Ne Zha Zhi mo Tong Jiang Shi

With the violin concertos by Jean Sibelius and Igor Stravinsky, Zhi-Jong Wang and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Sanderling, dedicate themselves to two works from the beginning of the 20th century. Although the two works were composed only thirty years apart from each other, they could not be any more contrasting: minor against major, dark, mystical and introverted against exciting, suspenseful and sometimes ironic. And yet, in the contrasts of these two concertos, the virtuoso and inspiring interpretation of the Chinese violinist reveals something amazingly unifying. Recorded at Abbey Road, July 2017.

Homecoming is a set of recollections of people, places, times and experiences. It is a response to the anxieties and concerns that were created by the global pandemic, but it also reflects some of the creative and artistic possibilities that can arise during times of instability and solitude.

Beethoven’s three sonatas of Op. 10 were published in September 1798 and were written with Beethoven the pianist as much to the forefront as Beethoven the composer. During this time, the young virtuoso was certainly as renowned as a pianist and improviser as he was a composer, and these three early sonatas contain the whole kaleidoscopic range of his youthful musical, emotional and pianistic language.

Joseph Tong has headed to the Sibelius Museum in Turku, Finland for Volume 3 of Sibelius’s piano works, programmed and played with thought and care on a modern Steinway. Sibelius wrote his first pieces for piano aged 20, and Tong’s recital opens with a piece from just three years later. Schumann is in the wings of the rarely heard Florestan Suite, its four movements inspired by the fairy-tale character Florestan and his encounter with water nymphs. It’s followed by a Largo in A major, eloquently played.