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Sheng Cai Shines In Rachmaninov
Posted on May 8th,2023
The Canadian pianist Sheng Cai is a sure rising star. With enormous technique and graceful control of rubatos and tempi,he reminds one of heavyweights such as Yefim Bronfman...
Sheng Cai and the orchestra also paired well, agreeing on rubatos and a wonderful sense of rising tension in the toccata-like finale...the gifts on display were remarkable. This was fine playing and a convincing case for more frequent performances of this easy-to-like concerto, Saint-Saëns’ fifth.
Standing ovations were warranted, as was a tricky encore, Montreal-born composer André Mathieu’s Printemps Canadien.
Kevin McLaughlin, Cleveland Classical Review
Sheng Cai and the orchestra also paired well, agreeing on rubatos and a wonderful sense of rising tension in the toccata-like finale...the gifts on display were remarkable. This was fine playing and a convincing case for more frequent performances of this easy-to-like concerto, Saint-Saëns’ fifth.
Standing ovations were warranted, as was a tricky encore, Montreal-born composer André Mathieu’s Printemps Canadien.
Kevin McLaughlin, Cleveland Classical Review
Canton Symphony:
two portrayals of Scheherazade
two portrayals of Scheherazade
Posted on January 22nd, 2023
Canadian Sheng Cai was the soloist in Carl Maria Von Weber's piano concerto No. 2 in E flat major, Op.32.
Soloist and orchestra didn't give you a second to switch off, the interpretation was as gripping as it was touching. Some listeners may describe the slow middle movement as one of the most beautiful of the Romantic period. The way the piano reacts sensitively to the gentle introduction of the violins, but in the further course a kind of heroic triumph is provoked, that's something.
From the very beginning, Sheng Cai proved to be a sovereign who, despite all his virtuoso gestures, let the piano sing and thus touched the hearts of his listeners. Thanks to the pounding applause and the shouts of bravo, the audience received two of George Gershwin's "3 Preludes" as encores - jazz gems that just sparkle with unbridled vitality.
Dieter Albert, Thuringische Landeszeitung
Soloist and orchestra didn't give you a second to switch off, the interpretation was as gripping as it was touching. Some listeners may describe the slow middle movement as one of the most beautiful of the Romantic period. The way the piano reacts sensitively to the gentle introduction of the violins, but in the further course a kind of heroic triumph is provoked, that's something.
From the very beginning, Sheng Cai proved to be a sovereign who, despite all his virtuoso gestures, let the piano sing and thus touched the hearts of his listeners. Thanks to the pounding applause and the shouts of bravo, the audience received two of George Gershwin's "3 Preludes" as encores - jazz gems that just sparkle with unbridled vitality.
Dieter Albert, Thuringische Landeszeitung
September 30th, 2022
Pianist Sheng Cai has been honing his craft and his artistry over the years. His approach to Rachmaninov’s Moments Musicaux and Second Sonata presents equal degrees of powerful assurance and classical reserve.
The brooding expansiveness we often hear in the B minor Moment Musical (No. 3) is replaced by an almost Brahmsian transparency, with cogently shaped bass lines. No. 2’s swirling figurations are coiled and controlled, in contrast to Horowitz’s molten lava. Cai unfolds No. 5 steadily, achieving expressive variety by keeping the ostinato left-hand accompaniment, treble melodies, and middle inner voices in three-dimensional perspective.
However, Cai’s sound and expressive palette truly open up in his brilliant transcriptions of four pieces from the composer’s youthful one-act opera Aleko. The Men’s Dance in particular is a bacchanalian tour-de-force whose madcap accelerandos give those of George Cziffra a run for their money, while the lyrical Intermezzo is clothed in deliciously garish runs up and down the keyboard. I suspect there’s more dynamism and heft to Cai’s sonority than the clear and clean engineering conveys. In all, a superb release.
Jed Distler, Classics Today
The brooding expansiveness we often hear in the B minor Moment Musical (No. 3) is replaced by an almost Brahmsian transparency, with cogently shaped bass lines. No. 2’s swirling figurations are coiled and controlled, in contrast to Horowitz’s molten lava. Cai unfolds No. 5 steadily, achieving expressive variety by keeping the ostinato left-hand accompaniment, treble melodies, and middle inner voices in three-dimensional perspective.
However, Cai’s sound and expressive palette truly open up in his brilliant transcriptions of four pieces from the composer’s youthful one-act opera Aleko. The Men’s Dance in particular is a bacchanalian tour-de-force whose madcap accelerandos give those of George Cziffra a run for their money, while the lyrical Intermezzo is clothed in deliciously garish runs up and down the keyboard. I suspect there’s more dynamism and heft to Cai’s sonority than the clear and clean engineering conveys. In all, a superb release.
Jed Distler, Classics Today
Thuringia Philharmonic Gotha- Eisenach opens season