From Ottawa Citizen

Was it East to West, or West to East? Actually, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival's programming flowed both ways yesterday.

The Shanghai String Quartet gave a noon-hour concert that began with two Chinese works and ended with Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F. Then, at 8 p.m., a program at Dominion-Chalmers -- called Crossings: A Musical Journey from West to East -- featured the Gryphon Trio and a "cast of thousands."

The Shanghai program got under way with selections from China Song, a set of folk tunes arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang from his childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution. They are about as nice a fusion of traditional Chinese music and the western classical tradition as you're likely to hear. <>Achingly beautiful, the songs take the source material and expand upon it extensively without making the results sound contrived or awkward, and the Shanghai renditions were luminous. Apparently the Cultural Revolution did achieve at least some good.

Next came three poems from Tang by Zhou Long, inspired by products of the golden age of Chinese poetry in what westerners would call the 8th century. They have such charming titles as Li Bai's Hearing the Monk Xun Play the Qin and Du Fu's Song of Eight Unruly Tipsy Poets. Golden-age poets, and Du Fu in particular, were unabashedly fond of their wine. They are more remote and sophisticated than the folk-song arrangements, but solid and engaging in every way. Once again, the playing was terrific.

The western part of the program consisted of Ravel's Quartet in F, a popular work around the world. The Shanghai rendition of it was never less than pleasing, and often arresting. The first movement was taken a bit quickly and was a little short on sensuality. But on the other hand, the slow movement was more leisurely than usual and hauntingly atmospheric, and the finale was thrilling as it always is when it's well played.

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