reviewvancouver: Early Music Vancouver - Summer Festival 2025 - Silk_Stings

Fiery and spiky with sharp edges and brilliant flashes, Edward Top’s “Farewell Songs”, was full of emotional intensity. Snatches of Chinese folk tunes and an orchestra composed of instruments from both European and Chinese traditions epitomized EMV’s opening concert which brought together East and West, old and new.

“Farewell Songs” sets three Tang Dynasty (618-907) poems in free translation by the composer. Intense and immediate music built an astonishingly rich texture under the allusive and elegant lines of the poems. Mezzo-Soprano Emma Parkinson soared over all while Lan Tung’s recitation of the original Chinese verses grounded the piece.

Lan Tung’s arrangement of “Hujia”, an even earlier Chinese text by Cai Wenji, was as richly textured and beautifully structured as the “Farewell Songs”, but filled with grief. Lady Cai was a noble Han woman, a well-known poet captured by enemy forces and held captive for many years until she was ransomed. The poem tells of her journey home, glad to be going home, but despairing at the loss of her children who remained behind. Lan Tung’s captured all the ambivalence and anguish inherent in the poem

The amalgam of artists from distinct traditions was a delight and an education to hear. The combinations were often surprising and satisfying at the same time. The affinities between the harpsichord and the Zheng (Dailin Hsieh) were delicately exposed, suona (Zhongxi Wu) and sackbut more strongly enforced. The breathtaking playing of Zhongxi Wu was also heard on the remarkable sheng, an instrument without a match in the western orchestra. The virtuosa on the erhu, Lan Tung and Jun Rong, created a ferocious intensity at times and elsewhere elegiac longing. Percussionist Gregory Samek seemed to have an entire world orchestra at his command, so many instruments were around him, with a range of emotion from the shimmering to the powerful, from the enormous to the delicate.

Leaping ahead several centuries for textual inspiration and reversing several centuries for composition theory and performance practice, “Variations on Unter der Linden Grune”, fits completely into the traditional “Early Music” slot, but also links to the Asian theme. In the 17th century, two travelling Dutchmen gave a performance on harpsichord and trumpet.at the Chinese imperial court. What they played is not recorded but perhaps something well known in Europe such as this. The title poem is medieval, the themes are taken from English folk song and the variations are by two of the more famous 17th century musicians, Sweelinck and van Eyck. They demand clarity and virtuosity, both on display here from harpsichord (Christina Hutten) and sackbut (Jeremy Berkman).

Also connected to the Imperial court is the Papal missionary, Teodorico Pedrini. Besides his clerical duties he taught, composed and managed the court collection of western instruments and music. His manuscripts still exist in the National Library in Beijing, among them tonight’s "Sonata in G minor", by Corelli as embellished by Pedrini. It was delightfully played, Majka Demcak flying through passages and ornaments with apparent ease.

Prefacing the Corelli, Dorothy Chang’s "That Bare Light" referred back to Edward Top’s piece, though here the selected texts were by living Canadian poets, all women. Reflective poems on nature, loneliness and resilience, they mirrored the Tang poems. Writing for Chinese instruments and Baroque instruments together presents many technical challenges in tuning, style and affect. Chang married these diverse influences into a gorgeous, lyrical whole highlighted by the sensitive and expressive voice of Emma Parkinson.

Lastly came two remarkable pieces by Lan Tung, "Phoenix Mountain", again a traditional piece arranged by Lan Tung, and her own original composition "Sound of Dragon." Thickly textured, rich and allusive they were a fitting end to this cross-cultural, globe-trotting, time-travelling concert.