Music for global harmony

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra returns with concerts building bridges between people and cultures, Chen Nan reports.

Under the baton of its music director, Russian-born conductor Vasily Petrenko, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra launched a tour of China on Thursday with nine concerts in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Xiamen, Fujian province.

The tour, which concludes on Sunday, marks the orchestra's first visit to China with Petrenko and its first tour of the country since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The orchestra and Petrenko are performing a repertoire comprising a rich blend of British, Chinese and Russian music, including works by Benjamin Britten, Tan Dun, Guan Xia, Dmitri Shostakovich and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

"All the programs are designed to show how music bridges and connects cultures and people, to show that classical music is one of the most unique forms of art, which allows people in any nation, background or religion to enjoy and experience the same emotions," the conductor said in Beijing on Wednesday, a day before the orchestra's two concerts at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on Thursday and Friday. "Nowadays, when the world is in turbulence, it is important to show the world how it is possible to deliver harmony and peace."

One of the highlights on the program is a specially arranged orchestral suite from the Chinese opera Mulan by composer Guan. Having premiered 20 years ago, the Chinese opera was based on the legendary story about a young girl named Hua Mulan in ancient China who takes on a male identity to replace her ailing father to join the army and save her country from the intruder.

"The suite that we are playing combines all the themes from the opera, such as the wedding music, the war music, and the march music. It's very special for me and it's the first time for me to perform it," says Petrenko.

Asked about his approach to a new music piece, the conductor says that, "It's like reading a book, but there is difference.

"When you are reading a book, you read it line by line. When you read the music, you need to see the whole picture. It feels like there are 10 people in the books who are talking at the same time. That's what a conductor hears in an orchestra," he says. "By reading the score, you just hear it in your mind."

Violinist Ray Chen, who was born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, will join the orchestra and Petrenko on the tour, performing Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op 35, which will coincide with the release on the Deutsche Grammophon label of his new recording of the concerto, also with the orchestra.

Other music works on the program will be excerpts from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Cello Concerto by Tan, Shostakovich's Symphony No 5 and Scheherazade, Op 35, an orchestral suite by Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov that was inspired by the collection of largely Middle Eastern and Indian tales known as The Thousand and One Nights (or The Arabian Nights).

British composer Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes from the composer's first successful opera Peter Grimes will also be performed during the tour.

"I've been to China many times with different orchestras from around the world. I have seen new concert halls built in China over the last 20 years and I feel that people are coming to the concerts because they have a habit for it. They want to come to the concerts because classical music is part of their lives," says Petrenko. "China, in terms of audience, is picking up strongly in all aspects, like understanding and youth — the country has one of the youngest audiences in the world.