Asian popBETTER LIFEF.迷你倉新蒲崗I.R.Warner Music Taiwan***Taiwanese pop- rock trio F.I.R. mark their 10th anniversary together with this, their seventh album.Better Life does not sound like them at first - and that is a good thing.Route 7 sounds fresher and more folksy than their signature slick style. You can almost feel the breeze in your hair when vocalist Faye Chan sings the opening lines: "Drive the car on the road/When I turn on the radio."They are headed in the right direction with this new turn and It's You is another charmer.Chan croons tenderly in the chorus: "It's you, who make the tears melt, make me put down my recklessness, weave the future, our threads, into a painting."While previous albums offered fantasy and escape with tracks such as Atlantis, Arctic Circle and Fly Away, Better Life is more rooted in human relationships.The title track is an upbeat number about love and friendship, while I Remember is wistfully nostalgic.The band try to cover all bases, though, with the more familiar pop-rock of The Ocean Fighter.They even venture into dubstep with Light Up The Way, but that only feels like a bit of a mis-step.ClassicalRACHMANINOV THE PIANO CONCERTOSValentina Lisitsa, pianoLondon Symphony/Michael Francis Decca 478 4890 (2 CDs)*****This album has an interesting back story. Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa, on her way to becoming an Internet celebrity (with close to 60 million hits on YouTube), staked her life savings and mortgaged her home to record Rachmaninov's five piano concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra in 2009-10.Having neither performed nor rehearsed with the orchestra and conductor Michael Francis, the recording was wrapped up without fuss in a matter of days. Far from being a vanity project, the cycle comes across as one of the freshest takes on this over-exposed and over- recorded sector of the repertoire.Her tempos are generally brisk. Listen to the opening of the Third Concerto, for example: She eschews sentimentality for its own sake, and her passion is expressed through a litheness in approach rather than the bombas迷你倉出租 and over-playing usually associated with these scores.When push comes to shove, she delivers with Amazonian heft.The big cadenza in the Third Concerto's first movement has rarely sounded this emphatic without resorting to pounding, and the visceral thrills of the finale overflow as if in a live performance.There is also much to enjoy in the less-played First and Fourth Concertos, displaying lyricism and dissonance in equal measure. The familiar Second Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody have a freshness that demands your re-acquaintance with them. In summary, a treasurable cycle to have alongside Rachmaninov's invaluable and inimitable own set.Chang Tou LiangHistorical ClassicsGREAT VIOLINISTS: MENUHIN BEETHOVEN, FRANCK & LEKEUViolin Sonatas Naxos 8.110989*****It is not a great secret that the best years of Lord Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) as a violinist were his earlier years.This album of violin sonatas recorded on the His Master's Voice (HMV) label between 1936 and 1940 captures that spark of youth and prodigiousness that went missing as he aged. Maturity was never a question in these performances by someone just out of his teens.The silky control and singing tone in the slow movement of Beethoven's Sonata In E Flat Major (Op. 12 No. 3) and the playfulness of its Rondo reflect a master who still retained the wide-eyed wonderment of juvenile pursuits. The coupling of sonatas by Cesar Franck (1822-1890) and Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894), juxtaposing the popular and obscure, is most apt.Lekeu was a student of Franck, and both sonatas employ the cyclical form popularised by Franck, where major themes are re-introduced later in the work.Menuhin and his younger sister Hephzibah were the first duo ever to record the Lekeu, and this 1938 reading of the under-rated 32-minute masterpiece of lyricism and reflection is a revelation. Their partnership is telepathic and the balance is captured perfectly in the remastering by Ward Marston which eliminates most of the crackles and hiss. Listen, enjoy and understand what the fuss over the young Menuhin was all about.Chang Tou Liang迷你倉
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