Music
All my colours
by Ian Dando
A conversation with piano genius Gao Ping.
Unusual range of keyboard touch is the first thing you notice about Gao Ping. He’s the man with 1001 tone colours. During a recital at the Arts Centre, Christchurch, playing Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes Op 34, he hits the mood of each with precision. He changes his colours in a flash. What an ideal prospect for the Chopin preludes, for which you must be 24 different personalities in half an hour.
Gao shakes his head. “I’m now an amateur by attitude in that I play what I like, namely the 20th and 21st century. I leave the well-trodden classics, including Chopin, to the hundreds of other concert pianists. Don’t get me wrong. I love them. I used to play them a lot in my recitals and in my student years in China when I did fiendish stuff like Liszt’s Feux-follets at 14.”
Piano concertos? “No, those neither. With few exceptions they’re a flawed medium. The piano is already an orchestra in its large range of tone colours. Also its decay of tone means its subtle tone colours get lost in the wash of orchestral sound. It’s a gladiatorial medium counter to pianist intimacy. Having said that, I’m in the middle of writing one which I’ll probably have to launch.”
Ping Gao, to anglicise his name order, is Canterbury University’s new lecturer in composition. He shares the distinction with Tan Dun as being one of the few composers known to the world outside his native China. The Naxos CD of his works is now available here.
His closing recital work, Shostakovich’s very taxing Prelude and Fugue in D flat Op 87, shows Gao as a true international pianist. His complicated cross-accenting in the fugue’s rhythmically unhinged writing is white-hot. He shows his composer’s insight into one of Shostakovich’s most intellectual works. Like Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Shostakovich’s intellect spurs emotive vehemence to the fringe of madness. Gao makes it live dangerously.
He also gives Amy X Neuberg two spots in his recital. “She’s an ‘avant-cabaret’ performer traversing styles of rock, classical and world with her nearly four-octave vocal range. She accompanies herself with drums and live electronic tape looping to build up layers of her voice into a dramatic diva-esque delivery. I add piano improvisation to it. She’s imagination-plus. I’d love to collaborate more with her.” The scattered vocal avant-gardery of her first one has the inspired zaniness of Cage’s Aria.
Our composers? “Quite lively. Our top living composer for me is Jack Body. He’s international class, too, a broad visionary with a love of other cultures and a very sincere writer. In musique concrète and multimedia fields, John Cousins is one of our most visionary explorers.” Modern overseas composers? “From Janacek and Debussy on, I get something from nearly all of them. Messiaen is the most individual. He doesn’t compose; he juxta-poses. Ligeti, Berio and Nancarrow are especially strong.
“My big influence is China with its rich array of 55 diverse music cultures. It’s been that way for 1000 years. We’re crazy on your western art music, too. China’s acculturation to it has been deceptively fast. Gone are the days of Euro-centred art music. It’s now world music. Our music education is now strong except for creativity. That’s why I did my composition doctorate at Cincinnati University.”
By example, he says, Two Russian Love Songs for Vocalising Pianist (2003) on his new CD uses folk tunes popular in Chinese karaoke bars, and the lively Katyusha piece has melodic snatches in common with Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony scherzo and the popular “Tea for Two”. “When I juggle all these, the audience laughs at the musical puns flying around. Its structure is sophisticated, so it’s a classic example of composing entertainment without compromising my standards. Two pieces in my recital from my Concealed Kisses are far more exploratory in vocal resource and its relation to piano.
“All these are basically piano pieces. About 1950, Cage extended it through prepared piano technique by inserting nuts, bolts and things into its innards. I extend it further by exploring the pianist himself vocalising, whistling and making noises. The performer becomes a closer part of the piece. He’s really orchestrating the piano. No improvisation, either. It’s all written down.”
Gao’s other three CD pieces exploit his rich Chinese heritage. The six-movement Shuo Dhu Ren or The Storyteller (2001) for sextet was commissioned by the Zurich-based Ensemble Pyramide. “Story-telling was a key part of people’s lives before television invaded us in the 1980s. The theatrical delivery involving shouting, vocalising, intense vocal expressions and body movements have an aura of Chinese opera. In these six pieces I’m the storyteller, but through music.” The soft ending on string harmonics and harp decorations is especially delicate.
In both this and the Cello Sonata No 2 (2001), melodic lines are encrusted with decorations and chains of repeated notes with semitone sighs. It’s Chinese folklore influence again. Both use the western structure of pitch sets. He introduces each note additively – like the opening page of Bartok’s fourth quartet – till the full pitch set of five notes appears. The four intervals, the gaps between each note, permeate the entire work. This makes its thematic cogency as tight as a drum.
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