Lei Liang: Brush-Stroke, etc

Serashi Fragments; Some Empty Thoughts of a Person from Edo; Memories of Xiaoxiang; Trio for Cello, Piano and Percussion; In Praise of Shadows; My Windows; Brush-Stroke

Ensembles: Arditti String Quartet; Callithumpian Consort/Stephen Drury with Aleck Karis (piano); Chien-Kwan Lin (saxophone); Takae Ohnishi (harpsichord); Paula Robison (flute)

Mode Records MODE 210

Here is an alluring Portrait CD of Lei Liang, a notable Chinese-born American composer (b. 1972) of great accomplishment and distinction.

He studied with Birtwistle, Czernwin [Mode records 117] and many others, and is active as a painter too. Liang researches traditional Asian music and in his composing "reclaims his cultural identity in a global perspective which transcends cultural boundaries" (Y U Everett).

This is a splendid compilation which should delight, in part or whole, everyone who comes across it. The pieces are well contrasted and cover many moods and styles, yet with an overall integrated musical personality. He is familiar with most modern developments and is particularly interested in resonances (notably in his piano pieces) derived from a personal technique of One-Note-Polyphony (which smacks of Scelsi's seminal Quattro pezzi chiascuno su una nota sola, and none the worse for that).

The flute solo In Praise of Shadows explores shakuhachi techniques and Memories of Xiaoxiang has a tape with fragments of field recordings, including excerpts on the guqin, a lovely traditional instrument to the beauties of which, coincidentally, I had been introduced at a Chinese/Japanese concert last weekend.

Fine production and, with an exceptionally beautiful cover image, this disc is recommended not to miss!

Peter Grahame Woolf

Lei Liang: Milou etc

Ascension; Winged Creatures; A Journey into Desire; Yuang; Lake; Concerto for Harp; Milou

Manhattan Sinfonietta, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Radnofsky Quartet, New England Conservatory Chamber Singers, soloists June Han (harp), Pablo Gómez (guitar), Takae Ohnishi (harpsichord), Jeffrey Milarsky and Tamara Brooks (conductors), John Fonville and Jane Rigler (flutes)

New World Records CD 80715-2
[Released: 12/04/2011]

ASCAP's highly-acclaimed Audio Portraits feature Lei Liang.
Click here to listen to the interview

A second portrait disc of Lei Lang is equally to be welcomed. A real labour of love, taking from 1997-2011 to complete, this is even more ambitious than Brush Stroke [Mode 210].

A protester at Tiannanmen Square as a teenager who witnessed the bloodshed and had been denied access to Chinese traditional culture under the Cultural Revolution, he has made up for it in his adopted country, USA , studying all aspects of what he'd missed, including copying ancient documents by hand. As a composer he is omnivorous, incorporating with astonishing naturalism elements of avantgarde procedures, indeterminacy and spectral analysis to express "music as a form of ritual".

There are seven works, ranging from a piece for two flutes (1999) to a saxophone quartet and a major orchestral work, the Harp Concerto (2008).

The presentation is meticulous and the notes by Y U Everett full and helpful; the only point I'd make (not for the first or last time) is that it would have helped even more if sections of longer pieces were marked by new tracks or, at least, e.g. timings of the beginnings of "the second section", and the "third section" of the 14 mins Harp Concerto.

This is a disc to play and play again.

Peter Grahame Woolf

Although this American composer, extensively associated with IRCAM, is interested in "what is most signficant to a human listener", most of this is recondite stuff, with daunting commentaries.

Veils for solo piano has the sustain pedal down throughout for "the real music whose heart is in the underlying continous resonance", but it was not self evident that this takes it further than Beethoven in op 31/2 ? Broken Symmetries for flute, clarinet, horn violin and cello, did hold my attention, though hard to say why; Fineberg says, apropos, that "melodies and clearly defined gestures are easier to remember" and create a "nuanced experience for the listener", but I would need others to help me understand how...

Best to sample before purchase.

PGW