SHENG CAI PLAYS GRIEG

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

The Canadian label Atma Classique has just released an album available both as a CD and digitally of the pianist Sheng Cai playing music for the piano by Edvard Grieg.

The finely engineered and produced project includes the rarely heard Piano Sonata, Op. 7, a youthful work composed when Grieg was 22 years old, and the still rarely heard Ballade, Op. 24, an interesting composition structured as a theme and variations.

Sheng Cai’s pianistic technique and protean interpretive gifts more than equip him to tackle the large cornerstones of Grieg’s repertoire for the piano, but it is especially in the Scenes of a Country Life, Op. 19 and in the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 that he demonstrates the kind of sensitivity and lightness of touch that makes for a perfect interpretation of Morning Mood and The Death of Ase.

In the livelier Anitra’s Dance and in the dramatic In the Hall of the Mountain King, Sheng Cai evidences his flair for the theatrical, reminding us that these pieces were part of the incidental music for the Henrik Ibsen play Peer Gynt.

In the three miniatures Scenes of Country Life the genius of the composer attains the goal of elevating the folk-inspired to inspiring concert music: In the mountains, Bridal Procession, and From the Carnival are as those in the Peer Gynt Suite – little gems imprinted with Grieg’s hallmark qualities: brevity, economy of means, and a flawless balance of Nordic restraint and sentiment.

Throughout the recording Sheng Cai, a welcome and notable artist proves to be the ideal interpreter of this music: elegant, assured, inspired, judicious in his choice of tempi, nuanced in his dynamics, devoid of any of the superficial flashiness that plagues so many soloists today.

Rafael de Acha     ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”