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Centrediscs4.5
Portrait
Cheng2 Duo: Bryan & Silvie Cheng
Centrediscs, October 2023
For several years now, Cheng2 Duo has made performing contemporary Canadian music their specialty. Bryan and Silvie Cheng—brother and sister in real life—have just released a new album, Portrait, on Centrediscs—the most personal of their entire discography.
We are greeted by the haunting sounds of Portait of an Imaginary Sibling, by Ontario composer Dinuk Wijeratne. The hypnotic scales of the piano immediately plunge listeners into a mystical atmosphere, before the cello begins an ethereal solo. A more rhythmic section gives way to an energetic dialogue between the instruments, reminiscent of Piazzolla’s sensual music.
The listening continues with Horizon Images, a three-piece cycle by Vincent Ho. The soaring character of the cello, in the high register, combines with the vaporous arpeggios of the piano to create an impression of infinite space.
The album has shortcomings. Up until the sixth piece, it contains a great homogeneity of meditative sonorities, which are evocative of faraway lands—similar to Moon’s Reflection upon a Spring by the Chinese musician Hua Yanjun, known as Abing (1893-1950). These pieces do tend to sound alike. Beyond the sixth track, though, Alexina Louie’s Wild Horse Running offers a little more contrast, with its dissonances, variety of effects and required virtuosity, particularly on the cello. Paul Wiancko’s Sonata No. 1 provides a different kind of exaltation, this time adopting a compositional process based on the repetition of the same rhythmic cell, often associated with minimalist music. Huang Haihuai’s Racing Horses concludes the album with a final sprint—a literal ride that perfectly illustrates the ease and generous verve of the two performers.
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