CD Review - Strings Magazine

ON RECORD: The Royal Cello

"Bion Tsang plays simply and dreamily."

By Edith Eisler April 1999

Cellists often complain that their instrument, despite its infinitely bigger range, has a much smaller literature than the violin. Indeed, the cello, originally used mostly as a bass, only gradually found recognition as a solo instrument, and although it has finally come into its own as both the most versatile and the most powerful member of the string family, cellists still have to fall back on transcriptions; some add to the repertoire by making their own.

One of the most famous and beloved transcriptions is Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata, originally written for the arpeggione, a fretted six-string instrument tuned like a guitar but played with a bow. Now extinct, it would probably have been forgotten if Schubert had not composed this lovely piece for it. (A specimen can be seen, though not heard, in New York in the Metropolitan Museum's instrument collection.) The sonata has been transcribed for many instruments, but only the cello can reproduce its entire range.

Bion Tsang, an impressive young cellist who made his debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of eleven and has won numerous prizes and awards, including awards, including an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Bronze Medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition, gives it a dreamy, wistful performance, warmly expressive yet simple. The Finale is best: lively, flowing, whimsical, brilliant, imaginatively varying the theme's recurrent appearances. It is paired with three works by Schumann. Only one was originally written for cello: Fünf Stucke im Volkston (Five Pieces in Folk Style), Op. 102. Despite the title, these are sophisticated character-pieces: flanking a tender lullaby and a couple of warm, rhetorical ballads, the first is humorously robust, the last assertively defiant. The Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, is originally for horn, the Fantasiestücke, Op. 73, for clarinet; both have alternate cello parts and are well suited to the instrument. The playing captures character, mood, and expression from wistful, lyrical inwardness to impetuosity and passion; phrases are elegantly shaped, transitions are organic, and the sound is lovely. The excellent pianist is Richard Bishop.

Review - THE STRAD

CONCERTS: New York ReviewYouth making its mark

By Harris Goldsmith November 1996

Bion Tsang played at Bargemusic on 16 August, on board a gently rocking craft anchored to the port at the Fulton Street Ferry Landing. With the unresonant acoustics, one was somehow able to focus entirely on Tsang’s excellent musicianship (and that of his able pianist Judith Gordon) in every ingenious nuance of Beethoven’s delightful Variations in E flat major on a Theme from Mozart’s Magic Flute and Grieg’s substantial Sonata for Cello and Piano. In Kodály’s fiendishly virtuostic Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, Tsang played with accuracy and beautiful colouristic variety; more lubricating echo would, doubtless, have solidified the faultless expertise of Tsang’s nevertheless commanding performance.

Also in this issue of The Strad magazine: Harris Goldsmith’s review of Mr. Tsang’s Schubert/Schumann compact disc.

CD Review - THE STRAD

Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata Schumann: Fünf Stucke im Volkston op.102; Adagio and Allegro op.70; Fantasiestücke op.73

Bion Tsang (cello)

Richard Bishop (piano)

By Harris Goldsmith November 1996

The young US cellist, Bion Tsang, already has many honours to his credit, among them an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a performance with the New York Philharmonic. His consummate playing here provides splendid justification for all that attention.

Tsang is a patrician of style: he produces a smooth, compact sound from his instrument and shows fine command of line and suppleness of bow control. His left-hand work (even in the potentially treacherous Schubert) is elegant and accurate and his emotional approach, while proportioned and disciplined rather that extravagant or heated, is nevertheless free and outgoing enough when necessary.

There is, moreover, a fine rapport between Tsang and his responsive partner, Richard Bishop. Their personalised readings of the Schumann Fünf Stucke im Volkston certainly make the most of the humour, tenderness and irascibility inherent in the quirky writing, and the Allegro from op.70, originally conceived for french horn, has a clarion assertiveness that strikingly resembles the original instrument. If I have any quibble, it would be in the second of the op.73 set, where the pianist, attentive to the fact that Schumann has oddly connected his duplet melodic notes to the first and third of the accompanimental triplets, consequently gives a lurching Irish jig quality to his phrases that contradicts Tsang's treatment of the identical material. This is surely a case of mistaken literalism.

Also in this issue of The Strad magazine: Harris Goldsmith’s review of Mr. Tsang’s August 1996 Bargemusic recital