Cellist Idlir Shyti presents this new release of solo works, which takes its name from the first track on the album, Tan Dun's Intercourse of Fire and Water,
The work was written for and dedicated to Anssi Karttunen, who premiered the work in 1995 alongside the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Shyti pairs this work alongside pieces by Arnold Bax, Ernest Bloch, and Pascal Dusapin.
Tan Dun's cello concerto Intercourse of Fire and Water is the first piece (Yi1) of a cycle of concertos for different instruments (cello, guitar, and a planned work for Bianzhong bronze bells and cello) inspired by the I Ching or Yi Jing, the Chinese book of divination also known as the Book of Changes.
Tan says that he became interested in the book's examination of 'the balance between that which already exists and that which has not yet come to be. I learned that ways of balancing the existing and the potential are truly unlimited.' The pieces of the Yi cycle are based on a concerto for orchestra (Yi0), identical in each concerto, which represents the 'already existing' and over which the different instrumental solos may be superimposed. As a solo cello piece, The Intercourse of Fire and Water is simply the concerto music but without the orchestra, and so represents the 'potential' without the 'existing'.
Idlir Shyti is an Albanian cellist based in London. He has been awarded the 'Diplome Superieur de Concertiste' under the tutelage of Anssi Karttunen at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. Preceding, he studied with Richard Lester at the Royal College of Music London and at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia Rome with Maurizio Gambini. In his journey of learning, he has come across and played for many renown musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Gary Hoffman and Johannes Goritzki.
