Editorial Review:

Album Description:
Chinese classical music is a much larger field than Western classical music. It covers a huge geographical area as well as a time frame of thousands of years. Although some of China's musical instruments have changed very little in hundreds or thousands of years, others were adapted to Western standards under the influence of Russian musicians during the middle of this century. In some cases, frets were added to non-chromatic instruments and tonalities standardized. The liner notes of The Hugo Masters: An Anthology of Chinese Classical Music contain extensive documentation of the various instruments used in Chinese solo and orchestral music, with descriptions of their history and modifications, as well as an essay to help Western listeners understand the background of Chinese classical music.

The instruments fall into four categories, each constituting a separate compact disk:
Volume One: Bowed Strings
Volume Two: Plucked Strings
Volume Three: Woodwinds
Volume Four: Percussion
These disks are available individually or as a collector's series in a beautifully designed silk boxed set.

The music itself is highly varied and richly emotional. The music paints pictures of China's people, their culture and homeland, and their dreams and their despair. The Hugo Masters: An Anthology of Chinese Classical Music is a joint effort of the Hugo and Celestial Harmonies labels to bring this definitive anthology to listeners worldwide. This is the first time these recordings have become available to audiences outside of Hong Kong. For listeners unfamiliar with Chinese classical music, these works are a powerful and emotional awakening.

Rating: - A Rare Masterwork
The man who put this together, Aik Yew-goh, did it with very older artisans that were directly of the Chinese traditional music prior to the 1911 revolution. He is a musician as well as an engineer and producer and used exceptional equipment to record these master recordings, traveling all across China carrying tons of equipment with the intent of documenting it's breadth. He succeeded.

As others indicate this is amazingly accessible to Western ears, because of it's cross-cultural ... Read More

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Rating: - Fasacinating, intense, joyful, profound---a delight
These four CDs survey the best of Chinese traditional music, focusing on the four types of instruments: plucked instruments, bowed instruments, wind instruments, and percussion. The variety and range keeps this set from ever getting dull, and the music touches every conceivable emotion. This is a set to be experienced. My only regret is that there aren't more volumes in the series. If you are hesitant about this sounding like Chinese restaurant music, don't worry. This seems to be the genuine article, ... Read More