Le regard du silence

[Blue]

I'm wondering if many forum members are not comfortable listening to Chinese musical instruments producing Western music. But that's the vogue in Taiwan. Here's a recent advertisement I saw in an underground passageway in Taipei:



A Graceful Yet Enthralling Contest between Guqin and Cristal Baschet
Enthusiastically Recommended by the Director of Le Théâtre du Soleil of France, A Music Voyage across Time and Space, and the Borders of Nations and Cultures

Featuring Li-Yu You, the Taiwanese guqin soloist currently residing in France, with her performing and descanting, and joined by improvisations on the piano, flute-xiao, and ongcristal baschet, this concert will lead the audiences on an improvisational chanting voyage beyond time, culture, and nationality, which portrays the beauty of guqin’s millenarian heritage and of the ensemble of western instruments. When guqin, an instrument with an extremely long history, conveying the serene resonance made by the strings and wood, encounters the new-era sound brought out from the cristal baschet, an invention of two intellectual French artists Francois and Bernard Baschet in 1952, the audiences will be ready to set off on their voyage through time and space. The climax of this concert will introduce Thierry Pecou’s highly anticipated new composition Le regard du silence for the guqin, piano, cristal baschet, and flute-xiao.

Li-Yu You, the Taiwanese guqin soloist currently residing in France, will collaborate with the French Crystal Baschet soloist Catherine Brisset, French composer Thierry Pécou, French arranger, director, and percussionist Christian Dupont, and the flute-xiao soloist Yin-Chung Huang to create a cross-national work blending traditional and contemporary music forms. Li-Yu You was hailed by Ariane Mnouchkine, Director of Le Théâtre du Soleil of France, as “her profound and sophisticated music language, Ms. You passes down the living water of the legacy of guqin culture resolutely, while strolling leisurely among the diverse unification of poetic music and theatre and dance and contemporary music.”

[davidmdahl]

Interesting. Do you know of any videos of the guqin with the Cristal Baschet? This evening I watched a rerun of one of my favorite programs, and during a dinner party in colonial America, there was a performance on the glass harmonica, apparently invented by Benjamin Franklin. It would seem that the Cristal Baschet is similar to the glass harmonica. I can't imagine what a duet between a guqin and Cristal Baschet would sound like, but it is intriguing.

As for Western music on Chinese instruments, frankly I don't think it is done very well most of the time. In the same way, I am not usually impressed with Chinese music on western instruments. I could be guilty of rigid thinking, but I suspect that the usual problem is that the arranger/composer either does not sufficiently understand the music or the target instrument, or both. Chinese music on the piano is often very busy and bombastic, as if the composer is treating it orchestrally, rather than idiomatic for the piano.

However, in recent years I have heard some excellent mashups with Chinese and American musicians, and Chinese and Western instruments. A fellow in my town of Portland, Jim Binkley plays the guqin very well, and has composed lovely bluesy tunes for it that seem very true to the character of the guqin. My guzheng teacher has a pianist friend who she collaborates with on improvisations that I think are very successful. On occasion, I have run across some excellent performances on Youtube, of contemporary Chinese music that work very well. I don't think that Western instruments serve traditional Chinese music very well, but new Chinese music by imaginative composers on instruments they understand well can be lovely.

Best wishes,

David

[Blue]

Well, I guess the reaction to fusion instrument + musical piece would be as natural as how we respond to fusion cuisine. Sometimes I roll my eyes a little at the Chinese fusion cuisine being cooked in certain episodes in Master Chef. Other times, I scratch my head at the long list of risotto dishes and the dearth of pasta dishes in an Italian restaurant in Taiwan. Then I regret the tiramisu being served because they didn't use lady fingers. Still, I was able to spot an Italian restaurant in Taiwan that served extremely long breadsticks fresh from the oven:


One frequently found establishment in Taiwan is the Rose (Tea) House. If they opened such place in the UK, I could image UK members of this forum rolling their eyes at a Taiwanese perception towards afternoon tea.
hungryintaipei.blogspot.tw/2008/05/afternoon-teawestern-rose-house.html

On the other hand, when Mister Doughnuts became a Japanese company, they started adjusting the doughnuts to suit Japanese sensitivities to sweet stuff. Therefore the doughnuts because less rich than the typical American glazed doughnut, which is actually a positive impact towards fusion cuisine in terms of controlling one's diet.

Maybe you should fly to Germany and doctor that Chinese orchestra that has tango issues 'cause I was later alarmed that they included the word "tango" in one of their advertisements (although not the following advertisement)


What's your attitude towards Jerry Goldsmith and his avant garde use of musical instruments such as horns blown without mouthpieces and the Blaster Beam? Or what do you think about the use of erhu music to represent the Vulcans and the distorted version of the music to represent the Romulans in the 2009 version of Star Trek?