A Foreign Conductor with the Closest Bond with China
Seiji Ozawa, famed Japanese conductor, died of heart failure on February 6, 2024, at the age of 88. He was considered the foreign conductor with the closest bond with China, not only because he was born in Shenyang in 1935, but also because of his decades of dedication to helping Chinese musicians and collaborating with Chinese orchestras.
An old colleague of my mother just shared this photo with her. It was taken in the summer of 1978, when Seiji Ozawa came to Beijing to conduct the Central Philharmonic Orchestra (add link). The country was just lifted out of the chaos of the decade long Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), during which Western classical music was banned from public performance and performing arts organizations such as the Central Philharmonic Society were only allowed to perform sanctioned Chinese compositions.
In late 1976, with Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife and her “Gang of Four” arrested, the Cultural Revolution was officially over. Merely two months later, in December, Seiji Ozawa visited Beijing. The main goal for that trip was to visit his childhood home in old town Beijing, where he and his family lived until they returned to Japan in 1944. But during his merely four-day stay, he also visited the Central Philharmonic Society, as the first foreign maestro the Orchestra hosted after the Cultural Revolution. Chinese musicians played for him the newly composed Pipa concerto “Heroic Sisters on the Grassland” and other Chinese works. Ozawa was so impressed by the spirit of the Chinese musicians striving to develop China’s national music and by the warm welcome by Maestro Li Delun, principal conductor of the Central Philharmonic, he made a deal with Maestro Li to come back to conduct the Central Philharmonic Orchestra. Only a year and a half later, in June 1978, Seiji Ozawa became the first international maestro to conduct a Chinese orchestra after the Cultural Revolution.
For this collaboration, Seiji Ozawa not only brought standard Western repertoire including the Roman Carnival Overture by Berlioz and the Second Symphony by Brahms, but also Chinese works he had learned before the trip: the Pipa Concerto “Heroic Sisters on the Grassland” and Erquan Yingyue (“Moon Reflections on the Pond”). As an encore, Ozawa was to conduct a Japanese piece “Lumberjack Song”, which requires a piano within the orchestra. My mother Wu Wenjun was assigned the part.
Since she joined the Central Philharmonic Society in 1962, my mother was a piano accompanist of the Soloists Group and had never joined in any performance in the main orchestra, where my father Sheng Mingliang was a violinist of the Second Violin section, and my uncle Sheng Mingyao was the Principal Cello. Seiji Ozawa came to rehearse five days before the concert. However, the Orchestra had never played Brahms’ Second Symphony, besides a decade hiatus of performing almost zero Western classical music. A guest conductor, Mr. Bian Zushan, was recruited to work along then Principal Conductor, Mr. Han Zhongjie in a four-week pre-rehearsal program – Maestro Li Delun was demoted and under political investigation for his dealings with Jiang Qing during the Cultural Revolution. Still, when Ozawa arrived, he was amazed by the condition of it. Not only was the Central Philharmonic Orchestra far from being ready, even the Brahms symphony scores they used, Ozawa found out, were still the hand-copied version from the Manchukuo – the Japanese occupied puppet regime in Northeastern China before and during WWII. “I was faced with a very rare phenomenon”, Ozawa recalled years later, “a highly skilled Beijing orchestra having no idea how to play Brahms. Such an orchestra is almost a miracle and can be hardly found anywhere else in the world. This was a first-time experience in my life. … But what touched me in particular was, these Chinese musicians, who had been so used to playing revolutionary pieces, demonstrated an extremely strong desire to play Brahms and Beethoven. And this was the moment I showed up. Their enthusiasm and my feelings met. As such, I was enjoying a first-time in my life, and they were enjoying their first experience playing Brahms. Such an unforgettable experience, and I thank God for that!”
But for my mother Wu Wenjun, there was no four-week pre-rehearsal. She was only provided with the music on the day Seiji Ozawa arrived. She had to literally sight-read the score on the spot. The piece, though as an encore, was quite sizable and had a complex structure. There was a cello solo at the beginning (played by my uncle Sheng Mingyao, the principal cello), and various woodwind solos intertwined with strings. For the piano part, there are several sections of long pauses – markings of 18 bars or even 29 bars of wait. My mother had to stare at Ozawa and silently count all those “resting” bars. But after several runs, Mother learned the structure by heart.
The two concerts at the Capital Stadium were hugely successful, winning standing ovation from the audience of over 18,000. After the concerts, a very satisfied Seiji Ozawa requested to take photos with the orchestra members, including this photo with the female musicians, with my mother on the far right in the first row. Beside her was a journalist from NHK, which sent a TV crew to tag along Seiji Ozawa and produced a documentary of his historical trip.
The visit of 1978 opened Seiji Ozawa’s collaborations with the Central Philharmonic and China’s classical music circle for more than three decades. In 1979, with China and the United States normalizing diplomatic relations, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by Seiji Ozawa, toured Shanghai and Beijing in March, followed in close succession the Orchestre National de Lyon, Isaac Stern (“From Mao to Mozart”), the Berlin Philharmonic led by Herbert von Karajan, and Sir Yehudi Menuhin.
What’s different from other visiting foreign groups, was that all three concerts in Beijing had Central Philharmonic musicians (including my father and uncle) joining the Boston Symphony. Particularly in the last concert, held at the Capital Stadium, where in the first half, the Central Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied violinist Joseph Silverstein, concertmaster of the Boston Symphony to perform Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor; and in the second half, the two full orchestras joined forces in performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 “Fate” to thunderous applauds. For encore, the two orchestras played "The Stars and Stripes Forever" when, towards the end, all the musicians except the cellists stood up on their feet. Seiji Ozawa held up the hands of Joseph Silverstein and Yang Bingsun, concertmaster of the Central Philharmonic, and walked together around the stadium in the roaring cheers of the audience of over 18,000 people.
We were home watching on television (one of the first nationwide broadcasts of such concerts in China), amazed by such enthusiasm, friendship, and the power of music to open doors across cultures and bring the world together.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
* Photos sourced from the private collections of musicians of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra.
** Based on personal memories from the author’s 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 quote from Maestro Seiji Ozawa is retranslated back into English from Mr. Zhou’s book “Song of Phoenix”. The intention of using such a quote 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.