{"id":10798,"date":"2018-08-22T14:48:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T21:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=10798"},"modified":"2018-08-24T11:24:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T18:24:15","slug":"recent-albums-a-mixed-recital-by-tengyue-zhang-creative-arrangements-from-rossini-hayward-and-petri-kumela-plays-sor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/recent-albums-a-mixed-recital-by-tengyue-zhang-creative-arrangements-from-rossini-hayward-and-petri-kumela-plays-sor\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Albums: A Mixed Recital by Tengyue Zhang, Creative Arrangements from Rossini Hayward, and Petri Kumela Plays Sor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some weeks we take a peek at recent albums or sheet music releases. Here are three of the CDs that have come into the\u00a0Classical Guitar<\/em>\u00a0office recently.<\/p>\n

If you have a CD you\u2019d like to submit to us, here\u2019s our address:<\/p>\n

Classical Guitar
\n501 Canal Blvd. suite J
\nRichmond, CA 94804-3505<\/p>\n

Some of the albums I write about online will be reviewed in the magazine, some not. But we want to at least mention most of them here. You can listen to some of these on various of streaming services, but we always encourage you to support the artists by actually\u00a0buying<\/em>\u00a0anything you like! Obviously we cannot research and report every outlet or online business where these albums are sold (Amazon, for instance, has outlets in many different countries\/regions, but we generally link to the U.S. version), so check your favorite places that sell CDs and downloads!<\/p>\n

To see links to all of our online album listings\/reviews, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Blair Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGuitar Recital<\/strong><\/em>
\n Tengyue Zhang<\/strong>
\n(Naxos)<\/p>\n

2017 Guitar Foundation of America ICAC winner Tengyue Zhang\u00a0<\/a> (a.k.a. “TY”) is definitely one of the most talented young players I’ve come across during my nearly four years as editor of Classical Guitar<\/em>. I don’t usually like to apply the adjective “effortless” to guitar playing\u2014<\/em>because even at the highest levels it is anything but!\u2014<\/em>however, every time I hear TY play, I’m struck by the extraordinary level of comfort and ease that his total mastery of his program communicates. And that is true on this Guitar Recital<\/em> album, one of the fruits of his victory at GFA, expertly recorded, as always, by Naxos’ Norbert Kraft. Though TY trods mostly familiar and fairly popular ground in his selections, these are hardly easy pieces (to say the least!), and he manages to imbue every single work with tremendous personality, power,\u00a0and<\/em> nuance. He handles the trills and the tricky counterpoint of the Scarlatti sonata (which he arranged) as if it was made to be played on the guitar; his Chaconne (again, his own arrangement) digs deeply into its drama, its shadows, and its contrasts to reveal some new colorations; and the Tansman Variations are so beautiful and heartfelt. Likewise the two Goya Caprichos<\/em>, which really show the singing<\/em> musicality of his left-hand fingering. I was fortunate to be able to see TY play Brouwer’s Rito de los Orishas<\/em> for the composer himself at a master class at this year GFA in Louisville, and was blown away\u2014<\/em>as was a nearly giddy Brouwer, whose notes on the performance were littered with the word “perfecto!” His version of the piece on this album would surely merit the same descriptor from the Maestro. The album closes with another modern masterwork, S\u00e9rgio Assad’s three-movement Aquarelle<\/em>, a complex, multi-layered piece that traverses everything from graceful Romantic melodies to Brazilian folk and jazz styles to brash modern interjections; and the “Valeseana” is surely one of the contemporary guitar canon’s prettiest works.<\/p>\n

I know it’s only August, but this album is certain to be on my Top 10 list at year’s end; what a fantastic way to spend 63 minutes!<\/p>\n

Keyboard Sonata in D major, K53<\/em> (Scarlatti); Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004\u00a0<\/em>(J.S. Bach); Variations on a Theme by Scriabin<\/em> (Tansman); 24 Caprichos de Goya, Op. 195\u2014XII No hubo remedio, XVIII El sue\u00f1o de la raz\u00f3n produce monstruos<\/em> (Castelnuovo-Tedesco); Rito de los Orishas\u2014 I Exordium: Conjuro, II Danza de las diosas negras<\/em> (Brouwer); Aquarelle (I\u2013III)<\/em> (S. Assad)<\/p>\n

The album can be streamed and purchased through Naxos<\/a>, Amazon<\/a>, and iTunes\/Apple Music<\/a>, and streamed on Spotify<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n