The Leading Classical Music Label Direct To You

Read reviews, listen to the music, and purchase the COMPACT DISC Chu / Liu / Sheng / Xu / Yin / Shi: The Yellow River Piano Concerto - Chinese Works for Piano Solo

Customer Service Toll Free 866.489.4152

Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Narrow your search
with our Music Browser

Classical Music

        Ballet
        Chamber Music
        Choral
        Concertos
        Film Music
        Folk Legends
        Instrumental
        Musicals
        Opera / Operetta
        Orchestral
        Vocal

Jazz

Jazz Contemporary
Jazz Icons

New Age

Wind Band

World

        Ballad
        Bhuddist
        Chinese Music
        Classical (World)
        Early Music (World)
        Folk
        Gamelan
        Gypsy
        Hindustani
        Jazz (World)
        Klezmer
        Sufi
        Vocal (World)
        World

Special Offers:

Sale on select Chandos titles

Sale on select BBC Legends Items

Naxos Classics Clearance Sale

Sale on select Naxos American Classics

Sale on Charles Dickens DVD Box Set

Sale on select box sets

Clearance on Complete Beethoven Edition

Sale on the Jazz Icons Series

Clearance

Penguin Guide

200 Essential Recordings

Recently Released

Upcoming Releases

SACD

DVD

        Ballet DVD
        Classical Concert
        Classical Documentary
        Dance Documentary
        Opera DVD

Audio Books

        Anthologies / Collections
        Arts
        Biographies
        Children's Classics
        Classic Fiction
        Great Epics and Tales
        History
        Junior Classic Fiction
        Junior History
        Literature
        Music Biographies
        Music Education
        Non-Fiction
        Philosophy
        Plays - Others
        Plays - Shakespeare
        Poetry
        Religion
        Samplers
        Sports
        Wine Guide

NaxosDirect Podcasts

Video Librarian Reviews

Labels

Naxos Label

        Naxos American Classics
        Naxos Best Of...
        Naxos Box Sets
        Naxos Cinema Classics
        Naxos Classics
        Naxos DVD
        Naxos DVD-Audio
        Naxos International
        Naxos Jazz
        Naxos Limited Edition
        Naxos Milken Archives
        Naxos Night Music
        Naxos Opera
        Naxos Orchestral
        Naxos Special Release
        Naxos Wind Band Classics
        Naxos World

Composers

Conductors

Ensembles

Orchestras

Choirs

Artists

Instruments

Producers

Chu / Liu / Sheng / Xu / Yin / Shi: The Yellow River Piano Concerto - Chinese Works for Piano Solo

Home

Classical Music

Concertos

Chu / Liu / Sheng / Xu / Yin / Shi: The Yellow River Piano Concerto - Chinese Works for Piano Solo

View large image

$9.99 (COMPACT DISC)

In Stock - Usually ships within 24 hours.

Link to this COMPACT DISC Link to this page

Yellow River Concerto Happy Loso Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon (Cantonese folk song) Seven Short Pieces Based on Inner-Mongolian Folk Songs Four Dances...

Read more about this recording

Yellow River Concerto

Happy Loso

Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon (Cantonese folk song)

Seven Short Pieces Based on Inner-Mongolian Folk Songs

Four Dances from The Mermaid Ballet Suite

Red Lilies Crimson and Bright

Three Variations on an Ancient Chinese Melody

Throughout the long history of China music has occupied an important position, in earlier times not least in its association with ceremonies of ultimate political significance. For the new rulers of China who came to power in 1949, music continued to have a significant r�le to play in society and in political education. This resulted in inevitable limitations and restrictions, while certain acceptable works enjoyed enormous popularity. One of these, the Yellow River Concerto, was based on the famous Yellow River Cantata, a work dating from the period of the Sino-Japanese War. In November 1938, after the fall of Wuhan to the Japanese, the famous poet Guang Weiran (Zhang Guangnian) led the Third Resistance Theatre Troupe eastward across the Yellow River to the centre of anti-Japanese resistance in the Luliang Mountains of Shanxi province.

At the ferry near Hukou (Kettle Mouth), where the waters of the Yellow River flow down from a narrow gorge to form a magnificent waterfall, he listened to the sound of the wind and the waves. When he reached Yanan in January 1939, he wrote the poem sequence Yellow River and recited it at a party on the eve of the Spring Festival. Greatly excited by what he had heard, Xian Xinghai expressed a desire to set the poems to music for the Theatre Troupe. Sheltering in a cave, the composer worked for six days without rest, to finish the vocal work that has come to occupy a leading place in contemporary Chinese music. The cantata was first performed on 13th April the same year and was soon to be heard throughout China as a symbol of resistance.

Xian Xinghai himself was born in Macau in 1905, the son of a fisherman.

After the death of his father he studied in Singapore, supported by his mother, who worked as a laundress at his school. He later returned to study in Canton.

His musical training, which he had started in Beijing, continued at the Shanghai Conservatory and in 1930 in Paris as a pupil of Vincent d'Indy. He returned to China in 1935, to be involved in active resistance against the Japanese. In 1939 he joined the Communist Party and spent the years from 1940 until his death in 1945 in Moscow.

The concerto derived from the Yellow River Cantata was devised by the committee of composers then found advisable for such a task, Yin Chengzong, Liu Zhang, Chu Wanghua, Sheng Lihong, Shi Shucheng and Xu Feisheung. With a solo piano texture recalling the Warsaw Concerto as much as Rachmaninov, the work condenses the cantata, but carries the same heroic message. There are themes representing anger, grace and nostalgia, illustrating various stages in the story of the Yellow River, a symbol of Chinese civilisation, a source of fertility but at the same time a force of nature that offered a certain danger and had to be controlled by human effort. At the opening piano arpeggios represent the waves of the river, leading to a strong and simple melody associated with the boatmen on the river, struggling against the forces of nature. The second movement, introduced by a cello melody, depicts the grandeur of the scenery through which the river passes and the achievement of the Chinese people in several thousand years of civilisation. The third movement opens with a flute solo, in the style of a Shanbei folk-song. The piano introduces the rhythmic Yellow Water melody.

Suddenly the mood changes and the river grows angry, the challenge offered by the Yellow River a counterpart to the challenge offered by a foreign aggressor.

The final movement opens with the patriotic melody Defend the Yellow River, leading to the triumph of The East is Red and the National Song, joining in victory.

The ballet The Mermaid, a work that won almost as much popularity, was written by Du Mingxin and Wu Zuqiang, the former the composer of The Red Detachment of Women. The movement titles from the orchestral suite derived from the ballet are self-explanatory, leading to the customary triumphant conclusion.

The work itself enjoyed considerable popularity and formed part of conventional Chinese repertoire at a time when this was otherwise restricted.

In addition to music that may have some extra-�musical moral to convey, such as Happy Loso in which the old man's happiness is attributable to predictable circumstances, folk-songs, often with words adapted to the new conditions of life, have provided a ready source of material. Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon is based on a Cantonese folk-tune, as are the seven short pieces based on folk-songs from Inner Mongolia and Red Lilies Crimson and Bright. The Three Variations on an Ancient Chinese Melody suggest another thematic source for contemporary reworking, in an idiom that remains thoroughly accessible to the average Chinese listener, a necessary prerequisite.

Keith Anderson

Disc 1

The Yellow River Piano Concerto

(more info)

Performed by: Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Beijing Central Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Li Hong Sheng Fei-sheng Xu Shucheng Shi Wanghua Chu Zhuang Liu Chengzong Yin
Conducted by: Yong-yan Hu Adrian Leaper Delun Li
Xiangdong Kong, piano

Prelude: The Song of the Yellow River Boatmen - 3:32
Ode to the Yellow River - 4:19
The Yellow River in Anger - 6:48
Defend the Yellow River - 6:34

Colourful Clouds (arr. W. Jian-zhong and Y. Cheng-zong)

(more info)

Composed by: Traditional Chengzong Yin
Jianzhong Wang,

Colourful Clouds (arr. Jienzhong Wang, Ying Chenzong) - 2:50

Happy Loso (arr. C. Yin)

(more info)

Composed by: Chengzong Yin

Happy Loso - 1:56

Inner-Mongolian Folk Songs

(more info)

Composed by: Tong Sang Chengzong Yin

Elegy - 3:37
Friendship - 1:00
Nostalgia - 1:05
Grassland Love Song - 1:13
Chidren's Dance - 0:37
Sorrow - 1:38
Dance - 1:11

The Mermaid Ballet Suite

(more info)

Composed by: Cho-Chiang Wu Zuqiang Wu Mingxin Du Chengzong Yin

Ginseng - 2:18
Coral - 1:35
Waterweed - 3:02
Wedding Scene - 1:49

Red Lilies Crimson and Bright (arr. J. Wang)

(more info)

Composed by: Traditional Chengzong Yin
Jianzhong Wang,

Red Lilies Crimson and Bright (arr. Jienzhong Wang) - 4:35

3 Variations on an Ancient Chinese Melody (arr. W. Jian-zhong)

(more info)

Composed by: Traditional Chengzong Yin
Jianzhong Wang,

Three Variations on an Ancient Chinese Melody - 8:21

Reviews

Be the first to review this title

FREE SHIPPING on orders
of 5 items or more!

Earn Naxos Rewards Points by opening an account and buying your favorite music today! Create your account here.

See all of our great site features here.

Composer(s):
Chu, Wanghua; Du, Mingxin; Liu, Zhuang; Sang, Tong; Sheng, Li Hong; Shi, Shucheng; Traditional; Wu, Cho-Chiang; Wu, Zuqiang; Xu, Fei-sheng; Yin, Chengzong

Conductor(s):
Leaper, Adrian

Orchestra(s):
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Artist(s):
Wang, Jianzhong

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 636943449929
Item Number: 8554499
Release Date: Sep 1, 1999