It is quite surprised that people complain that there is no great master in China. We do have. We have a lot. They are just working quietly in science, philosophy, music and other art without the glory casted by the media. But they are the real backbones of this country. They inherit all intellectual virtues and ideals of the high culture from this country with more than 5,000 years history.Just given time and patience, they will shine like a fabulous rainbow after the rain.
Once Einstein said, the evaluation of a man is not how many prizes he wons but is the total respects he received from his fellow researchers. From this perspective, Fou Ts'ong is really a master of our time.
Fig. 1 Master of Piano: Fou Ts'ong
Fig.2 FOU TS'ONG PIANO RECITAL 2007 (2007傅聰台北鋼琴獨奏會 剪影)
YouTube Video 1: 2007傅聰台北鋼琴獨奏會 剪影 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Iwy4vOhdA
YouTube Video 2: 傅聰 Fou Ts'ong Chopin Piano Sonata No.3 B minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqTiVBhCGXc
Herman Hesse, Nobel laureat, wrote this essay in 1960 on hearing Fou Ts'ong's interpretation of Chopin
1960年,诺贝尔奖获得者 德国诗人 Herman Hesse 听过傅聪的肖邦演奏后写下这篇文章。
============================== 转载: To a Musician 献给一位音乐家:Hesse
I had an experience when listening to my radio.
我曾经在听收音机(里的音乐)时有过这样的感受。
It was an evening with music by Chopin, played by a Chinese pianist whose name is Fou Ts'ong, a name I had never heard before.I didn't know anything about his age, his education or his person.I was interested in the beautiful program, and naturally I was wondering how Chopin, the great love of my youth, would be played by a Chinese musician.
I had heard a lot of Chopin before played by the old Paderewski, by Edwin Fischer, Lipatti, Cortot and many other great pianists. They all played Chopin in many different ways: correct coolness, melting sounds, bold and emotional and individualistic, sometimes devoted to a beautiful sound, sometimes devoted to rhythmic details, sometimes with a religious touch, sometimes eccentric, sometimes frightening, and sometimes egomaniac, but only rarely it corresponded to my vision of Chopin. I always thought that the ideal way of playing Chopin must have been the way Chopin himself has played his music.
Within minutes, I was full of admiration for the unknown Chinese pianist and then full of love. He mastered his music superbly. I had expected technical perfection, since the Chinese are given to skill and hard training. The technical perfection was all present, neither Cortot superior. But it was not only perfect playing I heard, it was also real Chopin. It was the Chopin of Warsaw and Paris, the Paris of Heinrich Heine and the young Liszt, I could smell the violets, the rain in Malloraca and also the exclusive salons. It was melodic and elegant. The rhythmical delicacies and the dynamism of the music were all here. It was a miracle.
I would have like to see this gifted Chinese with my own eyes. It could have been that his person, his movements and his face would answer a question which came to my mind at the end of the concert. The question is, if this highly talented musician has understood the European, Polish and Parisian culture with all its melancholy and its skepticism so-to-say "from within".
Or did he imitate a teacher, a friend, or a master, whose technique he learned by heart in all details? I would like to hear the same program again at different occasions and on different days. Was it genuine gold what I heard, and is Fou Ts'ong the musician I believe him to be? Then each performance would be a new, a unique and individual experience in minute details, and it would never be just a repetition.
Maybe I will get an answer to this question. I emphasis that this question did not appear while I listened to the wonderful concert the question came afterward. While I heard Fou Ts'ong play, I imagined a man from the East, not the real Fou Ts'ong of course, but a man of my own imagination. He was like a person from Tschuang Tse or out of Kin Ku Ki Kwan. His playing was ghost-like, let by a secure, totally relaxed hand guided by the spirit of Tao, comparable to the painters of old China, who, with their ink brush when writing and painting, closely approach the sensation which you experience in your happiest hours. You are touched by a feeling that you are on the point to understand the meaning of the world and the purpose of our life.