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http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/special/?ID=langlang-dragonsongs

A CD Album with Chinese piano solo, chamber, and orchestral music and a DVD documentary.

Here's the track list:

• Lang Lang - “Dragon Songs"
  
  Yellow River Piano Concerto (huanghe gangqin xiezouqu) Klavierkonzert vom Gelben Fluss · Concerto pour piano du Fleuve jaune
  based on the Yellow River Cantata (huanghe dahechang, 1939) by Xian Xinghai (1905-1945)
  arr. 1969 by Yin Chengzong, Chu Wanghua, Liu Zhang & Sheng Lihong (Central Philharmonic Society)
  
  Track 1 1. Prelude: The Song of the Yellow River Boatmen [3'30]
  Track 2 2. Ode to the Yellow River [3'43]
  Track 3 3. The Yellow River in Wrath [7'20]
  Track 4 4. Defend the Yellow River [6'11]
  
  
  Lang Lang, piano
  China Philharmonic Orchestra
  Chen Shasha, Chinese flute · Wu Yuxia, pipa (lute)
  Long Yu, conductor
  
  
  Track 5 Lü Wencheng (1898-1981)
  arr. Chen Peixun (*1921)
  Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake (pinghu qiuyue)
  Herbstmond über dem See · Lune d'automne sur le lac
  [4'08]
  
  Track 6 He LuTing (1903-1999)
  The Cowherd's Flute (mutong duandi)
  Hirtenflöte · Flûte de berger
  [2'47]
  
  Track 7 Traditional
  arr. Huang Anlun (*1949)
  Dialogue in Song (dui hua)
  Wechselgesang · Chant alterné
  [2'35]
  
  Track 8 Sun Yiqiang (*c.1945)
  Dance of Spring (chunwu)
  Frühlingstanz · Danse printanière
  [5'15]
  
  Track 9 Du Minxin (*1928)
  arr. Wu Zuqiang (*1927)
  Straw Hat Dance (caomao huawu)
  Schilfhut-Tanz · Danse du chapeau de roseau[5'15]
  
  Track 10 Deng Yuxian (1906-1944)
  arr. Xiao Tairan (*1938)
  Spring Wind (wang chunfeng)
  Frühlingswind · Vent printanière
  [2'03]
  
  Track 11 Zhu Jianer (*1922)
  arr. Chu Wanghua (*1941)
  Happy Times (fanshen de rizi)
  Glückliche Zeiten · Temps heureux
  [1'37]
  
  
  Lang Lang, piano
  
  
  Track 12 Traditional
  arr. Wu Zuqiang (*1927)
  Spring flowers in the Moonlit Night on the River (chun jiang hua yue ye)
  Frühlingsblumen in der Mondnacht am Fluss
  Fleurs de printemps sur le ruisseau au claire de lune
  [7'29]
  
  
  Fan Wei, pipa (lute)
  Lang Lang, piano
  
  
  Track 13 Zhao Jiping (*1945)
  Dance from Qiuci (qiuci wu)
  5th movement from the “Silk Road" Suite (sichou zhi lu)
  Tanz aus Qiuci · Danse de Qiuci
  [5'14]
  
  
  Zhang Jiali, guanzi (double-reed pipe)
  Lang Lang, piano
  
  
  Track 14 Wang Jianmin (*1956)
  At Night on the Lake Beneath the Maple Bridge (fengqiao ye po)
  Bei Nacht auf dem See unter der Ahornbrücke · Nuit sur le lac sous le pont d'érable
  [9'06]
  
  
  Ji Wei, guzheng (zither)
  Lang Lang, piano

And again, the cover looks quite funny :


Any comments?
*Prepares for 5 pages of spam* :p

PS: It's about this album, not about your opinion about Lang Lang.

I'm only interested to hear LL's Yellow River Concerto. I'd like to hear how his playing compares with other versions I have...

As to the other Chinese repertoir Marco Polo, BIS and more recently Naxos all have recorded something here and there. I'm familiar with most of them even though I find little interest in the music itself.

I am definitely looking forward to his interpretation of the Yellow River Concerto. So far, I'm not fond of the recordings of that concerto (by Yin Chengzong, etc.) because of the horrible strident quality of the tones of the pianos they used to record it. The others pieces...I don't know. Let's see.

LOL I didn't know what the Yellow River Concerto was, but when I heard an exerpt, I immediately knew it. The theme, simplified of course, is one of the first pieces I learnt (just 8 bars or something, very easy version).

I will be buying this - I am all for unique albums of music like this regardless of who is playing it!

Me too, this is unique .

WOW! I hope this comes to iTunes! I like Chinese music.

My friend will bring me the CD from China next month, I've already had one 'yellow river' played by Yin Chengzhong, now I want to hear LangLang plays it, I can't wait!

Does anyone know if the score for this concerto is readily available in the US? If so, who publishes it?

I am looking for the sheet music for

Track 9 Du Minxin (*1928)
arr. Wu Zuqiang (*1927)
Straw Hat Dance (caomao huawu)
Schilfhut-Tanz · Danse du chapeau de roseau[5'15]

I respect Lang Lang for his qualities, of course there are flaws in his playing, but he does some fantastic things too.
I'm not the biggest fan of his, but as I said I respect some of the things he does.

A dead thread resurrected? Anyway, this is a duo-disc packet. It contains an audio-CD and a DVD documentary plus all the CD-track music in video. The Yellow River Piano Concerto on the DVD is a circus act item to me. It's performed in a giant stadium with LL BBing on the Pearl River concert grand accompanied by four orchestras. On each side of LL's concert grand there are additional 50 young girl pianists playing chords on 50 more baby grands. Yes, altogether 101 pianos.

There's an excerpt here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4UFvJogDRkc

(Though you have to first sit through 3~4 minutes of BS before it gets to the concerto performance. Hat tip to daifanshi .)

[EDIT:

OK... I YouTube'd that performance, and I agree with your assessment. I like the excerpt I linked to much better.]

I'm not sure what's wrong with that....

Anyway, it was brought up again because someone's looking for sheet music.

Here's a second request for the sheet music to the Chinese pieces. If anybody can point to where they can be found/purchased, it would be much appreciated.

This is definitely one of Lang Lang's better recordings in my opinion. Its much better then his beethoven concerto recordings he came out with.

Track 10 Spring Wind, one of the few pieces in the album that I don't find strangely strident, is the #1 "quasi" folk song from Taiwan (which explains why LL never performs it in concert). You need something more to put it in context to appreciate it ... I found this partial "quasi" translation (it's really a song about *** awakening :-):

" ......
Spring's breeze caressing my face, I sit alone by the lamp.
It's the guy I saw today, in my mind.
Flushed and speechless I let him pass by.
Don't know who he is, because I was shy.
......"

Track 11 Happy Times, which LL was so fond of performing, didn't he sound careless and skip a beat? One of my least favorit piece.

Found track 6 - Cowherd Flute

http://www.gangqinpu.com/fullread.asp?pages=0&id=2170

See also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e601y9Oc2u0

Can't find this piece. However, Du MinXin's other three pieces (from the same "Mermaid" series, of which "caomao huawu" is the 4th) can be found here:

http://www.cpiano.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?BoardID=145&ID=87131

(The first three pieces "Coral Dance", "Water Plant Dance", "Wedding Dance", are more popular than the rest. You may want to take a look.)

Quoting AndrewG:

"The Yellow River Piano Concerto on the DVD is a circus act item to me. It's performed in a giant stadium with LL BBing on the Pearl River concert grand accompanied by four orchestras. On each side of LL's concert grand there are additional 50 young girl pianists playing chords on 50 more baby grands. Yes, altogether 101 pianos."

Beats 76 trombones.

Tomasino