of the Red Chamber (inspired
by the famous novel; & using the same musical material - PRChinese music
takes a jazzlike view of musical raw material - as HE's Lin An Tragedy
shows). Apart from his orchestral & ballet music, ZHU seems to be a bonbon
arranger of note; & has recorded a few collections of PRChinese Light
Classics sets which are worthy of the same attention the great British LC
composer/arrangers are now getting.

The best known work in Chinese music isn't TBL, though; & it - & its
almost legendary composer - even predate the PRC: XIAN Xing hai's Yellow
River Cantata was supposedly written in a cave in six weeks; & powerfully
predates the Eisler/Theodorakis/Bernstein nothing succeeds like visionary
excess approach to choral writing by decades. Many Asian recordings; & the
suitably deafening Hugo version adds the very Ivesian Chinese Rhapsody &
some revolutionary partsongs from the Counterattack anthology.

The cantata is better known to Western ears thru The Yellow River Piano
Concerto arranged by YIN Cheng zong et al during the early years of the
cultural revolution (1967-76). Try to find a recording of the original
score, though: the concerto has been arranged more times than the deck
chairs on the Titanic, inevitably to tone down the wild, transcendental
vulgarity of the original. It never works... HUNG Sam bo/Sammo Hung would
be a strange casting as Julius Caesar; & a nonvulgar Yellow River Piano
Concerto makes even less sense than Et tu, Chan....

DING Shan de is one of the elder statemen of PRChinese music; & The Long
March Symphony seems to be DING's epic masterpiece.

DU Ming xin & WU Zu qiang were two of the cocomposers of the model dance
drama The Red Detachment of Women; but even when they were feeling less
culturally revolutionary are fine composers (both jointly & severally)...
a similar statement can be made about WU Qei, who cowrote the other great
model dance drama, The White-haired Girl.

If you like your sounds a bit tougher, ZHU Jian'er is one of the most
electricfying orchestral composers of our time; & his First Symphony brings
the fury of Shostakovich to the Cultural Revolution with terrifying effect.
A dangerous accolade, i know; but this symphony might be the greatest
written in my lifetime; & needs to be more widely known.

Like ZHU, SAN Tong is one of the few PRChinese composers who experiments
regularly with tone-rows & other serialist devices; & the handful of SAN's
scores which have been recorded suggest a formidable romantic aphorist, not
unlike Searle in England.

No doubt i'll think of more names later; but will resume my resume my music
hunter searches next Feb, when i finally get back to Guangzhou. I'll also
be visiting Aomen/Macau, Herng Gong/Hong Kong & possibly Shen Zhen; so if
we have anyone in the Southern China area who would like me to say hello,
send me an email....

All the best,
Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>