Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

[Peter1953]

Some 10 years ago I heard this violin concerto by Ho Zhan Hao and Chen Kang, played by Vanessa Mae with the LPO conducted by Viktor Fedotov, for the first time. I thought it was a very charming work, so I bought the CD “China Girl” (EMI Classical).

Is it a concerto in the western classical tradition? I think so, but definitely with some typical Chinese themes. It is a curious work, and I’m very interested to learn your opinion.

[Hovite]

I have it on a Marco Polo disc. I can't remember a note of it, though I seem to remember that I bought it after reading good reviews, but then found it disappointing. I see from the notes that the concerto is supposed to tell a traditional story about a pair of lovers who become butterflies.

[John H White]

I found the Naxos CD of that work quite charming if not earth shattering. I wonder what happened to those two young composers later on in life, did they go on to write anything else as successful as that concerto?

[fuhred]

Chen Gang wrote another violin concerto called 'Wang Zhao-jun' and has been recorded by Takako Nishizaki on Marco Polo (8.223908), it is a 35-minute work in one movement. While it is not quite as good as the Butterfly Lovers concerto, it is still very nice.

NOTE: You haven't heard the Butterfly Lovers concerto properly until you hear Takako Nishizaki's FIRST recording from 1978 with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra! It is much better than any of her successive recordings by a long margin. Vanessa-Mae's EMI recording is VERY ordinary in comparison.

[eschiss1]

Wang Xilin (Xi-Lin)  (born 1937) wrote a violin concerto in B (two versions - op.29, 1995; op.39 revised, 2000) that I've heard (I'm not sure which version it is I've heard- probably the former.) (see Wikipedia.)

I don't know how widely distributed the recording is. It's somewhere between late-Romantic attitude/etc. and very good film music - more the former, I think- in general overall effect I think, or so is my impression after a few hearings. I hope someone will take it up, perform it more widely, though, I remember it that well- maybe it's somewhere in my collection, I'll see if I can find it and hear it again.

[fyrexia]

For those if interested in chinese violin concertos. I have a lot on my youtube channel.
Vcs by Huang An Lun, Hsiao Tyzen, Hu Hai Lin, Zhang Li da.

Tony