Renowned French violinist Augustin Dumay is playing a
world-famous piece of Chinese music with an orchestra composed of
players from China and Europe. Dumay calls the experience "a
culture wedding."
And the wedding will be staged at the Forbidden City Concert
Hall on Sunday as part of the Ninth Beijing Music Festival.
The Chinese music is the violin concerto "The Butterfly Lovers"
scored by Chinese composers Chen Gang and He Zhanhao in 1959.
It is based on the Romeo and Juliet-like tragedy set in ancient
China. Because of their opposing backgrounds, the two lovers are
forbidden to marry, so they kill themselves and turn into
butterflies.
The violin concerto is one of the most famous pieces of
contemporary Chinese music in the world and many Chinese violinists
have performed it on the world stage. However, very few foreign
violinists have played it. Japanese violinist Takako Nishzaki is
one of the few.
When the French violinist Dumay was invited by Yu Long, artistic
director and chief conductor of Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, to
tour with the orchestra in the United States and Japan last
September and October, Dumay played the touching concerto, upon
Yu's suggestion, at the Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Tokyo
Opera City Hall and Osaka Symphony Hall.
Dumay returns to Beijing with the piece, still under the baton
of Yu. The only change is the orchestra, which is made up of the
China Philharmonic Orchestra and Dumay's Royal Chamber Orchestra of
Wallonia.
"One of the important missions of today's Chinese musicians,
including me, is to introduce more Chinese music to the world," Yu
explained. "It is one way that Chinese musicians play Chinese music
on the world stage, the other efficient way is to let the
influential foreign musicians play our music."
"Through the collaboration with Dumay in the past few years, we
have become very good friends. I appreciate his music and very much
look forward to Sunday's concert," added Yu, the 40-year-old
ambitious and energetic conductor, who serves at the same time the
artistic directors of China Philharmonic Orchestra, Guangzhou
Symphony Orchestra and Beijing Music Festival.
There is also something special between Yu and "The Butterfly
Lovers." His grandfather, the late composer Ding Shande, was the
president of Shanghai Conservatory of Music and supervised Chen and
He (faculty member of Shanghai Conservatory of Music) who finished
the piece in 1959.
Dumay expressed his special pleasure to return Beijing and to
collaborate with conductor Yu again. "Musically, we share something
in the same direction. I agree that it is important for musicians
from different countries or different cultural backgrounds to work
together," he said.
"We play our Mozart and our Beethoven together. This time, I
bring with a typical European orchestra and we will play a Chinese
music with a Chinese orchestra. It's interesting. It's a culture
wedding."
He also admitted "The Butterfly Lovers" was the first and the
only Chinese music he had known. "But it's a good beginning. And I
would be very happy to get to know more Chinese music. If your
composers give me new works I would like to play it worldwide," he
said.
How does a foreign musician interpret a very typical Chinese
music based on a household Chinese story? Dumay said the answer to
that question was in his performance because it was very hard to
describe music or his reading of a piece of music in words. "Sure,
Yu has told me the touching story but when I play it, I try to
forget the story. I think, if keep the story in your mind whenever
you play it, the music would turn out a photocopy. For me, every
time I play it, it's a new dream," added Dumay.
In addition to "The Butterfly Lovers," Dumay will play
Chausson's "Poeme," Saint-Saens' "Havanaise" and Ravel's
"Tzigane."
Night of Mozart
The following Monday night at the same venue, Dumay will conduct
Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia to play a night of Mozart,
including the music genius' "Adagio in E Major," "Violin Concerto
No 2 in D Major," "Violin Concerto No 5 in A Major (Turkish)" and
"Symphony in E Flat Major for Violin, Viola and Orchestra."
While recording Mozart's complete concertos for Deutsche
Grammophon, Dumay conducted the Salzburg Camerata Academica
himself. In assuming the double role of soloist and conductor, he
underscored the close relationship between Mozart's violin
concertos and his chamber music.
"I have played and directed Mozart's concertos for years in the
Konzertmeister tradition of Mozart's age. This approach helps bring
out the close ties between the orchestration of the concertos and
Mozart's chamber music in particular the quartets," said he.
The Mozart night on Monday at the Forbidden City Concert Hall is
one of Dumay's projects for Mozart Year (2006) in three continents,
which will be produced into a DVD.
(China Daily October 19, 2006)
