Interview that was music to my ears丨CD Voice
When people ask me about my most memorable interview of the perhaps thousands I have done at China Daily there is usually little hesitation in my response.
Although there are others that stand out also the one I did with the great Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy is the one I most fondly recollect.
Even the way it was set up was slightly bizarre. I happened to be listening to one of his trademark performances of Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto while cooking dinner one evening when the phone rang.
"Ashkenazy here," said the deep voice on the line. Of course, I had been in contact with his agent but the last thing I expected was to be telephoned directly by the great man himself.
We agreed to do the interview in the Hilton Beijing Wangfujing on the eve of him performing at the National Center for Performing Arts.
He could not have been more amenable. He even agreed to play the hotel’s piano (out of bounds for ordinary guests) in honky-tonk fashion for our photographer.
I was reminded of the encounter after recently catching up with Wray Armstrong, the Beijing-based classical music promoter behind the recent successful production in China of Dream of the Red Chamber, the opera based on the classical novel.
Classical music returning to China after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) was among the subjects we discussed.
Ashkenazy, now 80 and a regular performer in China for many years, played a significant role in this.
When he worked in London Armstrong represented the late Isaac Stern, who made the film Mao to Mozart and did perhaps did more than anyone from the West in re-establishing this musical form in China.
The progress in this area often goes under the radar. For one, China's classical music audiences themselves often come in for criticism. People noisily eating, mobile phones going off during performances and bored embassy officials on the front row wishing they were somewhere else are among the usual stereotypes.
As anyone who regularly goes to concerts here knows, there is, however, a real hard core of very knowledgeable enthusiasts.
There are also more imaginative and less conservative programs being performed here. It is no longer just about serving up an endless diet of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven symphonies to bring in the numbers.
The standard of China's musicians has improved. Many of the world's best orchestras now have Chinese players.
According to Armstrong we are now only about two decades away from China having a number of world-class Chinese orchestras.
He says the playing talent is already there but what is lacking is the "interpretation and the traditions of interpretation."
If so, Chinese orchestras would have made the same journey as those of Japan over the past 30 years with a number of them now considered elite.
Chinese orchestras going round the world would certainly chime with one of the messages of Chinese President Xi Jinping's report to the CPC 19th National Congress about exporting Chinese cultural soft power.
Armstrong, himself, plans to take the Dream opera on a European tour in 2019 when it may feature in the Proms season in London.
Although it is a San Francisco Opera production, many of the performers will be from China.
What we appear to be seeing is a culmination of the work over many decades of Stern, Ashkenazy and not forgetting others such as Yu Long, founder of the Beijing Music Festival and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic, finally producing results.
Although it has yet to grab the headlines, music might be one of the surprising areas where China becomes center stage. A full circle may have turned.
About the author & broadcaster
As a senior correspondent, Andrew Moody has reported not just in China but around the world for China Daily. He has conducted a number of exclusive interviews, including ones recently with former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in London and the president of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koromo in Beijing. He also covered China President Xi Jinping’s state visits to both the United Kingdom and to South Africa in 2015.
Before coming to China, Andrew was a well- known journalist in the UK having worked for national newspapers for more than 15 years, including the Mail on Sunday and The Observer.
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