SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: DU MINGXIN'S TEN XINJIANG DANCES & THE SONG OF GUAN YANG on MARCO POLO

 

DU MINGXIN

TEN XINJIANG DANCES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Takako Nishizaki (Violin)

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

   Marco Polo 8.223903

   Marco Polo 8.225814

THE SONG OF YANG GUAN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Takako Nishizaki (Violin)

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

   Hong Kong Records 8.240361

   Marco Polo 8.225813

After the success of the Choo Hoey-led Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s recorded collaborations with Japanese violinist Takako Nishizaki in the Hung Hu Violin Concerto (1981) and Respighi Concerto Gregoriano (1983) albums, it was a matter of time more music came from this partnership. The Chinese and Asian Evergreens (1984) disc sold particularly well, thus albums of more Chinese music particularly old / ancient Chinese tunes became imperative.

The 1985 was a busy year for recording at Victoria Concert Hall. In the month of June came the Ten Xinjiang Dances by famous Chinese composer Du Mingxin (born 1928, still living), who was responsible for the Socialist Realist ballets Red Detachment of Women (1964, China’s most famous ballet) and The Mermaid. 

Described as A Xinjiang Musical Tour (its title in Chinese), the suite for violin and orchestra comprised ten movements based on Kazakh, Uyghur, Tajik and Tartar folksongs, Central Asian ethnicities resident in China’s westernmost province. Just imagine these to be Oriental versions of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances or Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, lushly orchestrated with virtuoso solo flourishes, and one cannot go far wrong. An all-round easy listen for some 46 minutes.

The month of October saw the recording of The Song of Yang Guan, the title being its opening track Yang Guan Sandie (陽關三疊), the famous guqin tune inspired by a Tang dynasty poem. Other familiar melodies include Listening to the Pines (聽松), Riding in the Open Grassland (奔驰在千里草原), The Shepherd Girl (牧羊姑娘) and River of Sorrow (江河水). 

It would seem ungrateful to claim that these albums were merely vehicles for Nishizaki’s violin virtuosity. She plays all the melodies well and is every way idiomatic, unafraid to display her vibrato. She is very much her own and does not try to replace the erhu. SSO’s accompaniment is lively and alert, Choo Hoey being the most ardent advocate of Chinese orchestral music during the orchestra’s early years.

These recordings were originally issued on LP on Klaus Heymann’s Hong Kong Records label, and CD on Marco Polo. It is a matter of time these appear on Naxos, but digital downloads and online streaming are now possible.

SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: RESPIGHI CONCERTO GREGORIANO on MARCO POLO RECORDS

 

RESPIGHI Concerto Gregoriano

Poema Autunnale

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Takako Nishizaki (Violin)

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

   Marco Polo 8.220152

Following the successful collaboration between the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by music director Choo Hoey and Japanese violinist Takako Nishizaki in the Hung Hu Violin Concerto album, this was a logical follow-up. The Hong Kong-based Marco Polo label was mining little-recorded repertoire to fill gaping lacunae in the catalogue and Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, underrepresented on disc other than his Roman Trilogy, was a good choice.

Respighi’s Concerto Gregoriano (1921-22) is a sumptuously scored violin concerto in three movements based on Gregorian chant themes. The modal character of its melodies places it in the stylistic territory of concertante works like Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending (premiered 1921) and the much later Butterfly Lovers Concerto (1959) by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. In fact, all three works make a splendid programme for a dreamily rhapsodic album. 

The solo part is virtuosic which Nishizaki masters with aplomb, and SSO is a sympathetic partner which has substantial orchestral chunks of its own to chew on. The 31-minute concerto has a shorter companion in Respighi’s Poema Autunnale (Autumn Poem, 1925), a 14-minute long work with very similar inspirations, making it a virtual twin of The Lark Ascending.

The young Choo Hoey, looking stylish

Recorded in May 1983, both performances have since been eclipsed by Lydia Mordkovitch / Edward Downes on Chandos (1993) and Vadim Brodsky / Francesco la Vecchia on Brilliant Classics (2009-10). This received a dismissive review on Gramophone but garnered 4 of 5 stars on Classic CD. Go figure. Nonetheless, this is an interesting look at how the young SSO accompanied its soloists, usually a prelude to recording more repertoire on its own.

SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: HUNG HU VIOLIN CONCERTO on Hong Kong Records

 

This was the not the original cover design
of the LP, but the first CD release.
Notice how much it resembles
Naxos CD sleeves to come later.

HUNG HU VIOLIN CONCERTO

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Takako Nishizaki (Violin)

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

   Hong Kong Records 8.880020

   Marco Polo 8.223902

   Marco Polo 8.225811

This retrospective of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s earliest and forgotten recordings begins with its very first album. Recorded in January 1981, this was born of a quite successful relationship between the two-year-old orchestra and the fledgling Hong Kong-based record label Hong Kong Records, founded by German entrepreneur Klaus Heymann, which would later become the specialist Marco Polo label, which in turn spawned the to-be giant budget label Naxos.

The main work of the LP was A Kejian’s Hung Hu Violin Concerto, a fantasy based on the Chinese folksong The Waves of Hung Hu. At just 15 minutes, this is shorter than the wildly popular Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, but conceived and scored in the same idiom – that of a Romantic violin concerto. The music is similarly enjoyable and demands made on the soloist par for the course, well suited for Japanese violin virtuoso Takako Nishizaki (Mrs Heymann), who went on to record Butterfly Lovers no less than six times.

The formidable Mrs Heymann

The second work is one half of Butterfly Lovers composing duo Chen Gang’s Fantasy on a Sinkiang Folksong, which is now better-known as Sunshine Over Tashkurgan, recently recorded by Chloe Chua and SSO (on Pentatone, recorded in 2023) as a fillup to her Butterfly Lovers. How the decades have passed. Unashamedly virtuosic, this is Central Asia’s rhapsodic answer to Ravel’s Tzigane.

Autographed by both Choo Hoey
& Takako Nishizaki

The balance of the album contains shorter works, Ge Yan’s The Horse Cart (performed at the official opening of Victoria Concert Hall in October 1980), Gin Yong Cheng’s The Happy Grassland, Ma Ke’s Shanbei Suite (which also features an uncredited gaohu soloist) and Fu Geng Cheng’s Celebration Dance. All very engaging music based on Chinese folk music, and some with a Socialist Realist agenda that Chinese composers during the 1950s and 60s were no inferior to their Soviet comrades and counterparts. 

Choo Hoey was SSO's founding maestro

The SSO under founding music director Choo Hoey give more than creditable performances in more than adequate sound, and it should be noted that today’s SSO no longer performs this repertoire other than the ubiquitous Butterfly Lovers. In short, a worthy blast from the past.

Another iteration of the same album,
now part of the Chinese Music Series.

The final edition, now under the umbrella
of Popular Chinese Orchestral Music.
Obviously, somebody must be
listening to these recordings.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2013)

GREAT VIOLIN CONCERTOS

Naxos 8.501058 (10 CDs) / ****

This slim-line budget-priced box-set not just showcases the violin concerto as one of classical music’s most popular genres, but also celebrates the art of Takako Nishizaki, the primary Naxos house violinist for the past 25 years. The wife of Naxos founder and owner Klaus Heymann, she is soloist in 14 out of the 26 violin concertos highlighted.

Pride of place is her recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Cappella Istrapolitana of Bratislava, Slovakia. This 1987 album was the Hong Kong-based label’s first big hit, going on to become the 8^th bestselling classical record of all time. Her playing is tasteful, refined, unmannered, and above all, honest. She also tackles the three great violin concertos in D major, by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms, with much fervour. The latter two incorporate rarely played first movement cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler which are well worth hearing.

Also in the mix is the Russian Ilya Kaler, joint-winner of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition, who makes light of virtuosic demands in concertos by Paganini, Dvorak, Glazunov and Shostakovich. The Kazakh Marat Bisengaliev (Lalo and Wieniawski) and Korean Dong-Suk Kang (Elgar and Saint-Saens) also register equally strong performances that challenge better-known soloists in the major labels. Younger names featured, such as Simone Lamsma (Spohr’s Concerto No.8), Mischa Keylin (Vieuxtemps No.5) and Henning Kraggerud (Sibelius), represent a bright future for the instrument. Programme notes are included, which is most helpful for the beginner, to whom this series is targeted. 

PIPE DREAMS

SHARON BEZALY, Flute

Australian Chamber Orchestra

BIS 1789 / ****1/2

This is a collection of concertante works for flute from nations of the southern hemisphere. Only one carries the formal designation of concerto but all have a palpable feel of the song and dance genre. The Flute Concerto with Tango (2008) by Uruguayan composer-conductor Jose Serebrier is a virtuoso showpiece dedicated to the Israel-born Sharon Bezaly, its continuous movements leading up to a short tango that is deliberately left incomplete and hanging in the air. This element of suspense and surprise keeps this music interesting and moving along. The highly athletic Pitangus Sulphuratus (1987, revised 2007) by the Venezuelan Adina Izarra is inspired by the flight and birdcall of the Great Kiskadee, a species commonly found in Central and South America.

The eponymous Pipe Dreams (2003) by the Australian Carl Vine, well known for his dance works, draws its title from the opium pipe, Aboriginal dreamtime and the flute itself. Its sheer exuberance makes it the most accessible of the 21^st century scores, and it includes a tender pas de deux by flute and solo violin, played by orchestra leader Richard Tognetti. The earliest work is the short Impresiones de la Puna (1934) by the Argentine Alberto Ginastera, which celebrates Andean folk music and the quecha, a traditional vertical flute. Bezaly’s agility and enormous range on the flute is nothing less than phenomenal, and these new works are well worth exploring.