PART II
Philadelphia Orchestra’s visit to China and its aftermath
Late night on September 12, 1973, just when the Philadelphia Orchestra arrived in Beijing and Ormandy and the musicians hadn’t got to rest yet, officials from the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries – the concert organizer – paid them a visit at the hotel. In a very polite but firm tone, they asked the orchestra to add another concert in Beijing, and it’d better include Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. The Orchestra only brought the scores of Beethoven’s Fifth, “Fate”. Besides, “Pastoral” was not Ormandy’s personal favourite among Beethoven’s nine symphonies. However, they knew it was the demand from someone much superior, and they couldn’t say no. The Central Philharmonic provided hand-copied scores, inevitably, with many typos and mistakes, for the Philadelphia Orchestra to rehearse and perform with.
But Maestro Ormandy did get to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in an unusual situation: on September 15, the Philadelphia Orchestra visited the Central Philharmonic Society’s rehearsal hall. To show the level of the Central Philharmonic’s strings, Mastro Li Delun led the performance of Erquan Yingyue (“Moon Reflections in the Hui Spring”), an erhu solo piece newly arranged for string orchestra by composer Wu Zuqiang. According to William Smith, assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, himself an avid arranger, “The performance could be said as impeccable. We were all amazed by such gorgeous and beautiful playing!” Mastro Ormandy was so impressed that he requested to have the score.
Mastro Li Delun then led the Central Philharmonic to perform Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for the American guests. After he finished the first movement, with a smile, he handed the baton to Mastro Ormandy. Though he had been briefed on the flight that he’d conduct the Central Philharmonic “somehow”, Mr. Ormandy hadn’t expected it’d be like this. He rolled up his sleeves and started to conduct the Chinese orchestra the second movement. The Chinese musicians weren’t so used to Mr. Ormandy’s conducting style at first. But after just a few moves, they adapted very quickly. The cello section sounded shaky during the intro. Maestro Ormandy stopped and hummed the tempo he wanted. One of the American musicians commented later, “like magic, all of a sudden, the Central Philharmonic sounded like a different orchestra, with confidence and cadence!” Ormandy worked with the Chinese musicians on aspects such as balance, phrasing, all without relying on the score, which created unprecedented excitement among the Chinese musicians. After stepping off the podium, Maestro Ormandy told Maestro Li, “We had high expectations for this trip, but didn't expect them to be this high. We had no idea you were this awesome. You have done an excellent job!” The visit to the Central Philharmonic would become the most cherished memories among the musicians of the two orchestras.
On the evening of September 16, Madam Mao, accompanied by several politburo members, attended the third concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The concert started with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, which confirmed the change of program was an order from Madam Mao herself. In the second half, during the performance of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome”, Madam Mao started to complain, “How does this sound like pine trees in any way?” She apparently could not appreciate the part depicting the scene of ancient Roman army lining up and thought it was too loud and completely deviant from the title. Her complaints from the first row were so loud that even the musicians on stage could hear her. However, she seemed to be pleased that the American orchestra played brilliantly the anti-imperialist themed “Yellow River” Concerto, with her personal favourite pianist Yin Chengzong at the piano. She was so pleased that after the concert, she had forgotten all her complaints about “Pines of Rome” and asked to meet the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians. At this point, many of the musicians had returned to the hotel. They had to be bused back to the concert hall to shake hands with China’s first lady and took a group photo in their casual wear, which was published on the front page of the People’s Daily the next day. As Madam Mao was enjoying receiving American guests and answering questions from American journalists, Maestro Li Delun, seeing her in a good mood, took out a hand-copied score of Erquan Yingyue and asked for her directive if this could be gifted to the Philadelphia Orchestra. With Madam Mao’s “yes”, Li Delun got to bypass the red tape of the Central Cultural Group and put the score directly in the hands of Eugene Ormandy, who had asked for it many times.
After four concerts in Beijing and two more concerts in Shanghai, the Philadelphia Orchestra returned to the U.S. as ice-breaking cultural heroes. President Richard Nixon, personal friend of Maestro Ormandy, wrote to particularly praised him and the Orchestra for “demonstrat(ing) an admirable spirit of flexibility in adjusting your performance to Chinese desires and that the individual members of the Orchestra were outstanding cultural ambassadors”.
However, reviews from Harold Schonberg, New York Times music critic, weren’t so flattering to the Chinese works, particularly about the “Yellow River”. In his typical sharp style, Schonberg commented, “At best, a score like the ‘Yellow River’ Concerto is movie music. It is rehash of Rachmaninoff, Khachaturian, late Romanticism, bastardized Chinese music and Warner Bros climaxes.” He even quoted the orchestra members’ nickname for the concerto “Yellow Fever” and called it “(maybe) a piece of trash…(but) damned hard workout for the soloist”. Meanwhile, other American musicians and critics gave high acclaims to Erquan Yingyue, a non-Model Drama piece, for its sentimentality, beautiful melody and sophistication. All these were translated into Chinese and compiled into reports in China’s “internal” Reference News. Madam Mao was infuriated. She accused Premier Zhou Enlai of tricking her into such humiliation. She deemed this a whole conspiracy scheme to attack her cultural line and herself personally.
Merely a month after, Madam Mao launched a nation-wide criticism movement denouncing Untitled Music. A number of newspaper editorials were published to denounce Western composers, including Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, etc., as “representing the filthy, corrupt life and decadent sentiment of the bourgeoisie” meant to erode the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese people. Madam Mao herself, in a comment on a program review report to the Politburo, criticized, “even titled works such as Pines of Rome performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra can be played aimlessly. Comrade Li Delun should have provided proper information for the Central Committee’s reference, instead of making fools of us. As for Chinese works, they have to be approved as revolutionary. No more Erquan Yingyue.” Maestro Li Delun was forced to write confession letters (with my mother Wu Wenjun assigned to assistant drafting), even make public speeches at organized rallies to denounce himself for misleading the revolutionary leadership. The proposed Central Philharmonic tour to Japan was postponed until a year later. No more foreign arts groups were allowed to visit China. Everything had to “make way for the revolutionary Model Dramas”.
All this continued until 1978, when the Toronto Symphony became the first major Western Orchestra to visit China after the Cultural Revolution. This reopened another wave of visits by Western musicians and organizations, including in 1979 alone, the Boston Symphony led by Seiji Ozawa, Orchestre National de Lyon, Isaac Stern (“From Mao to Mozart”), the Berlin Philharmonic led by Herbert von Karajan, and Sir Yehudi Menuhin. On December 26, 1979, Seiji Ozawa came to Beijing again and led the Central Philharmonic to perform Beethoven’s Nineth Symphony, “Ode to Joy”, a concert that symbolized the full return of classical music to China.
Since 1973, the Philadelphia Orchestra has revisited China 11 times, and China has built over 80 professional symphony orchestras, dozens of concert halls, grand theatres and music conservatories. China has also produced world famous musicians such as Tan Dun, Lang Lang and Yujia Wang. Now, both “Ode to Joy” and “Yellow River” are performed to roaring applauds across China.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
* Photos sourced from the China National Symphony Orchestra’s Wechat channel
** Based on personal memories from my family members and friends who were part of the events described in this article.
*** The chronicle of events in this article is referenced from “Song of Phoenix – The Central Philharmonic 1956-1996” (in Chinese), by Hong Kong-based scholar ZHOU Guangzhen, published by SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2013
**** Direct quotes from certain persons involved have been retranslated back into English from Mr. Zhou’s book “Song of Phoenix”; quotes from Harold Schonberg are sourced from the New York Times Archive. The intention of using these quotes is to provide full historical context. This author does not own the rights to these original publications, nor does he have any intention, explicit or otherwise, to infringe on the rights of the original authors. This author has used these quotes in good faith of fair use.
***** This author adds web links to resources such as Wikipedia, as deemed necessary to help readers understand the backgrounds of specific historical events. The author does not endorse nor guarantee the accuracy of such sources of information.