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Piano Dance - A 20th Century Portrait

Gloria Cheng (piano)
TELARC CD-80549 [72:07]
Crotchet
 

Here's an engaging programme of 23 pieces for piano to entertain and intrigue the ear.

Commencing with the glittering but acerbic Red Ribbon Dance by Joan Huong, powerful and forcefully driven, Cheng moves on to the William Albright's relaxed and slinky music with Sleepwalker's Shuffle from Dream Rags. Then comes another syncopated classic - Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk from Children's Corner.

Cheng demonstrates an impressive technical and expressive capability but always concentrates on making the music dance, concerned with flow and rhythm. The programming is as unorthodox as it is imaginative. For instance, there is a group of three contrasting tangos: Stravinsky's somewhat sombrely introspective Tango; Samuel Barber's tentative and dreamy Hesitation-Tango from Souvenirs; and Per Norgard's strangely accented and slow and deliberate A Tortoise Tango (Without Jealousy).

There are some familiar pieces (by tune if not by name) such as Poulenc's sophisticated and flighty Valse-Improvisations sur le nom de BACH; Ravel's elegant Waltz IV from Valses nobles and sentimentales; and Mompou's colourful Cancion y Danza No. 6. But there are many more, not so well-known that nonetheless captivate the ear like: Paul Hindemith's teasing Shimmy from Suite 1922, Martinu's folkdance-like Polka in E major, Ligetti's quirky, quicksilver Hungarian Rock for harpsichord (Chaccone) in this arrangement for piano and synthesised piano; plus Scriabin's early rather formal Mazurka in D flat major, and George Antheil's wild Percussion Dance from La Femme de 100 Tétes.

An intriguing and entertaining collection

Ian Lace

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