It is not clear what took
Sony Classical five years to issue these performances, recorded by violinist
Joshua Bell and the
Singapore Chinese Orchestra in 2018. Having had it in the can, it would have made ideal pandemic-era listening. However, better is certainly late than never, and the recording is a real find. It made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. Most musical fusions have one tradition or the other at the core, but in this one, the trips between Western and Chinese are so numerous that one loses track. The
Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto was written in 1959 in good Communist fashion by multiple composers. It was for violin and Western orchestra, based on a tragic Chinese legend about two lovers who turn into butterflies after they achieve burial together; its seven movements are vividly programmatic in nature. The work was intended to introduce Chinese music to the West in a listener-friendly way. Several other Western violinists have played the work, but the treatment here is new; the concerto is arranged for a large Chinese orchestra, the
Singapore Chinese Orchestra, conducted by
Tsung Yeh. Then again, this orchestra itself has Western components; the string section is undergirded by cellos and basses, and the percussion section also contains Western instruments. Above this hybrid apparatus soars
Bell, who seems energized by the whole project and does a masterful job of sounding just slightly Chinese; he does not overdo the erhu-like slides that are a staple of earlier, less-sophisticated Chinese-Western fusions but just alters his intonation a bit. There are three Western encores played by this same ensemble; all have their virtues, but
Sarasate's
Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20, a fusion of a different kind, is a standout. The live sound from Singapore's Esplanade Hall is excellent -- clean and unmarred by extraneous noise. ~ James Manheim
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