Intoxicated in Music - Reading Liu Yuanju's "Symphony City"

The music is good. Music is hard to write. Compared with the mutual translation between words and different languages, it is more difficult and almost impossible to convert the musical feelings that appeal to the sense of hearing into words. I have always had a respect for writers who are brave enough to take on challenges and know what they can't do. Not long ago in Zhejiang, I met my old friend Liu Yuanju and talked about the newly published "City of Symphony", which aroused my interest, and I wanted to know how Yuanju could solve the problem by interpreting music with the writer's pen.

Yuan Ju has a wide range of interests, enthusiasm and casualness, and there are many twists in the road of literature. When opportunities and challenges came, he was sensitive to grasping the platform suitable for himself, enveloping passion, letting the cross-border precipitate of words, and committed to the marriage of architecture and literature in his early years, writing "Expressing Space" and "Chasing Architecture", and turning to music in recent years. Ten years ago, he wrote a music and architecture book "City Concert Hall", walked into the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra to experience life, and was hired as the orchestra's resident writer, "Symphony City" is his essay on the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, ten years of musical life.

"Symphony City" is different from the general music appreciation text. Through the unique advantage of identity, the author can immerse himself in the music world of the orchestra, not only familiar with Chinese and foreign classic music, well-known performers, but also the musicians who perform their duties on the stage, what kind of temperament characteristics they have in their daily lives, and what kind of artistic style they present on the stage. This makes his brushstrokes like the ears of musicians, in the performance, rehearsal scene, always able to find the highlights, keenly choose the most appropriate angle, sometimes single-lens close-up, sometimes looking down on the whole scene, sometimes directly to the heart, sometimes escaping leisure, string playing, on and off the stage, all-round highlighting the concert's sense of the scene. Music needs to be interpreted, and music needs the infection and penetration of the heart. Through scene description, focusing on the characters, setting off the atmosphere, tracing the background with the scene, taking the strengths of literature, relying on the magic of music, and analyzing personal experience in the public field, it is the cleverness of the book, subtitled - "A Writer's Music Scene", which summarizes its characteristics quite accurately. Fu Cong, who plays the piano with half-gloves, Xue Suri, who plays the violin with a "shiu" bow, Dan Zhaoyi, who sets off a storm of Chinese pianos... One by one, the musicians covered in the dust of time are presented to the reader with distinct personalities.

There are many musical scenes in the book, and what I appreciate most is the author's description of various conductor masters-

American conductor Donald Portnoy, the gentleman and old man, "fat and clumsy form, can instantly become flexible in music, especially the upper limbs, neck, with magical agility and agility, the baton in his hand like a thin needle, he threaded the needle, smoothly sewing and patching between the various voices of the band." He conducted Dvořák's Eighth Symphony, "with a more refined dotted depiction of the orchestra." When he leads the violin, he tilts his upper body, and his left hand is kneaded in the shape of a string, trembling and demonstrating, and every time, the timbre of the string music changes wonderfully, like the spring wind blowing wheat waves, undulating a poetic and beautiful situation. This is his special symbol, derived from the fact that he used to be a pretty good violinist.".

Conductor Shao En, bumped into in the crowd, "only thought it was an old man who had walked through the wrong door: short hair, short neck, fine and fast steps, eyes stiffened by direct gaze, and deep lines between eyebrows." Uncle Shao, who was in charge of Ravel's "Bolero", changed a person, "like shaking a floating body, instantly connecting with the gods, that kind of extraordinary action, thunder and lightning, is not a design at all, it is born from the depths of the heart, and can only belong to the deep musical drive." He had extreme exaggeration, and with the momentum of a landslide, he lifted the band to a high place at once."

Roger Norrington of England, nicknamed "Father Norlington" by the author, was as approachable as Haydn, and he conducted Haydn's Clock, "beginning with a very restrained expression, like a professor attending an academic conference." Haydn is a funny old man, he wants to hide and seek with you, direct Haydn, just play gentlemanly demeanor can not, you have to bend down to accept the toss", Norrington touched Haydn thoroughly, only to see "this old English jazz suddenly cat down, the bright skull top is more shining, he seems to find a light belt from the ground, his hand in the support of this light belt completely spread to the band, so you will feel the sound of the band instantly brilliant, bright and sunny."

Zubin Mehta, on the other hand, is a master of four or two pounds, "even when the applause is thunderous at the first time, his face is only symbolically a shallow smile." His conductor did not have any fancy movements, using white painting techniques, fading out and showing Beethoven's Sixth Symphony", facing the Seventh Symphony, the strong rhythm of the dance music was constantly repeating like a wave, "Zubin Mehta is still as steady as a rock, but with a more determined and sharp gaze, scanning his orchestra, with the most concise movements, completing the most tense climactic passage. It can even be said that his command can be completely completed by looking at him. His calmness and stability give the musicians more room to play." The same Zubin Mehta, who conducts the violin concerto "Ussuri Boat Song", "seems to integrate himself into this river, and he and Xue Suri have a deep tacit understanding, not only physical interaction, but also inner waves." At the end of the song, Xue Suri and Zubin Mehta passionately raised their arms at the same time, stopping in mid-air, and before they could fall, the whole audience thundered and went crazy."

The author writes the most and observes the most meticulously, or the artistic director of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra and the famous conductor Christian Award. This elegant German academic commander, who has never regarded himself as a master, is more kind than angular, "he is not tall, tight corners of his mouth, his eyebrows lock out two deep grooves, more like a melancholy poet, not to think, he waved his hands, actually turned the clouds and rain, magic is boundless"; "He is extremely sensitive, not only to a musical sound, even if the adjustment of every breath of the team members, they are in tune with him." He usually wears only two T-shirts, "one white, one black, a morning rehearsal, the white T-shirt has been soaked with sweat on the flesh, and as soon as he took the stage in the afternoon, he replaced the black T-shirt." It was in the sweat-soaked T-shirt replacement that the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra gave the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra a new look."

The author also captures the interaction between Edward and his daughter in the performance: pianist Natasha Edward plays Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 4, "The piano language at the beginning seems to be not full enough, the timbre is slightly less glorious, and after directing Edward to properly let the orchestra connect 'supplement', the passion of the orchestra is spilled out, so that the piano and the orchestra go deep and magnificent in the overall effect". Award "pays attention to his daughter's touch from time to time, especially in the solo section, when the 'old man' with flashing hair and rosy face looks at his daughter from the side, afraid of missing something, there is encouragement in his eyes, more expectation, and the perseverance and decisiveness of the Germanic father."

Yuanju said, "I stubbornly think that command is a divine profession, and the slender baton in my hand is tantamount to the supreme scepter." "These masters of conductors, who are hidden behind the scenes of hearing, devote their lives to exploring the inner world of composers from the scores, and then express themselves with the performers, who are the souls of the orchestra, often the ascetics of the common world, and the ferrymen of the music world."

At the end of the day, music is the outpouring of the heart. How wonderful the mind is, how wonderful the music is; how complex the mind is, how complex the music is. Composing, conducting, playing, singing, every musician is a ferryman of the emotional world, starting from this shore of the heart, through music, reaching the heart of the other shore. People of different eras, different regions, and different cultural backgrounds are connected through music. Therefore, in order to deeply express the mysteries of the music world, it is necessary to explore the inner journey of musicians. "Symphony City" for Chopin's dual personality, Schubert's soul suffering from division, Tchaikovsky's unspeakable sorrow, Mendelsssohn's calm and peaceful meditation, Mahler's wandering and helplessness to die... All have a fine analysis. Mozart is the simplest, richest and most difficult to express, "For Mozart music, I have listened to mozart music many times, but the real deep understanding is to hear an Anton Kedi and Fu Cong's Mozart piano concerto concert in Shanghai. From the two of them' different understandings of Mozart, I had a new experience and understanding of the profundity of music and Mozart's divinity. "Mozart's musical realm is a natural and unpretentious realm, and the closer mozart comes, the closer he gets to a natural realm."

Yuanju is good at deepening the perception of music and the understanding of musicians in comparison. Yin Chengzong, who first played "Yellow River" and Yin Chengzong, who played Schubert at the age of 67, have a whole era in between, and it is also a dramatic life that is difficult for ordinary people to experience. To be able to hear his in-depth interpretation of Schubert's soul, he must have understood the composer's complex heart. He emphasized the contrast, from the small row board to the lively allegro, the transition between the two tones is quite distinct, like a flat boat on the surface of the dawn lake, leisurely floating, falling into the rapids in an instant, several sets of chords firm and powerful, electric flashing techniques, showing the magic of handyness." The author notes Yin Chengzong's unique way of handling the transition of the music: "Perhaps Schubert's somber color is too heavy, the music is finished, his hand has not left the keyboard, and he immediately picks up Beethoven's "Passion". In 1959, the 17-year-old Yin Chengzong won the crown of the World Youth Festival Piano Competition with "Enthusiasm", and played it again after fifty years, and the performer opened with a weak performance, "Highly sensitive fingertips, subtle and introverted, tight and entangled, each touch has the tension before the outbreak, until the tension is pulled to the maximum arc, he suddenly erupted - the contrast between light and heavy, suddenly so brilliant!" ”

How many concerts has City of Symphonies written? I can't tell. Yuanju seems to take the music scene as the node, time and characters as the longitude and latitude, the past and the present, interspersed with East and West, weaving a web of music and art, which includes both masters and celebrities, as well as piano teachers and amateur players of the Shenzhen Piano Association; both the vicissitudes of the older generation of musicians and the youthful vitality of the talents of the later generation. The Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, which alternates old and new, is regarded by the author as a pumping station for the city's youth and passion, woven into the center of this web. The words are silent, the music is sentient, isn't this web a thick and magnificent symphony?

Needless to say, the yuanju that is intoxicated in the music world is a bit greedy, so many scenes, so many characters, so many feelings, all want to get the pen, and it is inevitable to rush when the passion is surging. "Weak Playing Beethoven" wrote a detail: at the Shanghai International Piano Master Class, Anton Kedi commented on a Sichuan boy playing Beethoven's "Third Piano Concerto": "You play very powerfully, like a tall and strong warrior, but the strength you embody is excessive, you did not play the weak tone, the weak tone played well, it will be more powerful, more expressive." "I think this advice that Yuan Ju specifically pointed out is also true for literature. In the "deep friendship" of this piece of music fertile soil deep ploughing, slower, slower, music and literature better integrated, I believe that Yuanju will have a more fruitful harvest. (Xie Daguang)