{"id":337,"date":"2018-02-15T17:30:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T17:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=337"},"modified":"2018-02-15T18:05:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T18:05:38","slug":"martin-widden-the-man-the-musicians-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/02\/15\/martin-widden-the-man-the-musicians-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘THE MAN THE MUSICIANS FEAR’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review: Xue Fei Yang plays classical guitar<\/span><\/p>\n

In her solo recital in the Great Hall on 8 February, the Chinese guitar virtuoso Xue Fei Yang chose a programme that gave her ample scope to demonstrate a wide range of techniques of playing the instrument. The earliest composition on the programme was the Suite in G minor for lute BWV995, by J S Bach – transcribed by the composer from his suite no 5 for solo cello, written around 1723. Bach’s transcription of his own suite succeeds very well on the guitar, even though the technique of sound production on a guitar or a lute – plucking the string, essentially – is completely different from that of playing the cello, in which a bow is nearly always used and legato can be achieved. Xue Fei Yang drew a remarkable variety of tone from her instrument, plucking the strings sometimes with her finger nails, sometimes with the flesh of her fingertips, and sometimes with a combination. As well as a slow and contemplative sarabande, the suite includes several faster dance movements: two gavottes, and a gigue as the final movement, which were played most fluently. Although Bach’s cello suites are written mostly for a sequence of single notes, he manages to imply the harmony so clearly that the listener is not troubled by there being just one note at a time. These are marvellous compositions for the cello, never bettered by later composers – and Xue Fei Yang performed the transcribed music very well.<\/span><\/p>\n

She further showed her mastery of guitar technique in the Sword Dance by the contemporary Chinese composer Xu Chang-Jun. This is based on a poem by the poet Du Fu (712-770), who according to the concert programme is acclaimed by many as the Chinese Shakespeare.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second half of the concert, Xue Fei Yang played a series of short pieces, all but one of them by Spanish and Brazilian composers. These were most skilfully played, but it is less satisfying to listen to a set of short, unrelated pieces than it is to hear an extended work such as the suite she had played in the first half of the concert.<\/span><\/p>\n

It must have been a testing evening for the soloist, who sat in the centre of the stage with just one small microphone in front of her. She used a hand-held microphone to introduce some of the pieces, but she seemed to have a cold, and, with her Chinese accent, this made much of what she said hard if not impossible to understand. If she was unwell, to play a brilliant solo concert for two hours, much of it from memory, was a remarkable achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contributed by Martin Widden.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review: Xue Fei Yang plays classical guitar In her solo recital in the Great Hall on 8 February, the Chinese guitar virtuoso Xue Fei Yang chose a programme that gave her ample scope to demonstrate a wide range of techniques … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[65,232,63],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-classical-music","tag-issue-173","tag-martin-widden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-5r","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/03\/01\/martin-widden-the-man-with-the-golden-ears\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":0},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: \u2018THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EARS’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 1 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Kabantu at the Nuffield Five young musicians in line across the stage of the Nuffield, one of them squatting over a bongo drum. This was Kabantu, the Manchester-based band that played in the Lancaster Arts Concert Series on 17 February. As well as the drum, the line-up consisted of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":462,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/03\/15\/martin-widden-red-pilling-the-music-industry-one-concert-at-a-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":1},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: \u2018RED PILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, ONE CONCERT AT A TIME\u2019","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 15 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Kathryn Stott It is often asserted that the sound of a violin improves in a period when it is being played quite intensively. And not only the violin - similar claims are made for other stringed instruments. Such claims are widely believed by musicians, but although careful scientific tests\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/12\/17\/martin-widden-wielding-his-pen-like-a-knife-to-the-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":2},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘WIELDING HIS PEN LIKE A KNIFE TO THE HEART’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"December 17 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Leeds Piano Competition Winner gives first-class recital The Great Hall concert on Thursday 1 November was a solo piano recital by Anna Tsybuleva, winner of the 2015 Leeds Piano Competition. The Leeds competition has become, in its short life of just over 50 years, one of the world's foremost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1228,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/03\/27\/widdens-review-concert-for-refugee-crisis\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":3},"title":"WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CONCERT FOR REFUGEE CRISIS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 27 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Martin Widden Prompted by the refugee crisis across the Mediterranean, the programme for the recital given on 5th March by the twelve-strong a capella choir Stile Antico was focused on John Dowland's set of pavans for voice and lute, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares. (According to Dowland's contemporary Thomas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/11\/09\/martin-widden-he-pulls-no-punches-and-tells-it-like-it-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":4},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘HE PULLS NO PUNCHES, AND TELLS IT LIKE IT IS’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 9 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Scarlatti and Cage in the Great Hall Domenico Scarlatti (born Naples in 1685, and so an exact contemporary of J S Bach) wrote over 500 sonatas for harpsichord, nearly all of them short and in just one movement of simple AABB form - two halves, each of them repeated.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1185,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/02\/19\/widdens-review-piano-quartet-concert-in-the-great-hall\/","url_meta":{"origin":337,"position":5},"title":"WIDDEN’S REVIEW – PIANO QUARTET CONCERT IN THE GREAT HALL","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 19 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Martin Widden This concert on 30 January 2020 was given by a quartet of violin, viola, cello and piano - a fairly unusual combination, because the modern concert grand can easily drown out the three strings. But Mozart, that brilliant pioneer in all things musical, wrote three works\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}