Beethoven: Sonata No. 32 / Schubert: Sonata No. 23

Beethoven, Ludwig van, Schubert, Franz

Xiao-Mei, Zhu

MIR 157

Zhu Xiao-Mei was born in Shanghai in 1949 as the daughter of a doctor and a music teacher. She was three years old when her love for the piano awakened: Her mother played Schumann's "Träumerei" on her piano at home. The People's Republic of China was also three years old at that time, and the relationship between these two peers was to have terrible consequences for the little girl's life. • First of all, he began piano lessons at home, which continued at the age of six after passing the entrance examination at the conservatory in Beijing - where the family now lives. At the age of eight Zhu Xiao-Mei played her first concert, the lessons at the conservatory still proved to be fruitful, although politics became more and more noticeable - in the course of the "Great Leap Forward" the students had to move more and more to work assignments instead of dealing with western music, which is regarded as "bourgeois". • The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" puts an end to piano studies, and after a year of brainwashing in the re-education camp, Zhu Xiao-Mei himself seems to have come to the conclusion that classical music is decadent. As a child of "bad origin", however, she was imprisoned for five years in a labour camp on the border with Mongolia. Of course, her love of music cannot be exorcised: Secretly she still manages to play the piano, and this proves to be a lifeline in these times of great personal need. • In 1979, in the wake of Isaac Stern's visit to China, the opportunity arose to travel to the USA. There she resumed her artistic activities with great success. In 1985 she moved to Paris, today she teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique and meets an enthusiastic audience with concerts all over the world.

CD x 1

Mirare

2/27/12

3760127221579