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YU Symphony No. 1(11,12). From the Depth4,8,9,10. Octet for Strings6. Sunset in my Homeland7. The Maximum Speed of Raphael's Madonna1,3. Explosion for Piano3. Disintegration for Piano and Electronics3. Two Poems by Ya Hsien3. Breeze2 * 1 Bonnie Chung, 2 Edwin Yu (fl); 3 Donald Yu (pn); 4 Amanda Li (sop); 5 Caleb Woo Wing Ching (bar); 6 Ukraine String Octet; 7 Equinox Trio; 8 Op Hong Kong Ch; 9 Jimmy Chan, cond; 10 Hong Kong CO; 11 Serhij Chernyak, cond; 12 Lugansk Academic Philharmonic * ALBANY 1378 (78:00)
The present CD contains a generous sampling of music by Hong Kong composer and pianist, Dr. Man-Ching Donald Yu, who was born in 1980. As a pianist, Yu made his debut at the age of 16 with the Pan Asia Symphony Orchestra, and eventually earned a B.A. degree from Baylor University. Further musical studies took him to the Internationale Sommerakademie Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, and he completed his education, being awarded a Ph.D. in composition and music theory at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is currently on the faculty of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
The more than 150 compositions in Yu's portfolio range from instrumental, vocal, and chamber pieces to large-scale operatic, choral, and symphonic works. The music on this, the second CD devoted to the composer's music, has been selected to give an overview of the breadth of the genres in which this composer writes. Yu's style, given that the reader likely is (as I was) encountering his name for the first time, forms an arresting and personal intermixing of tonal and atonal languages, with the musical colors and gestures of his native country infiltrating the mix.
Yu's First Symphony (he has written two to date) is a powerful work, and rather dark in timbre, perhaps a cousin to the symphonies of Allan Pettersson. A three-movement work of some 20 minutes' duration, the symphony remains one of its composer's more substantial pieces. The moreor-less atonal language is softened by Yu's use throughout of lyrical melodic elements. The work is cast in a cyclical form wherein motives from each of the movements show up in the others, serving to solidify the structure of the work. The quiet opening flute solo of the second movement...