Music reverberates with ancient echoes
The horsehead fiddle, dombra lute, hichiriki flute and satar plucked strings all featured among the more than 10 ethnic instruments from across China when the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra recently performed the third segment of a five-part work entitled "Magnificent China."
A few days after that, performers in traditional costumes from the Zide Guqin Studio performed Bach's "Air on the G String" with Chinese flute and Baroque lute in tribute to Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Chinese astronomer and writer Xu Guangqi (1562-1633). The two men collaborated to translate Euclid's "Elements" into Chinese and Confucian classics into Latin for the first time.
The two recent concerts in the city reflected increasing public interest in traditional Chinese music and instruments and the new ways that musicians are reviving centuries-old sounds.
"Traditional music and instruments are hot now, and I'm proud to be part of it," said conductor Tang Muhai, who previously served as chief conductor of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Finnish National Opera and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. "I don't want to fall behind the times in this trend."
A veteran conductor in both Western classical and traditional Chinese concerts for 40 years, Tang was one of the two conductors for the recent premiere of "Magnificent China."
It isn't just a trend among professional musicians and mature audiences. Traditional music has also become a hot online search by China's younger generation – music aficionados like Tang Bin, art director of Zide Guqin Studio, who is in his 30s.
"When a society develops to a certain prosperous stage, it is natural to be proud in our history and culture and to want to rediscover the essence of traditional culture, including music," Tang told Shanghai Daily. "That's what we are doing."
He added: "It's trendy now, and I hope it's not just a passing fling but rather a deeper, growing interest."
"Magnificent China," presented by the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, features more than 10 ethnic instruments from across China – a challenge for both composer and performers.
'Magnificent China'
The Shanghai Chinese Orchestra was founded in 1952, in a period when Chinese instruments were brought together in orchestras that imitated the structure of classical Western orchestras.
For a long time, such orchestras either performed re-arranged ancient melodies or classical Western symphonies.
The Shanghai Chinese Orchestra experimented early on to bring new life to ancient sounds.
The orchestra adopted the Western idea of a music season in 2005, and in recent years, developed more cohesive themes in designing each season's program. It has also recruited younger performers and experimented with a variety of music genres to re-invent traditional sounds.
"Magnificent China," which kicked off the orchestra's new music season, is the first time that more than 10 ethnic instruments have appeared in one musical piece – a big challenge for both composer and performers.
"Each ethnic instrument has a unique sound and distinctive feature reflecting the culture of its ethnic minority," said Wang Yunfei, composer of the five-part music piece. "It's a huge challenge to string them up cohesively while highlighting the uniqueness of each. That is the narrative of the third segment – the unity and solidarity among different ethnic groups in China."
The performance turned the concert into a big party of singing and dancing, and that came as no surprise to orchestra director Luo Xiaoci, a zither player.
"Many of these instruments showcase the primitive, wild and romantic features of Chinese through music," she said. "It's not Chinese music instruments modifying Western symphonic sounds this time, but rather harmonious Chinese melodies produced by instruments of distinctive personalities."
The third segment of the work is a bridge between the first and last two parts of "Magnificent China." It opens with grandeur and glorious melodies inspired by traditional ritual music, concluding with a choir.
The work pays tribute to 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and is the orchestra's celebration piece this year, the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
Other highlights of the orchestra' music season include the premiere of a Chinese instrument edition of Tan Dun's well-acclaimed "Buddha Passion," under the baton of the multicultural maestro himself.
Inspired by the ancient mural art of the Mogao Buddhist caves in northwest China, the original piece featured several traditional instruments. It premiered to good reviews in Dresden in 2018. Many in the audience were most impressed by the performer on the pipa, a four-stringed plucked Chinese musical instrument. The player re-enacted long-lost dancing skills of playing.
Zide Guqin Studio staged three concerts featuring music and costumes from the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties. They included a musical tribute to Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi, 16th century scholars in China.
'Trendy China'
Ye Fei, vice general manager of 91-year-old Shanghai Concert Hall, saw a bridge between the past and the present when he discovered Zide Guqin Studio on the video site Bilibili.com.
It was a video that features the theme song of "The Longest Day in Chang'an," a TV drama acclaimed for its sumptuous portrayal of life in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).
In the video, the studio's performers wore costumes of the era and played the re-arranged theme song with traditional instruments. It was an instant hot search online, attracting millions of viewers. On YouTube alone, it drew 1.3 million clicks in six months.
Ye contacted the studio and invited the group to perform live at the concert hall. Tickets were sold out quickly, with audiences praising the overall visual and sound effects of the concert in September.
Then came a second collaboration, the recent three-day Mini Music Festival "Trendy China." The festival of concerts started in 2013, and this year it's the first time for the festival to feature a Chinese musical troupe and experiment with immersive activities.
Visitors wore traditional costumes, attended tea appreciation sessions and shopped in the mini-bazaar.
The entrée of the festival were three concerts by the studio, each highlighting musical features and costumes from a different dynasty – the Tang, the Song (960-1279) and the Ming (1368-1644). It took at least eight hours to make up and dress the performers for each concert.
The repertory re-arranges ancient melodies, with studio art director Tang Bin also composing new pieces to blend with the distinctive features of each era.
"The sound of ancient instruments like the guqin are remote from today's ordinary audiences, so re-arranging them with more familiar instruments can bring the melodies closer," Tang said.
"Many ancient instruments have been modernized over centuries and nobody knows how they originally looked or were played, so it isn't strange to implement other instruments, even electronic or Western ones, as long as we maintain the general musical features of each dynasty," he added. "We also added some choirs and performers who not only play the instruments but also do movements to interpret the narrative of melodies."
Music from the Tang Dynasty has a grandeur to it because so many foreigners traveled to China back then and some even served as government officials. So some exotic instruments were added to the Tang concert.
The esthetics of the Song era were graceful and delicate, while the concert focusing on the Ming Dynasty incorporated Kunqu Opera, which appeared during that epoch.
Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi, re-enacted by a Baroque lute player and a Chinese flute performer, appeared in the latter concert.
The studio has increased its performances on the heels of its video success. The ensemble was invited to perform in Singapore and Malaysia, but the shows were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Our bottleneck right now is basically lack of talent, in every instrument position," Tang said. "We have interviewed a lot of musicians, but it still takes time."
The Tang concert
The Song concert
The Ming concert
