LIANG A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Lei Liang
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: BMOP Sound
Magazine Review Date: 06/2019
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 57
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 1061

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams |
Lei Liang, Composer
Boston Modern Orchestra Project Gil Rose, Conductor Lei Liang, Composer |
Five Seasons |
Lei Liang, Composer
Boston Modern Orchestra Project Chien-Kwan Lin, Alto saxophone Gil Rose, Conductor Lei Liang, Composer |
Xiaoxiang |
Lei Liang, Composer
Boston Modern Orchestra Project Gao Hong, Pipa Gil Rose, Conductor Lei Liang, Composer |
Author: Guy Rickards
Liang thinks of himself as a painter in sound and refers to his use of a ‘sonic brush’. His idiom is a fusion of Chinese and Western – if not exactly tonally based, still rooted in appealing euphony. This is most evident in the two companion (and longer) works. Five Seasons originated in 2010 as a quintet for pipa – the Chinese lute – and string quartet but the composer arranged its five movements (‘Dew-Drop’; ‘Water Play’; ‘Cicada Chorus’; ‘Leaves-Fall’; ‘Drumming’) for string orchestra in 2014. The concerto also nods in expression to the five elements – wood, fire, metal, water and earth – colouring the textures in each movement.
In A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams (written in 2017 specifically for BMOP) Liang’s tonal and textural palettes become ever more exquisite, ranging from sonorities at the edge of silence in ‘Healing Rain Drops’ to full-orchestral might describing the shredding of landscapes. Liang’s Chinese-inflected sound world is never less than fascinating and always deeply involving. The BMOP navigate their way through his precisely calculated sonorities with aplomb and accuracy. The engineering copes with the extremes of the dynamic range superbly.
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