Shenyang, Tan Dun, Orchestre National de Lyon – Buddha Passion (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:40:07 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Recorded in 2019 at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, this world-premiere recording of Buddha Passion by the renowned and multi-award-winning composer Tan Dun, deserves a thorough listen. This monumental masterpiece features a full choir and orchestra, a diverse array of soloists and indigenous singers, traditional Chinese instruments, and a dancing pipa player. Tan Dan drew inspiration for Buddha Passion’s core themes of compassion, love, and nature from murals found in ancient caves in Dunhuang, China, and transcribed their essence into his composition.
Read more
Eldbjørg Hemsing, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tan Dun – Tan Dun: Fire Ritual (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:37 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The first encounter between Chinese composer Tan Dun and Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing took place in 2010 during the Shanghai World Expo, when Hemsing premièred Tan’s Love Concerto. Both have strong roots in the traditional music of their native countries, and out of this meeting between traditions a fruitful collaboration has developed which also involves an investigation of the music that happens here and now. In Hemsing’s words, the encounter ‘opened up my musical horizons’ and she has since performed a number of the composer’s works involving the violin. Fire Ritual, the concerto that lends its name to the present album, was composed with Hemsing in mind. It exists in a version for violin and Chinese traditional orchestra, as well as the one recorded here, which Hemsing and the Oslo Philharmonic premièred in September 2018, conducted by the composer. For Eldbjørg Hemsing, Tan Dun has also created the concerto that opens the disc, Rhapsody and Fantasia, based on earlier works. Both works reflect the composer’s memories of growing up barefoot in the countryside, and his later experiences of bringing together the shamanistic and spiritual world of his childhood with the discipline and philosophy of Peking Opera. Or in the composers own words: ‘a reflection of those early memories of my youth, but through the lens of my current musical soundscape’.
Read more