Bassoonists in the People's Republic of China echo the official government policy of "Welcome American Friends." In contrast to the Cultural Revolution when the phobia against western music and culture resulted in the smashing of grand pianos, western music is now featured by Chinese symphonies and performers are eager to meet their western counterparts. During a visit to the People's Republic in June and July of 1981, I found it surprisingly easy to make contact with Chinese bassoonists despite the language barriers.
In Beijing I met the bassoonist, Su Mao, in the pit orchestra playing for a performance of the Ballet Troupe of the Peking Dance Institute. This performance was directed by Stevenson of the Houston Ballet who was then working with the Peking Institute. Su Mao was so excited to meet his first western bassoonist that, after throwing his bassoon in my hands, he asked me to give him a lesson. We arranged to meet at my hotel and his grandfather came to interpret, but once we started working on the Weber Concerto, which he had brought, language was no longer a barrier.
Su Mao was about twenty-five, one of the generation whose schooling was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. He hadn't finished middle school, similar to high school in the United States, and was very largely self-taught on the bassoon. Technically he was quite proficient, but naturally he lacked understanding of the interpretation of western music. Su Mao played a bassoon made in Beijing, the Hsinghai, modeled after the German system. He bought commercial reeds made in China of cane grown in southern China. Our two and a half hour lesson flew by dealing with the slow movement of the Weber concerto and explaining reed making. Su Mao was delighted with the new fingerings I gave him to solve intonation problems.
In Shanghai, I met Yang Jim Rong, a clarinetist with the Shanghai Symphony, and his nephew, Chen Jei, a bassoon student finishing four years of study at the Shanghai Conservatory. This is the same Conservatory whose director described, in the movie from "Mao to Mozart," his virtual imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution. Chen Jei played a bassoon made in Shanghai called the Lark. His study of the bassoon at the Shanghai Conservatory seemed similar to that followed in the West using the Weissenborn and Milde books.
Chen Jei, like all Chinese students in early July, was busy studying for his exams and didn't have time to play for me, but wanting my advice, he gave me a cassette he'd made of the Bruns concerto. When I heard it back in the United States, I found a situation similar to that in Beijing. Chen Jei's technique was outstanding, but he, too, lacked understanding of the interpretation of western music. Other than the Bruns, the only concertos that Chen Jei mentioned knowing were the Mozart and the Vivaldi works. However, a quintet in which he played included works by Hindemith and Nielsen, as well as the standard repertory.
Yang Jin Rong, who has played for twenty three years for the Shanghai Symphony, was typical of the warm reception I received from Chinese musicians. He arranged for me to attend a rehearsal of the Shanghai Symphony and took me on a tour of the Yu Yuan Garden. On July 4, the Symphony under the direction of a guest conductor from Singapore was preparing its evening performance of Beethoven's Leonore, Copland's Appalachian Spring, and Brahms' Third Symphony. During the break I met the three bassoonists. The first and second played Chinese-made bassoons, the Hsinghai and the Lark. I had a chance to play both makes and found them good instruments, similar to the Schreiber. The contra player was playing a Heckel which was over fifty years old.
Meeting Chinese musicians was definitely a reciprocal pleasure. I was as eager to hear Chinese instruments as they were to have ideas from a western bassoonist. In Shanghai, where I attended a performance of acrobats at the Youth Palace, I had the chance to take photographs. The Chinese musicians invited me into the pit so that I could get better pictures of the seventeen pipe mouth organ, the sona (a shawm), the pipe (a lute-like instrument), and the erh hu (a two stringed instrument). I first heard these instruments at the Neijing Conservatory at a concert of Chinese music celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the Communist party. I'd been invited by a young vocal student.
The Chinese musicians I met were most receptive, friendly, and generous with gifts. In addition to a number of traditional Chinese gifts, I received some cane from southern China. To continue the musical interchange which began in Beijing and Shanghai, the U.S. Post Office is now carrying music and reed- making tools to the People's Republic of China, and I am exchanging letters with Hang Jin Rong who would like to come to Chico State University. If you would like to take part in this cultural exchange and compare Chinese cane with the cane used in the West, I would be pleased to share some of the Chinese cane which Chen Jei brought to welcome an American friend in Shanghai.