DCD34326

Voices for Solo Piano: Smyth | Wallen | Alberga | Beamish | Yi

A pioneer of new concert formats, using music to communicate and bring people together, Hanni Liang was long sceptical about the traditional role of recording in progressing an artist’s career. It was her discovery of Ethel Smyth – both as a composer and as a person and a woman, fighting without compromise – that sparked the inspiration that led to Voices.

In this album she has created a programme that both champions women’s voices that, without the determination of Smyth and others like her, might otherwise have been silent, and allows her to raise her own voice, reflecting both her European birth and upbringing and her Chinese roots.

"Pianist Hanni Liang’s programme unites Ethel Smyth’s music with four fascinating women composer voices of today, introducing this largely unfamiliar repertoire with absolute conviction and interpretative brilliance ... Cwicseolfor is Eleanor Alberga’s most powerful piano piece yet, and Liang plays the living daylights out of it. Indeed, the pianist does full justice to the five women whose works on this disc add up to one of the most unhackneyed, unpredictable, well-constructed, musically diverse and interpretatively gratifying piano releases I’ve encountered ... "



EDITOR'S CHOICE

"There is a lot of Brahms and Schumann in [Ethel Smyth's writing], but also a youthful lightness, in the Finale of the Sonata no.2, which Liang captures delightfully. The wryly-named Variations in D flat major on an Original Theme (of an Exceeding Dismal Nature) – are in fact far from dismal. After a quiet theme the variations have assurance in their development of the material and the piano writing. Liang is good in the stern second variation but the heart of the set is variation V, where she finds an emotional range that is impressive in the young composer ... The Smyth pieces are set against pieces by four living composers. Errollyn Wallen’s brief I Wouldn’t Normally Say is spry and lively, which keeps feeling like it is going to burst into song. Sally Beamish’s Night Dances is unsettled and unsettling at first, the edgy evocation of a mind trying to sleep. The dances of the title are in the middle, wild and jazzy intoxicating. Chen Yi’s appealing Variations on “Awariguli” date from 1978, and are a nod to Liang’s Chinese heritage. The piece is based on a Uyghur folksong, which gives it an added resonance in the light the recent Chinese persecution. But the music has no hint of that, instead traversing a range of western musical styles with facility, including Bachian fugue and Debussyan wash. But perhaps the most arresting piece on the disc is the last, Eleanor Alberga’s Cwicseolfor, the ancient spelling of “quicksilver”. And mercurial it certainly is. By turns spiky, dreamy, liquid and punchy, it’s technically extremely demanding and Liang gives a highly entertaining performance"

This very interesting recording by fine pianist Hanni Liang features works of women composers ... Variations on 'Awariguli' by Chen Yi (born 1953) consists of a theme - an Uyghur folksong - then nine variations and a coda. This was composed in 1978 and first premiered by the composer's sister in Beijing in that year. The composer had discoved this folk song in a collection of Chinese folksongs she studied whilst completing her undergraduate degree. I really love this, and it is probably my favourite work on this disc ... I recommend this album, firstly because of the great musicianship and pianism of Hanni Liang, but also because of her thought in designing an interesting and varied release, the great accompanying notes by Katy Hamilton, the fact that two of the works - those by Sally Beamish and Eleanor Alberga - are premiere recordings, and last but least, the great work of the sound engineer Andreas Neubronner. I was very impressed with this prgramme's originality.

CLASSICAL MUSIC DAILY
read the full review here

"When Tchaikovsky met Ethel Smyth in Leipzig in the 1870s, he was impressed bythe quality of her compositions and fascinated by her eccentricities (her inseparable dog, her passion for hunting and her veneration of Brahms). For pianist Hanni Liang, nearly 150 years later, her first encounter with Smyth, in a book, made an equally strong impression. Not least, her fighting spirit and her voice sparked this unusual recital album ...The Variations in D flat Major on an Original Theme (of an Exceeding Dismal Nature) gives us a second dose of Smyth, though happily neither the theme nor the playing are exceeding dismal. Quite the reverse. And the variation thread continues with Chen Yi's Variations on Awariguli, from the late 1970s. A deliberate nod to Liang's Chinese heritage, she explains in the booklet note, these nine variations are based on a Uyghur folksong - and she plays them with lively characterfulness and authority ... Liang is clearly a thoughtful artist, and it's testament to her powers that a programme so disparate on paper hangs together in
performance. Three contemporary pieces are the golden links in the chain. Errollyn Wallen's I Wouldn't Normally Say swings, dances and bubbles with extrovert energy in Liang's hands, while Sally Beamish's Night Dances oscillates between stillness and tortured anxiety. W Eleanor Alberga's Cwicseolfor-an ancient spelling of quicksilver - is a fascinating finale: elusive, virtuosic, unpredictable"

Release Date: 25 October 2024
Catalogue No: DCD34326

Total playing time: 1:17:77

Recorded on 7-9 November 2023 in Sendesaal Bremen
Producer / Engineer: Andreas Neubronner
24-bit digital editing: Andreas Neubronner
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Piano: Steinway model D, serial no. 597020 (2014)

Booklet editor: Henry Howard
Design: Eliot Garcia
Cover & portrait photography: Esther Haase
Session photography: Will Coates-Gibson/ Foxbrush

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.com

 

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PREVIEW

Errollyn Wallen: I Wouldn't Normally Say

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Hanni performs a movement from Etrhel Smyth's Sonata No.2 during recording sessions in Bremen ...

Album Booklet

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