With so many downloading options available these days, CD sales have slumped, and many stores (in central Taipei, at least) have closed. But CDs are still being issued, so we will continue to review them, albeit only from time to time.
Few things could be more worthy of notice than a new CD from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel. He has himself gone on to graze new pastures, but it is wonderful to see that he retains his connection with the youth orchestra he so sensationally led to international fame, and still returns home to record with it.
This new live CD contains Stravinsky’s famous Rite of Spring and a companion piece by a less well-known South American composer, Silvestre Revueltas’ La Noce de los Mayas (Night of the Maya). It should be said at once that the second is by far the more enjoyable work, and it’s as if Dudamel and Deutsche Grammophon decided to pair it with the Stravinsky item simply to attract potential customers already familiar with the earlier and pioneering ballet score. But what Dudamel clearly really wanted to do was use his celebrity to give exposure on the world stage to a homegrown product, and this he very successfully does.
The Mexican composer Revueltas originally wrote this piece as a film score, but here it amply justifies itself as an orchestral work in its own right. Dudamel’s natural exuberance has found a very fitting vehicle, and the CD is worth acquiring for this work alone.
Beijing-born Yuja Wang (王羽佳) gave two concerts in Taiwan (one in Hsinchu, one in Taipei) in June, and her debut CD might provide a fitting memory of those occasions for some patrons. It contains renditions of Chopin and Scriabin (their second piano sonatas in both cases), Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor, and two works by Gyorgy Ligeti, his fourth and 10th etudes. In accord with Wang’s reputation, this is rather a daunting selection, with no concessions whatsoever to popular taste. Her recently issued second CD, entitled Transformations and containing items by Stravinsky, Brahms, Scarlatti and Ravel, should prove more accessible, but we have yet to hear it.
The San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Mahler’s gigantic choral Symphony No. 8, plus the Adagio from his uncompleted Symphony No. 10, both conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, provides powerful versions of both works, part of Tilson Thomas’ project of recording all Mahler’s symphonies. Local forces are everywhere in evidence, with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Pacific Boychoir and the San Francisco Girls Chorus all contributing to the massive undertaking.
I personally find the Adagio from the 10th Symphony rather depressing, but the 8th Symphony as performed here on this two-disc set is stupendous. Some people find Mahler’s attempt to outdo everything else that had ever been composed before, with organ, three choirs, and texts from the Medieval hymn Veni Creator Spiritus and Goethe’s Faust, too much to take. But if you want an enthusiastic rendition that feels totally committed to the venture, this could well be the recording to suit your needs. San Francisco is a place for optimism and hope like few others, after all.
Tilson Thomas has been trying to get this symphony right for several years, and now seems to have succeeded. Everything comes together here, and though some will still prefer the Bernstein or Solti versions, this new one is worthy of comparison with them and is a very welcome addition to the catalog. The performance is everywhere dynamic, with the sound quality crystal clear throughout, needless to say. All in all, these two CDs are the finest of all the items reviewed here this month.
Lastly, Richard Stoltzman’s recordings of Mozart’s two celebrated late works for clarinet, the Clarinet Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet. They were made in 1991, but have just been re-released on the budget RCA Red Seal label. So how do they sound, and how do they compare with the very famous older recordings of Jack Brymer from the 1960s?
By and large these are fine issues. Stoltzman’s origins were in jazz, but he plays these works with strength and grace, adding appropriate authentic period-style “decoration” here and there, but never too much. The recording quality is excellent, and if the Brymer versions (and he made three attempts at the concerto) still have the edge, it’s hard to say exactly why. There’s something in the simplicity of Brymer’s approach that is inexpressibly moving. But these Stoltzman versions, with the English Chamber Orchestra and the Tokyo String Quartet, rate at least eight out of 10, with the old Brymer recordings worth perhaps the maximum 10 out of 10.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby