——Thoughts on Listening to Jiazhen Zhao’s Recital Concert of Ancient Qin

This year is the very time that Ancient Qin of China is listed in world immaterial Heritage for ten years by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Jiazhen Zhao Ancient Qin concert performed the night before last was paid much attention to as it is the first Ancient Qin performance selected to Shanghai Spring International Festival.

In the concert, Jiazhen Zhao made full use of anyone’s strong point. When he portrayed the hand-down famous works such as Orghid in seclusion and Autumn song, his performance skill is both firm and flexible , both euphemistical and free-bold. Besides recital, multiple performance forms are interlude: the Three Stanzas of Plum-Blossoms played together by qin and xiao began the interlude. Spring Wind , played together by qin and drum is the ending item. Especially, flowing water, the mid-field music is performed by Zhijian Yang as ancient qin player and Lei Wang, young teacher from Shanghai conservatory of music, to be piano concerto. The music developed by the “talk” between ancient qin and piano, the two music instruments from Chinese and western countries of the world, feeling the artistic conception of “mountain and flowing water seeking aficionados”. Before listing to this music, I think this is another opern that give prominence to the collision and joint between Chinese and western countries music and has contemporary ear characteristics. However, during the process of listening, I feel ancient qin play the dominant role in the music and the piano melt into this music by motive melody figure with abundant of color, doing function as situational characteristic accompaniment, novel but perfectly stereotypical.      

The portrayal of Everlasting Longing from TV play The Legend of Zhen Huan , which has been promoted as a hot item before this TV play put on the screen. Has a strong taste of antique From the point of view of myself. The one who can really embody the strength of modern qin player is the Spring Wind, the ending item of the concert, performed together by Jiazhen Zhao, Mr. Qi, and Congnong Li, the percussion player. This music has big breakthrough not only in music structure, but also in performance skill. Large Paragraph of “twist wheel” perform the lively rhythm, combined with tambourine accompaniment of foreign region feeling , showing a drawing of spring scene beyond the great wall.  At last, the old song if only we could last forever , as extra performance, concerted by ancient qin and guita symbolically implement a trans-boundary, making the fans of ancient qin feel excited.

Now, ancient Qin mania surges great mass fervor as “happening and growing in spring” in the fields of music , film tv, education, even collection. However, in the concert, various portrayals which seems novel is the true epitome of ancient qin’s searching for development when the culture tradition of ancient qin meets modernization. In time ancient qin has been listed into “world immaterial Heritage” for 10 years, when clear micro pale far of ancient qin collides noisy times, the gradual transformation from music art’s diverting oneself to stage art nowadays makes ancient qin has to compromise in tradition it stick to.  Today, the different of performance venue also give Qin Tao totally different position of times. At present, in the continuous tide of pursuing

ancient qin with fever, we cannot help to think   how to truly inherit the tradition of ancient qin in the new times context?  How to define the literati’s characteristics specially contains in new culture field?