You're extremely tough on VM (Nicholson); who was the pretty girl in
a white concert dress becfore the oohs & aahs got hold of (possibly
literally) Sarah Chang.  Her technique is never less than solid; & her
willingness to spit out the classical recording industry before it spat her
out shows she & her family have brains as well.  One should also point out
that VM's willingness to rag the classics (her 4 Seasons & 24th Caprice
adaptations) for her audience is part of a much older performance tradition
than simply embedding them in the museum of death, as many concertgoers
claim they prefer nowadays.

 From public comments, VM doesn't seem to see herself as a particularly
Chinese performer (instinctively, she seems to link herself with her
English musical education more than her maternal heritage); so her
recordings of Chinese music seem to be restricted to a couple of poppy
scores & the China Girl (Classical Album 2) disc.

The latter includes a superb - if completely non Chinese in inspiration
version (mind you:  how many Western CD stores stock Shenzhen LV Soft
Publishing Co?) - LIAN Shanpo & ZHU Tingtai (the Butterfly Lovers
concerto), a piece you already know; plus two encore works by VM herself:
the very soso pop chorus Happy Valley; & the more promising (but still not
quite first rate...  it's too long; & VM doesn't really do anything with
the Nessum Dorma recap in the finale) Turandot fantasia.  Depending on you
familiarity with Puccini, i guess this could be the work you heard; but if
not, i have to assume that VM has written a couple of specifically Chinese
encore pieces for touring in Asia....

(I said she was smart...)

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