Our latest concert criticism concerns American pianist Stephen Kovacevich (also known as Stephen Bishop), who gave a concert in the Musis Sacrum in Arnhem on December 10th. Two friends went to listen to him on that evening with high expectations, but, unfortunately, left dissatisfied.

The pianist performed Beethoven’s Op.10/1 Sonate in c, the nr.4 Partita (BWV 828) by J.S.Bach and Schubert’s nr.21 Sonate, but their impression was as if the concert consisted of only pieces by Bach. The artist’s rendering of the different pieces lacked colour and emotion, while his Bach also lacked the necessary clarity of expression and even precision of tempo. The pianist’s performance on that evening lacked credibility.

They found it a sorry sight that such a famed pianist may encounter such a dreary patch at a concert. They also found it unfortunate that they vitnessed his bad day.

Earlier concerts

Our following critique is a translation of the opinion of a couple of our friends who went to the Opera House in Budapest to see Rigoletto on 10th Nov.

Unfortunately, they came away with a feeling that could at best be described as mixed. Initially, they found the choir and singers really bored, lazy and unenthusiastic, the singing and movement disorganized. This may not have been true for all singers, as, for example, Kertesi Ingrid received praise for her voice and charm. Unfortunately, they felt her to be a bit over-age for her role, which somewhat disturbed the joy of listening to her.

After the interval, the troupe seemed to be revitalized, very possibly by the scolding they must have received by the director. Even so, the impression was of a level that we were not accustomed to a few decades ago. There seem to be a lack of young, up-coming local talent available as they referred to an earlier performance of Madama Butterfly, in which the image of Pinkerton was distorted by the seriously overweight 70-year-old singer in the role. As can be seen in our presentation of the programme in Budapest, there are several guest singers with various productions. Although Russian singers have a very good reputation, just like Hungarian singers, those coming to sing in Budapest may not belong to the top.

We must express our regret that Hungary is not capable of luring and keeping the best that are so professionally brought up there, or would like and are able to sing at the best opera houses.

Lots of great piano concerts can be heard the world over, whether live, or on CD’s, or on the internet, but rarely are we exposed to such an overwhelming impression of intense emotions and power as at the concert on the evening of 1st October at the Musis Sacrum in Arnhem. That night, we were fortunate to attend the first concert in the local series “Meesters van het klavier”, which was given by one of the most promising young pianists of our generation, Denis Kozhukhin, Russian pianist, winner of several competitions, the latest of which was the first prize of the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Concours in Brussels in 2010.

I personally am not a fan of Haydn’s piano sonatas, but with the warm, romantic feelings added to the classical precision, the performer won me over. The playful humanity of Haydn was shining brightly with intimacy this time.

From then on, Denis Kozhukhin blew away any doubts that he is already one of the greats. His performance combined power with softness, technical brilliance with the whole spectrum of human feelings, showing all variation between soft tranquilty and explosive passion in Brahms’ first sonata and the seven pieces he chose from the “12 Études d’exécution transcendante’ by Liszt. He performed without any extravaganza, but let the audience witness the highest quality of music-making. His simplicity of demeanor underlined his concentration on the best in all music.

His performance was never rushed. Instead, we had the impression that he often preferred to stay on the slow side of possibilities without giving up anything from brilliance. His forming the musical archs of thought was clear and spaced out, letting the audience contemplate between what has been and what is coming. And while many young performers would choose bravura pieces for encore, he chose a slow, song-like prelude from Bach’s Wohltemperierte Clavier and Busoni’s beautiful transcription of a Bach chorale. A devotee of the highest quality in music.

Whether he will really become one of the greatest of the greats is to be seen, but he has definitely enchanted his audience at the concert hall in the manner of his predecessors at the Queen Elizabeth: Gilels, Ashkenazy, Lazar Berman, Malcolm Frager, Mogilevsky, Nikolai Petrov, Anton Kuerti, or Ekaterina Novitskaya. We wish him all the best. We’d like to listen to him live for lots of years coming.

Our first concert for this site

On 14th March 2011 we took part in a fabulous concert at the Musis Sacrum in Arnhem, the Netherlands, which many of you may be sorry to have missed. One of the best Hungarian pianists for the last couple of decades, Zoltán Kocsis, accompanied rising international star violinist from Hungary, Barnabás Kelemen.

The concert started with Debussi’s Sonate in g in excellent taste. It was followed by perhaps the most outstanding performance of the first violin sonata by Bartók that I’ve ever heard for decades. The duo played high drama with shocking force and clarity, and proved, at least for me, that Kocsis is the best Bartók performer of our time, and that Kelemen’s rising international fame is highly deserved – his talent and musical understanding matches the doubtless greatness of Kocsis.
After the interval, an beautiful performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata capped a magical evening.
If any of you could find an opportunity the listen to a concert by these two great musicians, try not to miss it. We highly recommend them to the connoisseur.

The singer, or teacher, making cultural journeys of such magnitude is faced with various grave choices. Can she, should she try to, answer the challenges of the foreign forms of art and try to become successful living up to the foreign ideals that she feels are of higher quality, or should she adhere to the endemic ideals of her own culture? Can she suit the requirements of both traditions? Can she make a career of both, and if not, which one can she more likely make a success of? What kinds of technical adjustments must she make while she is trying to work out the best ways of success? What kinds of aesthetic, cultural, technical, linguistic demands can she or should she try to meet in one direction, while she may fall short of similar demands in the other?

As the singing instrument is born with us and is capable of similar physical changes in everybody who is gifted, provided she is trained to use this instrument well and is diligent in her training, the result depends on the cultural aspects of the training and the personal choice of the singer concerned. Once the individual has chosen one way or another, she can learn to suit the cultural requirements of the profession. These cultural requirements involve technical, aesthetic and linguistic aspects, but are influenced by the singer’s original cultural background, which may play a deep, reflex-like role in whatever she tries to add to, or would like to modify in it. We cannot effectively modify reflexes and natural instincts easily. We can only do it if we study what is required and make the new ideals and techniques second nature. It follows that we first have to know as well as possible about the ideals of both cultures so that we are aware of what we would like to reach and what our basis for the changes are so that we employ the best methods to take us along the way of changes.

From our point of view, research on the differences between Western and Chinese singing traditions is highly relevant for singers with similar backgrounds to the Chinese author of this work. The differences in the overall cultural background of singing could cause the first problems for Asian singers. The exclusive use of the head-voice in the Chinese opera genre, coupled with a lack of culture for vibrato in the European sense can serve as an introductory indication of the differences here. Besides, the European opera and song-literature is native culture for Europeans, but not so for most people born in Asia, and the degree of mastering it depends on the age of the learner and the length of time available for her studies very much.

The source of forming voice is the throat, but voice is mostly used for speech, so Asian people, speaking languages with different places and ways of sound formation in their mouths, may find it more difficult to use their throats and mouths in the way European people do while singing. We are not going to analyse the full sound systems of the respective languages but we are sure that if we map out the differences of the sound systems and the use of different parts of the throat and mouth while singing different genres of classical operas and lieder, our findings will be of immense help for Asian singers, especially those Chinese who would like to perform the European repertoire instead of, or besides, that of their own land.

Another important aspect of learning difficulties may arise from the differences in the word-formation and the grammatical structures of the various languages. An Asian learner of the European genre must also be aware of these differences even when the texts of songs and arias are available in translation, helping the general understanding of the texts, while the understanding of the linguistic expression of feelings may also be dependent on the cultural ideals. Most people can learn foreign languages well, but most people can only do it over a considerable length of time, at the expense of a considerable amount of investment and only if they have expert teaching at their disposal. In a country like China, where very few people study a foreign language other than English, where the culture of teaching almost completely excludes the use of the target language in most language classes, where second foreign language does not start in secondary education and is built on the first one, English, and where teachers of such languages can only marginally be found even in the largest cities, thus not available for most young people, learning German, French or Italian is a daunting task for singers, whose profession is not language learning in the first place, and who are, consequently, short of time to deal properly with this requirement. This Chinese author only had Italian language once a week for less than a year at her otherwise great conservatory in China, but nobody helped her or her fellow students with German, French or other languages.

These above-mentioned areas of problems are sources of strain for the singer, which may adversely influence her voice production while singing. A teacher of Asian singers has to be aware of these problems as well as how to relieve the singer of the stress during singing. While we cannot venture to try to solve all the problems for Asian singers in this book, we will make an attempt below at mapping out the more prevalent areas where those problems lie. Only after understanding the problems can anybody try and redress them.

The areas of difference are widespread. There are of course also differences among the various European cultures and traditions of singing, the discussion of which would, however, far exceed our present possibilities. Thus the area of focus of this work would be mostly limited to some important differences between Chinese as opposed to Italian, German, French and English traditions.

One main reason to discuss classical singing in relation to Chinese singers is the emergence of singers of Chinese origin on the international stage. The tendency is somewhat different from tendencies of preference in the West in that in the West people choose either to sing pop, rock, folk, or jazz in the popular vein and follow their natural instincts to fame and fortune, or decide to study singing to follow the classical traditions; whereas in China young people may start out singing in the popular and traditional genres and then switch to studying the Western opera styles to become famous in the West. Only a few people who study classical singing switch to singing rock, or other genres in Europe, as Tarja Turunen from Finland has done, and almost nobody switches from the light genres to study classical singing; whereas for Chinese people, the way to international fame is to switch to classical singing.

Another reason is that forming links with Chinese cultural institutions, bringing Chinese students for further education over to Europe and the USA, and involving highly educated Chinese professionals in European higher education is a strong tendency in Western Europe nowadays. As a result, students from China form large groups of guest students in various European countries. Teaching this group of students with the largest possible cultural distance from Europe requires some special awareness on the part of the teachers responsible for their development. In this book, we aim at catering for the needs of such students and teachers with our understanding of both cultural circles and experience both as students and teachers of singing. However, teachers and institutions in Europe and America must also be aware of the difficulties towering in front of those who would like to leave China for a few years to study in the West, although we will not pretend in this book that we can provide all information on this issue. Suffice it to say here that it is not very easy even for the very best and most talented.

Another major reason why we have chosen German, Italian, French and English is because theirs are the leading operatic and song-literatures both regarding the musical quality and prevalence, so these are the most important languages on the classical stage. We will, however, make mention of some special aspects of differences when they are relevant among these and other languages and cultures as well when relevant. We hope to provide valuable opinion for Chinese learners of European singing and teachers of Chinese learners of European singing to help them better prepare for performing the operatic, song and lied literature in major languages and shorten the time necessary to achieve their goals.

{Excert from our book about differences of learning and teaching between classical European singing and Chinese singing}

4 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

5 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

6 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

7 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

8 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

9 Amateur Chinese singer singing an opera excerpt in Xian, in North-China

10 Chinese student singing a Chinese song in Shaoxing, in South-China

11 Tuvan throat-singing, by Yat-Kha (Aldin Dashka – 03 Chorumal bodum)

16 Chinese opera singer in Xian, in North-China

17 Playing the guzheng, in South-China

18 Example of Chinese opera singing – yueju (The Heart-broken Girl), in Shanghai, in South China

19 Example of Chinese opera singing – huangmeixi, in South-China

20 Example of Chinese opera singing – woman character, head voice, in Beijing opera, North-China

21 Example of Chinese opera singing – good man character, falsetto, in Beijing opera, North-China

22 Example of Chinese opera singing – bad man character in Beijing opera, North-China

23 Example of Chinese opera singing – lianhualao in South-China
http://6.cn/p/yzrHWwKz0NRMbM2lDxoLfA.swf
or:

24 Example of Chinese opera singing – chunjianghuayueye in South-China

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/aMC_N48WOCc/request_from=cpr

or:

25 Example of Chinese opera singing – Shanxi opera, North-China

26 Example of Chinese opera singing – qinqiang opera, Shanxi, North-China

27 Warm-up in a Chinese singing class – South-China

28 Practice in a Chinese singing class – Chinese song, South-China

29 Practice in a Chinese singing class – Chinese song, South-China

30 Chinese singer singing a European opera aria – Yi Fei, in South China

31 Chinese singer singing a Chinese folk song – Wu Bixia, in North-China

32 Chinese singer singing a European opera aria (O mio babbino caro) – Wu Bixia, in North-China

or compare to Dilber:

33 Chinese singer singing a European opera aria (Vissi darte) – Lucy Xiaoping Hu

34 Chinese singer singing a Chinese folk song – Wu Bixia, in North-China

A Western guest may feel sometimes strange at a classical concert in China, though. Audiences have a cultural background different from the Euro-American culture and move and express their own presence a lot more freely. There may be shuffles, walking, even talking taking place at a classical concert, mobile phones may ring at any time, and they may be answered, though not often as loudly as on public transport. It must also be added that such behaviour is less express in the main music centres like those mentioned above, where most foreigners would listen to concerts anyway, but further away from those you may encounter noisy audiences even in provincial capitals, like Nanjing or Hangzhou, let alone in smaller (n.b. Vienna-sized) provincial townships. But the quality of the performances, or the experience itself may still be worth it.

We expect no such disturbances at concerts by visiting leading international orchestras. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Myung-Whun Chung visit China only in February 2012, but they have a 6-concert round tour of the country. In the Concert Hall of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre they play
• Weber, Der Freischütz: overture
• Schubert, Symphony no. 8 in B minor “Unfinished”, D.759
• Brahms, Symphony no. 2 in D major, Op.73
at 20:00 on 13th February, then, at the same time and venue on the following day, on 14th February, their programme is:
• Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
• Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Sz 116, with young Dutch star Janine Jansen playing the violin solo. After hearing the young Hungarian violinist star, Kelemen Barnabás’s chatartic rendition of Bartók , this one would be our personal favourite for the following season, for the sake of comparison, at least.

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Janine Jansen play this same programme in Shanghai’s Oriental Arts Center at 20:00 on 16th February, and at the National Grand Theatre, Beijing on 19th February again, for those fortunate enough to be nearby. In between, they perform
• Weber’s Der Freischütz overture
• Schubert’s Symphony no. 8 in B minor “Unfinished”, D.759 and
• Brahms’s Symphony no. 2 in D major, Op.73
in Shanghai on 17th February, then the same concert in Beijing on 18th February. Getting from Shanghai to Beijing within the 22 hours between the end of the first and the beginning of the second concert may not be such a great problem for the orchestra with the new super-fast railway between the two cities, despite the 1300 kilometers separating them. They may not have enough time to sleep at 300 km/h, but they need not travel at night anyway. The new wonders of the new China offer a wide range of possibilities.

A very important part of this site is about a book about learning singing, called Comparison of Learning Classical Singing between European and Chinese Singers, which Z.J.Shen and P.Simon have written in collaboration to help (not only) Chinese learners of classical European singing and their teachers in Europe and America. The book has been published by the American publisher SBM/Eloquent Books. Those interested can look at the page on the right side of here with a large part of the introduction to the book, and those interested in getting our work in an e-book or pdf format can download it for a reasonable fee from our smashword page here.

The majority of the music videos linked to the book are available on youtobe.com, under ‘speterkar‘, for free, but we also include pages to the right of here containing the embedded versions of the same videos and those linked to the book but published by other youtube-users.

Those who would like to improve their singing in various styles of music relatively fast and easily, may want to visit the Singorama web-site here, or their other link, or try their free e-course. Some recommended activities are really useful for most singers, though most of those advocated there require a lot more time than it looks. Aspects of singing that an aspiring international operatic singer must address, including pronunciation and cultural aspects, are dealt with in our book mentioned above.

We also hope you’ll like the images we’re posting at our related site here. I like lots of things Chinese, so I’ll post photos from where I’ve been in China. You can comment on them or share your experience and curiosity. But, above all, enjoy! You can also see a video of the small shop where the paintings are, here:

at ‘signing Chinese painting‘ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUEbGwIvpfM
and at ‘paintings’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_azlTXz9SE