Lang Lang: Dragon Songs (Plus DVD)
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CD Details
Brand: LANG LANGComposer: Lang Lang
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-01-09
Music Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Soundtracks:
- Yellow River Piano Concerto, based on the Yellow River Cantata by Xian Xinghai
- L? WENCHENG: Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake
- HE LUTING: The Cowherd's Flute
- TRADITIONAL: Dialogue in Song
- SUN YIQIANG: Dance of Spring
- DU MINGXIN: Straw Hat Dance
- DENG YUXIAN: Spring Wind
- ZHU JIANER: Happy Times
- TRADITIONAL: Spring flowers in the Moonlit Night on the River
- ZHAO JIPING: Dance from Qiuci, 5th movement from the "Silk Road" Suite
- WANG JIANMIN: At Night on the Lake Beneath the Maple Bridge
Music reviews of Lang Lang: Dragon Songs (Plus DVD)
Music Review: A Dialogue in Tradition
Rating: 5 Stars
DRAGON SONGS is a spectacular endeavor and did I forget to say "what a value".
This is an absolutely wonderful DVD jam-packed with interviews and background information on all of these most beautiful Chinese works coupled with an accompanying CD. The DVD presents a documentary presenting the influences in Lang Lang's life and even paints a picture of his family portrait and the featured works are also shown being played in concert.
Lang Lang wanted to give tribute to his heritage and help promote the wonderful and rich tradition of Chinese music. He wanted to make this music more widely known and in this he has been remarkably successful.
He stated, "I grew up in a family of musicians- my father is an erhu (two-string violin) player, and my grandfather played the Chinese flute and a Chinese lute called the pipa. Whenever my relatives got together; we would have family concerts, with me at the piano - I tried playing the Chinese violin, but I was hopeless! I did a lot of mixing of traditions when I was a kid, and that's what I've tried to do on this album. I hope it wil open a door to Chinese culture and music for my audience, These melodies are heard all over China: I've known them since I was a baby. My mother would sing them, my father would play them. They were like fairytales for me."
One of the compositions featured is the Yellow River Concerto which was composed by Xian Xinghai in 1939 during the Japanese occupation. According to Lang Lang, the Chinese people went through a terrible ordeal in the last 150 years and it was felt that China's creative standing in the world had been lost; this piece is a reminder to him that as a people they can do great things again. One of his main reasons for doing this was for a cultural exchange. He said that "he loves the idea of making connections between Chinese culture and the rest of the world."
Also included is a haunting piece called "The Cowherd's Flute" by He Luting. In 1934, the first musical competition for the piano took place and eleven Chinese composers submitted a total of 20 works. This was the winner of that competition. It is a song which tells the story of a farmhand, poor and alone who plays the flute to his animals for their happiness and for his own. It is extremely well known in China. In fact, the number one instrument in China today is the piano. It is a "hot" instrument and in fact it is to China like football is to us.
Each piece of music has its own story and Lang Lang expertly and carefully tells the viewer the history, the meaning of the Chinese composition's title and what each composition is about and what the music conveys to the listener. He also reveals what he felt was the significance of each piece and what contributed to it being selected.
Family and tradition are such integral cornerstones in the Chinese culture. Meeting Lang Lang's parents; once a humble army musician married to a young dancer who made inordinate sacrifices for their one and only child gives us a glimpse into what drives this young musician.
Each one of the beautiful pieces included in this collection conducts the richest dialogue in what tradition means to the Chinese people.
Highly recommended.
Bentley/2008
Description of Lang Lang: Dragon Songs (Plus DVD)
Lang Lang has fascinated audiences all over the globe--now he takes them home to show them "his" China with Dragon Songs, a CD+DVD set with Chinese piano solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Discover the musical culture that forged one of the most acclaimed classical musicians of our day. The CD juxtaposes the Yellow River Concerto, a large-scale, highly virtuosic piano concerto with colorful sound scales, with miniature pieces for solo piano and with chamber pieces that combine the piano with traditional Chinese instruments. Most of the pieces merge tradional Chinese melodies and idioms with the Western classical music--the result is music of astonishing beauty and ease that will strongly appeal to a broad audience. The 130-minute DVD features a full-length documentary offering a fascinating and intimate look behind the scenes of Lang Lang's latest China tour. The DVD also includes a concert of the solo piano and chamber music pieces from the CD filmed during the Dragon Songs recording sessions in Beijing.This is music of great diversity and charm. Lang Lang returns here to his native China for solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Those expecting great exoticisms will not find them here. We are all aware of how the East influenced the West in music - Debussy, Ravel, and other composers have picked up the harmonies and sonorities and made them familiar to us. But the music recorded here, all of it composed in the 20th century, is indebted to Western music, and indeed, there is hardly a jarring note to be found. The "exoticisms" are all comfortable. The "Yellow River" Piano Concerto, a work arranged by four composers in 1969 based on a 30-year-old choral cantata that was made up of socialist songs of praise, is a piece of pure late Romanticism and is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky and other late Romantics. One solo piano piece is 97 seconds of pure virtuosic joy ("Happy Times," by Zhu Jianer), and another ("Dance of Spring" by Sun Yiqiang) is a delicate, almost French Impressionist piece. The "Dance from Qiuci" by Zhao Jiping is a duet for piano and guanzi, a double-reed pipe, that will remind listeners of Klezmer music. Each track offers a new delight. Lang Lang's performances, alone and with orchestra and others, are brilliant. A must-have. --Robert Levine
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