Chinese music offers rare treat to Western ears
By admin on 2014-12-26

Puccini's Turandot may sound familiar to music-loving Parisians. But a rendition by Chinese artists on their traditional instruments such as erhu, pipa, ruan, dizi and suona is a rare treat to their ears. The local audience seemed to enjoy every minute of the fascinating performance.

Bravo! Encore!

Rounds upon rounds of deafening applause expressed the appreciation of the over 1,000 music-loving Parisians who packed the UNESCO theater in Paris Saturday night for a concert by China's Central Nationalities Orchestra.

The theater was immediately filled with jubilance as an assortment of traditional Chinese string, wind and percussion instruments wove out The Spring Festival Overture, an equivalent to the opening number of the New Year's Concert in Vienna.

The mood was then carried away to a soul-comforting equilibrium by The Moon Reflected Er-quan Spring, an erhu (two-stringed bowed fiddle) concerto.

When the melody of Swam, a pipa (traditional Chinese stringed instrument) piece composed jointly by Chinese and German artists resonated through the hall, the audience seemed able to visualize the noble bird swimming peacefully in serene waters.

"I recognized er-hu as soon as I heard its sound," said Phillipe, a music lover who gave only his last name. "I have learned the violin-like sound but this was the first time I ever saw er-hu on stage in play."

If the traditional Chinese tunes and melodies insinuated quiet oriental harmony into the minds of audience, the Italian classical opera piece and Johann Strauss' Polkas threw the packed theater into hands-clapping resonance and pushed the entire performance to its climax.

Conductor Chen Xieyang turned to face the audience to confirm his appreciation of their understanding rhythmic clappings.

A Mr. Taleton, who sat in the front row, recorded with his iPhone some of the numbers of Chinese music, like The Dance of the Yao Ethnicity.

"I knew it would be good," he said, "but the wonderful performance was still well beyond my imagination and expectation. It was very nice indeed."

Long after the standing ovation that ended the day's performance after several curtain calls, a little French boy was still rocking his body upstage to imitate the Chinese conductor to the accompaniment of his imagined playback of the music he just heard.

The Chinese ensemble had just participated in the Europalia China arts festival in Belgium and is on its way to Austria and Slovakia for more concerts before winding up its Europe tour.