henyang-born pianist Lang Lang, still only 21, seemingly can do no wrong. Some even call him a new Glenn Gould. This double CD is a live recording of his sell-out debut at New York'ss Carnegie Hall last November, something that's a virtual rite of passage for pianists of world stature. He offers a wide range of material including Tan Dun's first composition, Eight Memories in Watercolor and a track featuring his father playing the Chinese erhu. His performance of Liszt's vertiginous Reminiscences of Mozart's Don Giovanni (the first track on CD2) gets a particularly wild ovation. A DVD of this same event will be released in August. Lang Lang will give a single concert in Taipei on May 9.
his Super Audio Compact Disc, offered as a remonstration of six-channel recording, including a sub-woofer channel, also delivers superbly vivid sound reproduction on ordinary CD systems. It contains tracks from 14 previously-released CDs ranging from the Baroque composer Heinz Ignaz France Biber, via Dvorak and Mahler, to modernist Olivier Messiaen. Try track 10, from Mahler's Resurrection Symphony under businessman-conductor Gilbert Kaplan, if you need convincing. A Chopin piano track from Ashkenazy sounds not only as if you're in the same room, but squatting under the
piano lid. The CD also serves as a convenient sampler for some recent items from Universal Music's catalogues.
here's just room to mention the re-release on EMI's Great Recordings of the Century label of this 1969 version of Jules Massenet's romantic opera, long valued for Victoria de los Angeles' tender performance as the heroine Charlotte. The sound is remarkably good for its era.
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