Four Worlds (CD)

A clear crowd favourite at the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition with his incendiary technique and warm stage presence, Moye Chen was awarded the George Frederick Boyle Prize and was signed to Universal Music Australia shortly after.

MORE INFORMATION

On this luscious recording, the Chinese pianist coalesces four worlds as he traces the journey of three composer-pianists who, like Chen himself, followed their destinies to the ‘New World’. Russians Sergei Rachmaninov and Vladimir Horowitz both found renewed fame in America, and Percy Grainger’s uncommon musical versatility found a second voice when he moved from Australia via England to America.

Who can fail to be seduced by Gershwin’s Love Walked In in the smoochy transcription by Percy Grainger? Or his Londonderry Air. Vladimir Horowitz, one of the greatest virtuosos of all time, makes an appearance as both composer and transcriber. Rachmaninov is one of Moye Chen’s many specialities and he presents a range of pieces from this composer’s output – the gorgeous Melodie, the cheeky transcription of the ‘Menuet’ from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne, and the all-engulfing Second Sonata.

TRACK LIST

RACHMANINOV
1 Polka de V.R.
GRAINGER
2 Colonial Song
HOROWITZ
3 Danse excentrique (Moment exotique)
4 Valse in F minor
GRAINGER
5 Love Walked In (George Gershwin)
6 Ramble on Love (after the Love Duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier)

RACHMANINOV
Morceaux de fantasie, Op. 3
7 No. 3: Mélodie in E major
8 No. 5: Sérénade in B flat minor
Morceaux de salon, Op. 10
9 No. 5: Humoresque in G major
10 Menuet from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 (Bizet)

GRAINGER
11 Irish Tune from County Derry (Londonderry Air)
12 In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher)

transc. HOROWITZ
13 The Stars and Stripes Forever (John Philip Sousa)

RACHMANINOV
14–16 Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36 (1913 & 1931 versions, ed. Horowitz)

MOYE CHEN, piano