A Really Spectacular Recital!

你好 From Spain with a Chinese Accent – or is it the other way around? Whatever...in any case we were knocked off our chair when we first heard “40 Degrees North”, a new guitar recital disk from Xuefei Yang. She’s the first guitar graduate from Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, and if this recording is any indication of her talent, Yang is one of the most thrilling guitarists in the world today.

Her Albeniz and Granados, both transcribed by Yang, are performed with exceptional nuance and poetry unmatched by anybody since Parkening or Julian Bream. Even the super-schmaltzy Butterfly Lovers is tamed and distilled into pure poetry.

This evidentally isn’t Yang first recording, but it’s the first we’ve heard of her. It’s flawlessly played, and extremely well thought out – mixing and contrasting its echoes of East and West in just the right amounts In fact the 40 degrees north title refers to the fact that Madrid is on the same latitude as Beijing, Yang’s home. For sheer musical intelligence as well as evocative, jaw-dropping guitar playing, this can’t be beat.

What’s on our player now: “40 Degrees North”: Albeniz, Granados, S. Goss, Huang Zi, Tarrega, Wang Huiran, Wang Luobin etc., Xuefei Yang, guitar; EMI 206322-2