The Butterfly Lovers Concerto

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He/Chen/Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos From: ALamirande@aol.com
Date: Sat, Feb 3, 2001, 8:57pm (MST+7)
To:musiclassicalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: mc~ Asian music Reply爐o: musiclassicalist@yahoogroups.com
I agree with our colleague, Mr. Krakenberger, that a discussion of the music of Asia would be interesting. So far, as he says, it's been a two-way conversation. I agree: afficianodoes of "classical" music tend to be Eurocentric. The ancient civilizations of Asia have had their own music cultures and systems for untold centuries --- albeit without (until recently) the great convenience of modern notation (which IS a European invention).This writer cannot claim to have any expertise in Asian music. I have heard some of it (e.g., the Japanese KOTO, in Chinese called the CHENG, in Korean the KAYAGEUM, in Vietnamese the DAN TRANH, and in Mongolian the YATAG.) It's a 16-stringed zither, said to have originated during the Ch'in dynasty (whence the name: China) in the 3rd century B.C. The instrument fell into disuse in its country of origin (China) during the Ching (Manchu) dynasty, while it continued to flourish in Japan and Korea. It's been revived in China --- or, at least, in Taiwan --- in recent decades, largely due to the efforts of Professor Liang Tsai-Ping. His performances were recorded some 25 years ago by Lyrichord Discs of New York. The music is serene and quite lovely.Another old LP in my collection comes from Hong Kong: it's a modern (Western!) interpretation of the old and very sad Chinese love story "The Butterfly Lovers". A sort of violin concerto, it was composed and here performed by the Indonesian- born violinist Lim Kek Tjiang with the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra. The musical technique is "Western", but the atmosphere of the work is definitely Chinese. For those of you (probably most of you!) who don't know the story, here it is (I quote from the program notes):"Around the 4th century, there lived...a gifted and lovely maiden called Zhu Ying Tai. Rejecting the restrictions imposed by tradition, she disguised herself as a youth and journeyed to Hangchow [the capital] to study. There she met Liang Shan Po, a scholarly and upright young man. They studied and lived together like brothers for three years. Gradually, a close and profound friendship developed so that when the time came for them to part she tried various subtle means to impress upon him her true inner feelings, but all in vain."A year later, when Liang discovered that Zhu was in fact a girl, he hastened to her home to propose marriage. But unfortunately he was too late, for her father had already promised her to another man from a wealthy family. At their last desperate meeting, they swore eternal fidelity to each other."Soon afterward, Liang died in despair. When Zhu was told of her lover's death, she went to his tomb and bitterly lamented her fate. Then she leaped to her death into the interior of the tomb which had opened to welcome her. The lovers were then transformed into butterflies united happily ever after."Well, a sort of Chinese Romeo and Juliet, but with decided overtones of sexual ambiguity! Anyway, the music of the score is very lovely, very sad, very touching. One sometimes used to hear it in upscale Chinese restaurants! (But nowadays, they play pop.) Speaking of sexual ambiguity, there is the Japanese KABUKI, in which all the roles are played by males. Those playing female roles are enwrapped in elaborate costumes and tons of make-up; and the most successful are sometimes elected "national icons" by the Parliament, no less! Kabuki has its own traditional music. And there are the other art forms of Japan: the aristocratic NOH and the popular BUNRAKU (puppet shows --- far more complex than the puppet shows of Europe). They, also, have their own distinctive music. As I said, it would take an encyclopedia to cover all this stuff, and there are excellent articles in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, for those who care to pursue a study of the subjects. I didn't even get into the music of India. (South Asia) This has actually attracted some popularity in the "West", thanks to Ravi Shankar and others.Arthur LaMirandeThe (modern) composer of the music for the Butterfly Concerto is Indonesian-born Lim Kek Tjiang. He studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory, graduating with highest honors in 1950 --- the first Asian to win the coveted "Distinction of Virtuosity" award from that school. He continued his studies in Paris, where h he studied with Georges Enesco (a.k.a. George Enescu) and conducting with Eugene Bigot. In 1956, he was appointed conductor of the Djakarta (Indonesia) Radio Orchestra. Later he became conductor of the Beijing Radio Symphony Orchestra in China and professor of violin at the Beijing Conservatory. (This was before Mao's infamous "Cultural Revolution"!) In 1968, he became conductor of the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra. I don't have any more recent information on him: perhaps the Naxos CD does? He composed the Butterfly Concerto in 1958, during his stay in China. The program notes for the original LP state: "the composer liberally adopted some of the nuances of Chinese musical instruments into the violin solo and the orchestration, thus imbuing the music with an unmistakable Chinese character."Of course, the story --- dating back many centuries --- is a "gay" story, thinly disguised so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the imperial court and the conservative society of the time. I shudder to think what Eminem would do with this story!I put the old LP on the turntable this afternoon, for the first time in years. Now that's available on CD, I recommend it heartily. It's hardly profound, but it is still lovely music, albeit a trifle awkward in places.Arthur LaMirande[Follow up post]For the benefit of those who don't know anything about China: This is a vast country: larger than the United States (including Alaska!). Over the millenia, there have been many languages and dialects spoken in the various regions of the country, although most of them are closely related. But the unity of the country was maintained by its writing system: an ideographic system in which each written character does not represent a sound, but represents an idea.
Thus, a Cantonese speaker in Hong Kong cannot understand a Mandarin speaker from Beijing when they speak; and neither can understand a Wu speaker from Shanghai; but the problem is quickly resolved by simply writing down what they wish to say. All three have the identical written language, and thus immediate communication is established.The downside to this is that the poor Chinese student must learn literally thousands of characters, just to read a newspaper. (Not the mere 26 letters of the Roman alphabet.) And to read the literary classics of China, one must learn as many as 40,000 characters! All of which is a prelude to this:
My old (1970) LP of the Butterfly Concerto has program notes written in Chinese characters (interchanegeable between Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.) and English. Now, the spoken language of Hong Kong is Cantonese. So, it follows (sensibly enough) that when the Hong Kong program annotator translated the Chinese text into English, he used the phonetic equivalent of the (spoken) Cantonese names for the composers. In Cantonese: their names are: Ho Zhan Hao and Chen Kung. In Mandarin --- the official (and most widely spoken) language in the People's Republic of China --- their names are: He Zhan Hao and Chen Gang. So for the first composer, the family name is either Ho or He, depending on which language you are speaking. But, of course, the same character to write either version. For composer # 2, the family name is Chen is both spoken languages, althought the given name differs.Both composers are from China. I don't have any further information about them, and they are not mentioned in Grove's.My information comes this morning, courtesy of my contact in Beijing, China --- who also has a copy of this recording. It's best to go right to the source!
Arthur LaMirandeI have more information on the composers of the Butterfly violin concerto, courtesy of my friend in Beijing, Mr. Li Shuang:
He Zhan Hao (a.k.a. Ho Zhan Hao) was born in 1932 in Shanghai Chen Gang (a.k.a. Chen Kung) was also born in Shanghai, in 1933. They were fellow students at the Shanghai Music Academy in the 1950s; and they collaborated on the composition of the Butterfly concerto in 1958.Apparently, Mr. He was the principal composer, with Mr. Chen assisting; but I don't know the precise details of the arrangement. Mr. He was a violin major and Mr. Chen was a composition major.
You can read further about them atthis site
Unfortunately, if you can't read Chinese, you aren't going to get very far!
But you can see a picture of Mr. He at:
PhotoHe is teaching a class of schoolchildren at the Shanghai Music Academy, where he is now a professor. Looks very well-preserved indeed for a man of 68! He and Chen were classmates at the Academy in the 50s; now they are the professors!If I can procure any further information about their activities since 1958, I'll pass it on.Arthur LaMirandeFrom:kraviol@teleline.es (Juan燢rakenberger) Date: Sun, Feb 4, 2001, 10:20pm (MST+8)
To: musiclassical@yahoogroups.com Subject:
RE: mc~ Butterfly composers: more information Reply爐o:musiclassicalist@yahoogroups.comThe chinese music I am a little familiar with is the traditional one with works from the 15th - 17th century. It is all related to nature - flowers, fishes, beasts (the tiger) - and sounds remarkably modern to our ears. The melodic line is usually homophonic, and what little harmony there is rather is meant to give colour than to assist in modulation. The pentatonic scale does not allow very rich harmonization anyway. Sound colour is the sould of this music. In certain pieces a soloist gets an important cadenza to play this can be string (Erhu - the chinese violin/viola) or oboe-trumpet, or percussion (tam tams) with wooden sticks.I have been told that the sign for music and happyness is the same. They use music since 7000 years ago for mood making, and therefore there is no academic complication - never any counterpoint or imitation - and the melody flows along, and I could not even detect variations in the melody (but this may be due to my untrained ears for this music). The whole approach is entirely different to western music. Its evolution from the 15th century to nowadays is not overwhelmingly important - may be technical means and acoustical conditions have changed but the content appears to be more or less the same.Conclusion: Some recent developments in occidental music-making want to approach this philosophy with western means and are not overly successful, because we just react differently. But I still dont quite understand why we cannot get nearer this music, whereas they succeeded in doing this with western music. It cannot just be a matter of poor marketing on thir side. If this music were to appeal to us, some wise guy would have marketed it already. So I cannot help but feel that we have other sensibilities, but why I am unable to say.The subject does not seem to appeal to many people. I find it fascinating, precisely because I am curious what is happening in order to better understand these people. Since music is a universal language, why doesn'y it work in this case? ??A penny for your thoughts.
John Krakenberger
Essays on String Pedagogy
[From ourMUSIClassical.COM discussion group]