If say, "Chinese-ness" is the remarkable characteristic of The Fifth Beijing Music Festival, two concerts respectively featuring Chinese composers Chen Qigang and Ye Xiaogang's works will be absolutely key to the theme.
Tonight, Ye will treat audiences at the Poly Theatre to his compositions.
Ye defines the three works to be performed as a traveling series. Over the past decade, Ye has toured China and scored a series of works featuring the distinctive cultures and customs of different regions. Last Paradise, Twilight in Tibet and Great Wall Symphony are part of the series.
"Tonight's concert is the Beijing debut of all three pieces and I hope the audience will sense my mood and understanding of the areas as well as the concept of my traveling music," said Ye.
Twilight in Tibet for tenor, horn and orchestra, is the newest one of the three. It was completed just last month.
Last year, the composer toured the sacred and mystical roof of the world and was inspired by its unique natural scenes and rich culture.
"The colorful sutra streamers and the snow-capped mountains still linger in my heart," said Ye, "The Nam Co Lake especially amazed me. Twilight on the lake and the endless bright blue sky turned into rhythmic melodies in my mind."
The trip was not the first that the composer had made to Tibet and it is not the first work he composed for the plateau, but it sounds different from his Horizon of 18 years ago.
"Horizon is somewhat aggressive while the new piece sounds calmer and quieter," said Ye. "Perhaps I am more mature than (I was) 18 years ago."
The performance of Twilight in Tibet will feature tenor Song Bo and horn player Han Xiaoming. Both of them enjoy a fine reputation worldwide. Ye said, "Han is the pride of Asia."
The Great Wall Symphony, scored in 2000, is a work depicting North China. The composer traveled along the Great Wall, east to the sea and west to the Jiayuguan in Gansu Province.
Ye himself said it is a Chinese version of Pictures at an Exhibition because it uses musical pictures one after another to display the culture, customs, people and other aspects of North China.
Composed of nine movements, Great Wall Symphony is an ambitious project, both in terms of space and time. In space, it portrays a vast territory covering Northwest China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, North China's Shanxi and Hebei provinces, and Northeast China's Liaoning Province.
In time, it dates back to the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) when the Great Wall was first built, and moves through all the dynasties in China's history to the present.
Ye himself admitted that he was "exhausted after completing the score.?
"It was totally a challenge, not only to my talent but to my perseverance, because I had to explore the country's long history of 2,000 years," said Ye.
Though Ye was born in Shanghai, his work portraying North China sounds full of heroic spirit and lofty sentiments.
The work has rich musical elements including the folk music of Northwest China, ethnic melodies from Uygur, Kazak, Hui and Manchu and influences from some local operas of the area. The prelude, for instance, is derived from the melody of the Qinqiang Opera of Shaanxi Province.
The live piece will feature soprano Wang Xiufen and tenor Jin Yongzhe, pianist Xu Zhong and some traditional Chinese instrumentalists such as flutist Tang Junqiao, erhu player Ma Xiaohui, pipa player Tang Xiaofeng and matouqin (a bowed stringed instrument with a scroll carved in the shape of a horse's head usually used by the ethnic Mongolians) player Zhang Quansheng.
The symphonic work has been played in Shanghai and Shenzhen where it won great acclaim. "It is very profound and inspiring," said pianist Li Yundi who was the soloist at the premiere concert in Shenzhen.
"The piece on the Great Wall, a common theme for Chinese composers, sounds individual. The historical and contemporary things are well combined," said Chen Qianzhang, a local music producer.
The third piece, violin concerto Last Paradise, was commissioned by the Hong Kong Urban Arts Service in 1993. Ye rearranged it last year. The inspiration came from a funeral procession in a village of East China's Anhui Province. Both the beginning part and the end derive from the local folk songs.
Though it was inspired by a funeral, it sounds calm and leisurely rather than sad. "I want to express the ideal that happiness is the lofty realm of the ending of a life," Ye explained.
Violinist Vera Tsu Wei-Ling is the star of the concerto. Her passionate performance will no doubt make the piece more impressive.
"Technically and temperamentally, Tsu is an excellent violinist," said Ye.
About 24 years ago, Tsu and Ye took the same train from Shanghai to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. "I still remember she played my composition Singing Songs of Triumph to Beijing on the train," Ye remarked.
The concert will be performed by the Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Hu Yongyan.
(China Daily October 15, 2002)
