The Butterfly Lovers & The Yellow River Piano Concertos Naxos 8.570607

• Composers: Gang Chen, Wanghua Chu, Zhanhao He, Zhuang Liu, Li Hong Sheng, Shucheng Shi, Fei-sheng Xu, Chengzong Yin
• Arranger: Gang Chen
• Conductor: Carolyn Kuan
• Orchestra: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
• Artist: Jie Chen

The Yellow River Concerto is one of the most popular of all Chinese works, a richly melodic exploration of scenic variety, and a forceful expression of patriotic pride. Written in 1958 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto has achieved world renown for its moving and beautiful synthesis of Western and Eastern traditions. In 1985 Chen Gang made an arrangement for piano and orchestra, played on this recording in the edition by the brilliant international soloist Chen Jie.

The Butterfly Lovers & The Yellow River Piano Concertos Review

Butterfly Lovers has become China’s most popular classical violin concerto, a fact much helped by the performances of the Naxos violinist, Takako Nishizaki. Chen Gang was to later make a version for piano and orchestra, now edited by the disc’s soloist, Chen Jie. The romantic story is of two lovers who become separated, one of them dying and the other jumping into his grave from where they emerge as two butterflies, now united for ever. Using Western classical music as it’s basis, it uses Chinese melodies that would have pleased the Communist leadership of the time. Whether this version is equal to the beauty and singing quality of the violin is a matter of personal taste, the general texture of the piano writing leaning towards Tchaikovsky in the big gestures. But as easy listening it makes a pleasing work. The first three movements of The Yellow River Concerto is much from the same mould, the Chinese ‘committee’ of composers sketching the various moods of the river from its placid flowing moments to the anger of its passing in the third movement. The rather sentimental second movement comes straight from Hollywood, but as light entertainment it is very pleasing. Then comes the fourth movement, Defend the Yellow River, where we move to politically correct music, its closing triumph of the people joining in victory. For the soloist the work has some very effective writing taking Rachmaninov as its starting point, at times calling for a degree of virtuosity. The American trained multi-award-winning Chinese pianist, Chen Jie, has all the firepower for the big moments, and the New Zealand orchestra, with Carolyn Kuan conducting, offer a powerful and atmospheric backdrop with ample patriotic pomp in The Yellow River finale… David Denton – David's Review Cor­ner