ZHOU LONG (b.1953): Secluded Orchid and Spirit of Chimes for Piano Trio, Taiping Drum and Partita for Violin and Piano, Wu Kui for Piano.

Description: A remarkably cohesive synthesis of traditional styles and western concert tradition, sounding both authentically Chinese (even when played exclusively on western instruments, as here) and a legitimate contribution to western contemporary music. The strings are frequently required to play extended passages in harmonics and to introduce gliding inflections and microtonal intervals, suggesting the sounds of Chinese instruments (including very early bone flutes, drums and stringed instruments quite unlike modern violins and cellos). Some extended techniques - percussive and harp-like contact with the strings - are also to be found in the piano part. Scales and harmonies often suggest far-Eastern modes, and melodic contours are often clearly of this type, though the composer is too well versed in the music of his own background, and too skilled in idiomatic expression through the western concert medium ever to indulge in picture-postcard Chinoiserie, though this is not to deny the ready approachability of the lively Wu Kui (a folk dance) or the melodic approachability and rhythmic vitality of Taiping Drum for instance. A very appealing and sophisticated kind of 'world music', which completely avoids the rather uneasy forced relationships frequently implied by that term. Cho-Liang Lin (violin), Hai-Ye Ni (cello), Helen Huang (piano).