In his early years, he knew Li Oufan because of his "Harvard Years". The narrative of entering the school, reading, teachers, majors, etc. in the book gave me a general understanding of Li Oufan.
But at that time, the purpose was not to be interested in Li Oufan, but to understand Harvard through this book. However, between the lines, it revealed Li Oufan's love for movies, which naturally attracted my attention, and I immediately purchased another of his books, "My Autobiography of Watching Movies".
Don't look at it, don't know, take a look... disastrous.
I occasionally make a comment or two about the movie, but compared to Mr. Li Oufan, at most, a corner in front of the stage completes a singing segment and shouts "Good!" That viewer, as for how "good"? Where is the "good"? I don't know.
Mr. Li Oufan's research on film is breathtaking. If nothing else, it is his article "Looking at the Three Bamboo Forest Wars", the bamboo forest battles of the three films "Heroine", "Ten Faces Ambush", and "Hidden Dragon crouching tiger", from the scenes, plots, and shooting trade-offs, all the way back to the director's style and aesthetic meaning... This "culture" is digging deeper step by step, and mortals like me can't reach the dust.
Also in the book, it was found that Li Oufan was more professional and familiar with music. For example, I've read more than one of his analytical articles on film soundtracks.
He then purchased his Musical Notes. As a music essay for music critics, this book is rich in content and has a lot to watch. There are six broad categories in the book, namely: My Mozart/ Discover Shostakovich / Today I also listen to Mahler / Composer / Conductor / Virtuoso and recitals.
In about 400,000 words, in addition to feeling relaxed and happy and enjoying knowledge, I also realized Mr. Li's obsession with music and the seriousness of composition. For example, music fans listen to music to see the general score, but there are also research versions and conductors, but like Mr. Li's recording length of the same track, in order to explore the different styles and different understandings of the conductor, such a hammer must be compared, which is rare among music fans.
Writing about Shaw's Fifth Symphony in Discovery of Shostakovich VIII, Li Oufan said that due to Shaw's special situation and the gap between the two different cultural camps in the East and the West, the conductors' understanding of the song was slightly different. He actually listed the total time of the performance of many recordings and the time of the last movement in a table for analysis and comparison... The spirit of truth-seeking is convincing. See below.
Conductor Record Recording Year Playing Time (min)
Pleven 1965 9:39 (elapsed 48:10)
Bernstein 1979 10:10 (elapsed 48:28)
Heydink 1983 10:30 (L. 48:44)
Kondrathim 1968 10:46 (41:07)
Muravinsky 1954 10:50 (elapsed 45:22)
Muravinsky 1984 10:52 (45:11)
2002 11:33 (47:07)
With my knowledge, I cannot judge Li Oufan's musical text, let alone the music behind Li Oufan's text. It is better to take a chance and copy down an article that I think is quite interesting, so that everyone can end reading it with a smile.
Mozart and Shostakovich
- Dialogues in Heaven
The 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth is also the "biennial" commemoration of shostakovich's centenary, which is celebrated by the music community everywhere. I wonder how these two music masters are thinking about the spirit of heaven? So I couldn't help but fantasize about the meeting of the two masters in heaven
Shaw: (in German) Herr Mozart!
MO: (in German, of course) Who are you?
Shaw: My German is very poor, let's use Russian, anyway, everything you say in heaven is the same. You don't know me, but I admire you, almost as much as I worship Bach, I'm a national composer, surnamed Shaw... A very long name.
MO: Shostakovich, I've been looking up for a long time, I heard that you have suffered a lot in your life...
Shaw: How do you know? Not necessarily, but...
Mo: Look at you like this, when you arrive in heaven, you are still so nervous, a lot of age, still biting your nails, I am not Stalin, and I am much younger than you, when I died, I was in my early thirties, I should call you uncle!
Shaw: How dare you, how dare you! Sin, sin! Comrade Mozart... No, Mr. Mozart, you're still comfortable in heaven, aren't you?
MO: Absolutely! However, the atmosphere of heaven is similar to that of my opera "The Magic Flute", remember the three little angels who led the way? As soon as I took a breath, they giggled and led me to heaven, and heaven reminded me of the last scene of The Magic Flute: Papakino, Papakina! Where are you? Come and blow a little tune for master Shaw!
Shaw: How dare you, how dare you. Mr. Mo, you are so great that you have made so many immortal musical works, there are more than forty symphonies alone. I have worked hard all my life and painstakingly completed fifteen symphonies, although I have passed Beethoven's nine major limits.
MO: Haydn's dad made more symphonies than I did! But our eighteenth symphony is short, not as long as yours! Fortunately, I died early, and if I had lived a hundred more years and heard Mahler's second ———, "Resurrection", a symphony, I would have been suffocated. And the old Bruckner, with a pious look, like a church organist, who couldn't stop composing the music, and a Scherzo who looked dead, with no sense of humor.
Shaw: Good, good. Mr. Mo, what I admire most about you is the sense of humor in your works, which is really ever-changing and admirable! The day before yesterday I got up and listened to your lesser-known "Musical Joke", work k22, to the second movement, the two horns blew out of the sound, I laughed to death - sorry, in heaven can not die - sounds very clumsy, of course you mean? Some people say that this is a deliberate tribute to Ling Zun?
MO: Nonsense! There are too many so-called "scholars" in later generations who have written about me. In fact, I was just joking, and the musicians in Vienna were good and bad, and there were not many trumpets that played well.
Shaw: My symphony also relies on horns, but I prefer trumpets, and in my first piano concerto, the trumpet and piano are racing at the end, which is very fun. A few days ago I heard that the Hong Kong Little Symphony Orchestra only played this piece, the British blonde trumpeter, looks really beautiful, if I am thirty years younger, or like your age, maybe...
Mo: Old Xiao, shall I call you Old Xiao? What revolution? Your work is so heavy that I don't even write Divertimenti, but I write a whole bunch, especially for woodwind instruments, and so many serenades. Didn't your peer Prokofiev also write a Classical Symphony? Although it is not me who imitates it, but mostly imitates Haydn, the playful component of the form of the music is still not enough.
Shaw: Jokes, jokes! Do you know what the price of ridicule was under Stalin? The princes and nobles of Vienna treat you well, And Mr. Mozart, even the royal composer of the court, Mr. Saleri, treats you with courtesy.
MO: Good, good. I don't believe that the script written by the later generations is made out of nothing, and the movie Amadeus is too heavy, but I like the Prague background in the film. Prague is my favorite European city – except Vienna and Salzburg – where my opera Don Giovanni premiered.
Shaw: Good, good. I have also been there, and many of my works have been performed in Prague, where there is a spring music festival every year, and the beauty is like a cloud! Mr. Mo, it is a pity that you did not visit our St. Petersburg when you traveled around the world, and under the rule of Empress Catalina, it was also very beautiful, no less than Prague.
MO: But you Russian nobles speak French and are on the side of France, and I just don't like Paris, I'd rather go to Milan, Italy.
Shaw: Good, good. I can't stand the "bourgeois" mood in France, and I also wrote a song and dance drama that satirizes capitalism, which contains a small song - (two people drinking tea)...
MO: Good, good! Tea for Two, but not you wrote it, or americans are great, that "petty bourgeoisie"...
Shaw: I hate the United States the most, and once — after World War II — Stalin forced me to make a model once, and I was so uncomfortable that I was cheered and embarrassed to go on stage in such a big "Madison Square."
Mo: Unfortunately, I was not born at the right time, and I couldn't go to the United States, otherwise I would have to enjoy it. You are a person who is too "ascetic" and has revealed a little humanity and sexuality when you go to heaven...
Shaw: No, no, no, I have a lot of friends, and my humanity comes out in front of good friends. Mr. Mo, you are so lucky that you did not live in the Soviet Union in the twentieth century, or the eighteenth century.
MO: Eighteenth century, nineteenth century, twentieth century, now I hear that there is a twenty-first century... Anyway, all this is a passing cloud, it has nothing to do with us, or invite you to the cold house for a drink of red bar, listen to my popular "Serenade".
Shaw: Red wine, red wine, red, great red, revolution, war, sacrifice...
Mo: Why are you still crazy in heaven? It's hopeless. Well, tomorrow please come your old horse, Mahler, not Marx, and you must be able to talk more!
Shaw: (muttering), yes, and death, death in Mahler's music, my fourteenth symphony, death.
At this time, the voices of the angels came from the sky, and it turned out to be the last movement of Mahler's Second Symphony.