DEQING WEN (b.1958): Shanghai Prelude for Cello and Orchestra, The Fantasia of Peony Pavilion, Variation of a Rose, Nostalgia, Love Song and River Chant.

Description: Wen draws much inspiration from traditional Chinese arts, poetry and philosophy, though the actual Chinese material in these works is mostly limited to basic thematic pitch groups and in two cases folksongs used as the basis for subtle, sophisticated variations. The working of the material is mostly in a richly colorful western style, opulently orchestrated, with a persistent sense of pentatonic scales and some vaguely ritualistic percussion gestures and instrumental timbres hinting at Chinese theatre. But the cosmopolitan portrait of Shanghai draws as much on Baroque idioms and an accessible modern western idiom as anything explicitly eastern, and the sonorous soundscapes of the Fantasia are dramatically effective without imitating Chinese opera. Bruno Weinmeister (cello), ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; Gottfried Rabl.