By Allen Gimbel
American Record Guide
01-Aug-2003

"The Naxos disc is a budget-priced sampling of Sheng's orchestral music...Samuel Wong's Hong Kong Philharmonic is a superior band to Lan Shui's Singapore Symphony, and Naxos gives Wong's ensemble more vivid and flattering sound; Wong also is slightly more leisurely, especially in the climactic IV, resulting in a more coherent structural grasp. So if you're in the market for this piece, I'd go with the Naxos."

By S.G.S.
ClassicalCDReview.com
01-Jul-2003

"Wong and the Hong Kong players give a truthful, rather than a generous performance. Gondek and Qiang make music out of the fiendish parts Sheng has given them. One doesn't think of the technique, but the complexity of expression. Both communicate like nobody's business...I listen to Qiang, however, with my jaw on the floor...virtuosity and poetry are that tightly woven."

By Mark Stryker
Detroit Free Press
13-Apr-2003

"Bright Sheng's career has reached a striking crescendo. In addition to a string of prestigious commissions, the University of Michigan composer won a $500,000 MacArthur genius grant in 2001 and his "Madam Mao" receives its premiere this summer at the Santa Fe Opera.

Meanwhile, Naxos has released this superb orchestral survey. Sheng's aesthetic is a marriage of Chinese folk materials with the Western orchestral tradition, and his ability to distill his cultural roots into non-cliched fits of Eastern melody, abstract harmony and fresh orchestration gives his music its power.

The 26-minute "Nanking! Nanking!" was inspired by the 1937 Japanese invasion of the city. The music opens with a moody portrait of peace, followed by machine-gun explosions of brass and percussion, pulverizing strings and hammered figures frightful in their intensity. A pipa (Chinese lute) offers strummed lamentations and pleas for humanity, but they cannot quell the brutality. Conductor Samuel Wong leads the authoritative performance. "Two Poems From the Sung Dynasty," tragic love poems, finds soprano Juliana Gondek supported by slippery wind lines, spooky strings and percussive thwacks. "China Dreams," a 25-minute symphony, inhabits a more comforting, picturesque world."