“Ancient Path Modern Voices” is a festival celebrating Chinese culture organized by Carnegie Hall. Attending it was an experience that changed my perspective on the classical music. I, who am not very fond of traditional music, because as I am not musically educated I do not understand it, liked it. To me, as the music does not have lyrics and most of the time is somewhat slow, it resembles a noise rather than a song. At the same time an oeuvre is not a song but a symphony. To be able to play the instruments used in classical pieces, one has to master the technique, finish a conservatoire, and be devoted to what they do. A violinist has to know how to play the instrument, he cannot go to a studio, like any ordinary person, yell something to a microphone and call it a song.
The concert that we attended was unordinary for classical music. Composers, coming from a revolutionary time in Chinese history, have mixed oriental notes with western instruments, and created sounds unfamiliar to our ears.
A symphony that pleased me the most was a Bright Sheng’s String Quartet No. 3. I think that the composer’s brief introduction allowed me to better understand the piece. As he said, when writing the Quartet he was inspired by Tibetan and Hungarian folk music and dance. He said that the drum through out the piece represented the free rhythm of the traditional dance and the violin was a tenor line and canon of a singer.
As I listened to this 19 minutes of unstoppable music I realized that every second of it emancipated energy. Bright Sheng had used unconventional methods of playing instruments to obtain short and high notes. On the other hand, unlike what he has announced at the beginning it was not a danceable song (at least not to me). The notes were here, and it seemed quite unorganized.
As a final not I must say that the experience from Carnegie Hall has inspired me for future exploration in the area of classical music. I’ve seen that it is possible to add some spice to old and ordinary and I’m eager to find how it tastes.