CHEN Yi (b. 1953)
KC Capriccio, for wind ensemble and mixed chorus [4:10]
Suite for Cello & Chamber Winds [18:46]
Woodwind Quintet [15:50]
Feng [11:04]
Tu (version for wind ensemble) [10:49]
Carter Enyeart (cello)
Lubbock Chorale
Texas Tech University Symphonic Wind Ensemble/Sarah
McKoin
Rec. 2006, Hemmle Recital Hall, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA
NAXOS 8.572838 [53:45]
Chinese American composer Chen Yi is a well-established figure with a very long worklist in all recital and concert genres, and the recipient of various awards and honours. She marries the sounds of the East with those of her adopted West (she has lived in the USA since 1987). This valuable Naxos collection brings together a group of world première recordings of some of her wind band music.
The KC Capriccio was written for the 150th anniversary of Kansas City, and is based on a tune Chen first heard in that city. It makes a very lively opening to this disc, combining brass and drums with a wordless chorus deploying the “wild singing sound” of Asian folk choral music (as we learn from the fine booklet notes, written by the composer and the disc’s conductor, Sarah McKoin).
It is followed by the main work here, the Suite for Cello and Chamber Winds, a re-scoring of an earlier version for solo cello and string quartet. Here Chen deploys folk-tunes and recalls the effects of Chinese percussion, stringed, and wind instruments (also helpfully described in the notes). It seems odd to imagine it had purely string origins, as it sounds as if it must have been written initially with these more exotic sounds in mind. The four movements are titled after the Chinese instruments, but use familiar Western winds and brass to evoke the articulation and harmonic effects associated with the oriental ones. To the usual wind quintet of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, the suite adds trumpet, trombone and percussion.
The solo cello launches the work with a long solo and dominates the first movement, and is at times primus inter pares as much as virtuoso soloist in a concerto, as the work’s designation as a suite implies. There is often a lyrical vein to the cello writing as we might expect, albeit in a voice which, like the composer’s own, dwells somewhere between east and west, especially in the pentatonic pizzicato parts of the second and third movements (the latter plus glissandi). It is all very engaging, and engagingly performed by cellist Carter Enyeart, very full in tone and with sweetness and precision throughout the compass. The world is hardly so full of great concertante works for cello that there is not room for more performances of this one.
Chen’s Wind Quintet of 1987 was her first, and inspired by the booming tide of Chaoyin Cave in Southeastern China, but also by “the dull chanting from the Buddhist monastery, reciting tunes played on a Xiao, a Chinese traditional woodwind instrument, and the rude primitive roaring of a Changjiang, a Tibetan low-range wind instrument”. Which is a lot to fit in to a piece less than four minutes long, especially as there are several pregnant silences to accommodate as well (wind players need to breathe). Yet it makes an impression of a weightier work than its brevity led one to expect. In contrast Feng (the Chinese character for wind or the winds) has two longer movements, the second with the Western designation of Rondo. It aims to “sound the Eastern feeling of the winds”, and some flatulent low horn notes, as well as some loud whooping from the same instrument, will make you turn up your coat collar.
The last work on the CD is Tu (the Chinese character which can be associated with “burning, poison or fire”), which is dedicated to the victims of 9/11 in New York. It begins with angry outbursts, then eerie stillness follows before a shrill clarinet wails at the loss. It has a prominent part for harp and for double saxophone quartet - this large wind ensemble version is a revision of an initial orchestral version. It is not a comfortable listen, but an intense eleven minutes that holds the listener as the footage of the twin towers once did the viewer. A well performed and recorded disc that began in celebration ends in tragedy.
Roy Westbrook
