GE, Gan-Ru: String Quartets No. 1, "Fu", No. 4, "Angel Suite" and No. 5, "Fall of Baghdad"
China’s first avant-garde composer and one of the most original composers of his generation, Ge Gan-Ru, studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music before obtaining his doctorate from Columbia University in the USA. The composer notes that he ‘often tries to combine contemporary Western compositional techniques with my Chinese experience and Chinese musical characteristics to create a unique and highly individual sound world.’ Modern Works was founded in 1997 in New York by cellist Madeleine Shapiro to focus on recent string repertoire. The ensemble has given premières of works by Berio, Gubaidulina and Xenakis. |
GE, GAN-RU BIOGRAPHY (b 1954 )
 Ge Gan-Ru was born in Shanghai in 1954. His childhood violin studies were interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, during which time he was sent to a labor camp to plant rice. At night, however, he would walk in total darkness on a muddy road to a secret location where he could continue to practice western music. After a year of this, he was assigned to an ensemble of violin, saxophone, bamboo and western flutes, pi’pa and accordion to entertain the workers with revolutionary songs and dances. To his good fortune, two wonderful things happened: the accordion player became his wife, and he had many opportunities to do musical arrangements for this unusual group. (Without this experience, Ge later said, he might not be a composer today.) When the Cultural Revolution ended and the Shanghai Conservatory was reopened in 1974, he was admitted as a violin student; but in 1977, inspired by his recent creative experiences, he switched to composition, studying with Chen Gang. Soon he became acquainted with scores by 20th century western composers such as Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Cage, Crumb and the Japanese composer Takemitsu; and in 1980, when (British composer) Alexander Goehr became the first western composer to visit China after the Cultural Revolution, Ge was among the few students to receive lessons. Upon his graduation in 1981 Ge was named assistant professor of composition at the Conservatory.
Stage Works
The 1942 ballet Gayane contains the most popular of all Khachaturian's works, the Sabre Dance. The ballet Spartacus of 1954 contains a well known Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia. There are concert suites from both ballets.
Orchestral Music
Khachaturian's Violin Concerto, written in 1940, is a characteristic work and has been transcribed for solo flute by the French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. The composer wrote a Piano Concerto in 1936 and ten years later an effective Cello Concerto.
|
