Deborah Moriarty and Zhihua Tang: Connecting Cultures
Blue Griffin Records

Zhihua Tang and Deborah Moriarty are fellow faculty members at the Michigan State University College of Music and perform individually as recitalists and orchestra soloists around the world. The pianists have forged powerful personal and professional connections, despite the fact that, with Tang a native of Shanghai and Moriarty Massachusetts, their lives began in fundamentally different parts of the globe. On Connecting Cultures, they build on their own relationship by performing music from the United States and Europe to Spain and China.

Pieces by Mozart, Dvorák, and Manuel de Falla sit comfortably alongside works by Amy Beach, Florence Price, George Gershwin, Wang Jianzhong, and Gong Huahua on an encompassing seventy-five-minute travelogue featuring everything from folk dances to spirituals. The programme is so full, in fact, that by the time the pianists' fine rendition of Rhapsody in Blue arrives, the listener's already fully satisfied; given that, one might perhaps think of Gershwin's ever-popular opus, written in 1924 when he was twenty-six, as an encore to the recital Tang and Moriarty have just delivered. Regardless, such a varied set-list speaks to both the curatorial smarts and versatility of the pianists.

As with many a recording project birthed during the pandemic, Moriarty and Tang's expresses a desire for connection and embrace of common humanity, no matter how great our differences. Their primary goal is musical, of course, but packaged with it is the wish for all cultures to work towards a shared future. Enhancing the project are liner notes by Tang and Marilyn Meeker that provide extensive background on the composers and the origins of the works performed.

Connecting Cultures opens with two Slavonic Dances by Dvorák taken from separate sets. While he used Brahms' Hungarian Dances as a model, Dvorák elected not to quote source material directly but instead created original melodies that would evoke Slavic character. The declamatory eighth dance from Op. 46 barrels forth with furious intent though not so rapidly that its endearing folk melodies don't register. Following that ear-catching start, the suave second dance from Op. 72 is as melodically enticing but charms using a gentler tone and a somewhat melancholy disposition. As appealing are de Falla's Two Spanish Dances from La Vida Breve, his 1905 opera. Reflecting Gypsy and Iberian influences, “Spanish Dance No. 1”and “Spanish Dance No. 2” prove as alluring for their infectious melodies and rousing rhythms. Whereas Mozart's earliest composition for piano four hands is a sonata he wrote at the age of nine, the Andante and Five Variations in G major, K. 501 arrived in 1786, a mere five years before his death at thirty-five. It is thus a mature work and more importantly a piece redolent of all the qualities that distinguish a Mozart piece: elegance, melodic invention, structural clarity, and variety.

Certainly a major highlight of the recording is the inclusion of material by Chinese composers, Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon by Wang Jianzhong (1933–2016) and Mountain Harvest by Gong Huahua (b. 1978). Jianzhong's immediately seduces with its folk melodies, evocation of clouds dancing across the night sky, and his use of trills and arpeggios to help paint the scene. Huahua's rather more sober setting conjures the image of locals toiling in the mountains of Northwest China and conveys the hardships and pleasures that make up their daily lives.

Two female composers are well-represented by the release. Both were groundbreakers, Amy Beach (1867–1944) recognized as the first female composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra (the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered her “Gaelic” Symphony in 1896) and Florence Beatrice Price (1887–1953) know for, among other things, being the first African American woman to have a composition performed by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony presented her Symphony in E Minor in 1933). Beach's Summer Dreams, Op. 47 (1901) is a suite-like evocation whose six compact movements range from the effervescent “The Brownies” and delightful “Robin Redbreast” to the lyrical “Twilight,” buoyant “Katy-dids,” regal “Elfin Tarantelle,” and serene “Good Night.” Whereas Beach's piece exudes youthful innocence and nostalgia, Price's Three Negro Spirituals presents gospel-inflected treatments of “I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray,” “Lord I Want to Be a Christian,” and “Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit” that are believed to have been composed between 1937 and 1942.

February 2023