The phone rang, and the old gong said sorry first.
Because of the epidemic in Germany for two years, his original fluent Chinese was a lot of strangers, afraid that I would not understand. Coupled with a heavy cold, constant coughing, and a bit hoarse voice.
For the past two years, he and his two sons have lived in a village in his native Bavaria, Germany, separated from his wife, Gong Linna, who is in China.
The village is at the foot of the Alps and is snowy and sparsely populated in winter. "Although it is rural, it is not far from the big city, and it takes only an hour to drive to Munich, which is not the same as in China." The old gong said.
Old gongs and chimes
Lao Gong, whose real name is Robert Zoric, came to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1993 with the German National Scholarship to study, and since then he has "fallen into" Chinese music and created many works with Chinese cultural heritage and unique paths. When interviewing Lao Gong a few years ago, he once said to me confidently: "I know Chinese music better than many Chinese musicians." ”
The combination of Lao Gong and Gong Linna produces a wonderful chemical reaction. In 2010, a song that made Gong Linna "out of the circle" was "nervous", which was from the old gong. Behind the exaggerated expression and strange singing method is the five-voice scale and the opera singing voice, which is full of "Chinese genes".
Gong Linna and the old gong
Nowadays, although it is far away from China and the Chinese is also regressing day by day, Lao Gong feels that his heart is getting closer and closer to the Book of Poetry and the Chu Ci.
"I've been composing music for the poems in the Book of Verses recently, and I've written five of them, and it's smooth. It seems that there is no need to think, no need to plan, and it is all intuitive to create. It's like hearing a voice inside me, I know what this song should look like, and then it comes along. ”
"Ode to Orange" was also born in this way. This work will be premiered on the afternoon of Chinese New Year's Eve, in the CCTV "Ancient Rhyme New Year" program, sung by Gong Linna, hubei provincial museum chimes orchestra and Gong Gong new art orchestra will jointly play a replica version of Zeng Houyi chimes, playing the sound of jinshi more than 2,000 years ago.
"Ode to Orange"
"Ode to Orange" is from Qu Yuan's "Chu Ci · Nine Chapters", which is a confession of the poet's ideals and personality. Gong Linna said: "'Ode to Orange' continues the style of ritual music of the old gong 'Searching Up and Down', which is very atmospheric and has a big pattern. In "Ode to Orange", one of her favorite sentences is "selfless and selfless, and the world is in heaven and earth", "No matter where we develop, don't forget the roots, forget the roots." ”
More than 2,000 years ago, because of the Zeng Houyi chimes, the peak of world music was in China
Shangguan News: You find a lot of musical inspiration in Qu Yuan's poems, what kind of person is he for you?
Lao Gong: Qu Yuan is a unique existence for me, he is the first surviving poet in China. The Book of Verses is more like a folk song, you don't know who wrote it, and the content is small and beautiful. But Qu Yuan is different, he is three-dimensional, his works are very grand and philosophical.
"Ode to Orange" is not such a bold poem, it is very beautiful, very delicate, but slowly understand, you will find that the strength of the poem is still quite strong, and the personality of the chime can be integrated. The music of "Ode to Orange" has a very atmospheric sound, but also a kind of gentleness.
Shangguan News: At the foot of the Alps, how do you feel about reading the Book of Poetry and the Chu Ci?
Old Gong: In the past two years in Germany, I can hardly travel, so I stay here. Because your heart becomes more and more calm and open, it is easier to get closer to ancient Chinese poetry. Sometimes I read Chinese original text, sometimes I read translated versions, sometimes I don't even read them, right in my heart.
Shangguan News: When was the first time you heard the chimes?
Lao Gong: In 2005 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, there was a very large Chinese art festival, and at that time there was a replica of a chime in the Hubei Museum, where I first heard the sound of this instrument. Although I had seen the instrument in the United States before that, I didn't really understand it yet.
But in Amsterdam, I understood what a great instrument the chimes were, and I began to study it. I noticed that in the history of music all over the world, there is no instrument that can be compared to chimes.
In my opinion, more than two hundred years ago, because of Beethoven, the peak of world music was in Germany. But more than two thousand years ago, because of the Zeng Houyi chimes, the peak of world music was in China.
Gong Linna performs "Ode to Orange"
Shangguan News: This time, "Ode to Orange" uses a replica of Zeng Houyi's chimes, can it reproduce the sound of more than 2,000 years ago?
Old Gong: Although many people spend a long time making replicas of chimes, the sound of these replicas is not as good as the original excavated artifacts. This further shows that more than 2,000 years ago Chinese was able to make such an instrument, which is really remarkable.
If you look at the tombs of ancient kings, the most important burial object is not wealth, but art, and the most important of which is music, which shows that the status of music in that era was very high. Unfortunately, the instrument stayed, but the music didn't come down, so I wanted to compose music for the chimes and "come back to life" this great instrument.
I think chimes have a special place in the history of music all over the world, but I've asked some of my musician friends in Germany who have never heard of the instrument. We have not heard the sound of the chimes for more than two thousand years, and we don't want to imagine that it can quickly "catch fire", but I hope that the chimes will return to the stage so that more people will not only see it, but also hear it, hear the atmosphere of Chinese culture, and hear the thickness of history.
I studied the "soul" of Chinese music and slowly turned it into something of my own
Shangguan News: This year in Germany, will you spend the Chinese New Year with your two children?
Lao Gong: The first time I spent the Spring Festival was in 1992, when I had not yet come to China, and I spent it at the home of my teacher Chinese in Germany. At that time, I knew that Chinese to make dumplings for the New Year, and I learned to make dumplings from that time.
Shangguan News: That's awesome.
Lao Gong: You didn't think it was so powerful when I just said something so music-related, but how do you say that you feel bad about dumplings?
Shangguan News: Haha, it is indeed a "stereotype", I think that musicians' life skills are probably not enough.
Old Gong: Dumplings are not so easy to forget, because you have to make noodles and chop stuffing. In the past thirty years, this has long become a tradition in my heart, and we will make dumplings and eat dumplings every Spring Festival.
In Germany, Gong Linna's family and friends make tangyuan together
Shangguan News: It is not difficult to make dumplings, and it is not difficult for you to learn the guqin?
Lao Gong: When I was a child, I began to learn bavarian zither, which is a traditional Bavarian instrument, relatively niche, but it is somewhat similar to the playing method of Chinese plucked instruments such as guqin and guzheng, all of which are left hand strings and right hand strings. So later, after I went to Shanghai, I learned the guqin relatively quickly.
Shangguan News: Why learn the guqin? It is said that when you learned the piano with Professor Gong Yi of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the guqin was not as "fire" as it is today.
Lao Gong: Why did I learn the guqin? Because the Chinese guqin is very far from European music, in my opinion, it can represent the characteristics of Chinese music.
In the 1990s, chinese music did not have much sound, and the network was not so developed. I had to go to a lot of libraries to find a little bit of information about the guqin. At that time, I couldn't read Chinese, and I could only read materials in English and German.
So before I went to Shanghai, I didn't know who I was going to learn from. Later, I learned that I studied with Mr. Gong Yi, and I didn't know that he was a master at all. At that time in China, I said that I was studying guqin, and many people thought it was a guzheng, but they didn't know about this instrument at all. He studied guqin with almost no Chinese mainland students, some from Hong Kong and Taiwan, some from the West, and some from Japan.
Shangguan News: What kind of personality does the guqin represent in Chinese music?
Lao Gong: In the guqin, what I learned is the "qi" and "rhyme" of Chinese music, from one tone to another, just like playing tai chi, without a high move, but very beautiful. This is a very important feature of Chinese music, which is very different from Western music.
Of course, Chinese music is very rich, there are a lot of rhythmic things, such as gong and drum music, you see the rhythm of opera music, is very strong. But many people are still saying that Chinese music does not have a strong sense of rhythm, which is a big misunderstanding.
A replica of the ZengHou Yi chimes
Shangguan News: The birth of such a "divine comedy" as "Nervous", is it a sword that takes the side of the front?
Lao Gong: I hope to be able to find my own voice on the basis of inheriting traditions. I know a lot of artists whose work is serious, but they're fun people in life and will like non-serious music. And I like to combine seriousness and fun, and sometimes I want to write a particularly funny, very funny work, but creative skills are my foundation, and I will not forget it. "Nervous" is both contemporary and inextricably linked to traditional Chinese culture.
It's hard to find a song like this in China that can both be respected by the art world and have a big impact on pop entertainment culture, and I think that's what "Nervous" is all about.
Shangguan News: Looking back, over the years, do you have a clue to your exploration of Chinese music?
Lao Gong: When I came to Shanghai in 1993, my goal was very clear, I wanted to make music with Chinese, learn the language of Chinese music, and dig up the treasures of Chinese music. For a long time, I listened to traditional Chinese music with hunger.
My memory is not very good, and by the time one of my creations is actually done, I have almost forgotten about it. In the same way, I will not put a melody or a fragment of Chinese music that I have learned into my music. I studied the "soul" of Chinese music and slowly turned it into something of my own.