The audience converged on southern Taiwan's ancient capital of culture from all parts of the island: Tainan City was playing host to concert performances of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and pianist Fou Tsong.
As the crowd seated itself to await the start of the performance, the atmosphere could be described as one of animated anticipation. This was to be one of the highlights of International Arts Festival—1985, and rippling applause followed the rising curtain's exposure of the 129-player Tonhalle Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach at the helm, and for Fou Tsong at the Steinway grand. By the close of the performance, the perfunctory audience courtesy had transformed into a ten minute outburst of straight ovation.
The Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, one of Europe's oldest and most prestigious, hails a tradition of musical excellence which dates back to Richard Wagner's arrival in Zurich as a political refugee.
In 1850-1853, he conducted several concerts by the devoted but amateur musicians of the Algemeine Musikge-sellschaft, filling in the orchestra, as necessary, with professional musicians, then predictably advocated the formation of a permanent professional Zurich orchestra. This eventually came about in 1862 (when Wagner had already left) under the direction of Friedrich Hegar, a devout fan of Johannes Brahms. Hegar, in 1874 and again in 1895, managed to get Brahms to personally guest-conduct the orchestra.
As a matter of fact, the list of guest conductors over the years reads like a Who's Who of the music world-Strauss, Furtwangler, Walter, Bohm, Karajan, Leinsdorf, Solti, Boulez.
Wagner's infant Zurich orchestra counted thirty-one musicians; it has now grown into one of Europe's largest, with a membership of 167 musicians divided into two ensembles.
Eschenbach, a pianist himself before turning to conducting, made a debut performance here in Taiwan two years ago, in piano duets with long-time friend and colleague Justus Frantz; it brought rave reviews. This year for the Festival, Eschenbach brought the whole orchestra, arriving a few days prior to their first performance in Taiwan, March 29.
Pianist Fou Tsong, born in Shanghai in 1934, started studying piano just seven years later; by age ten, he was studying with Mario Paci, a second generation student of Franz Liszt.
At 21, he took overall third-place honors at the prestigious International Chopin Competition, and first place for his playing of the Mazurkas. The United Kingdom has been his home base for the past more than twenty years. Fou Tsong is today considered to be among the greatest contemporary interpreters of Chopin's music.
So in many ways, the Tainan performance was a coming together of old friends: Eschenbach had delighted audiences here two years prior; and Fou Tsong was generally acclaimed on his debut here three years ago. Moreover, Fou Tsong had previously played together with Eschenbach and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, a concert which also received critical acclaim.
In addition to his March performance with the Tonhalle, Fou Tsong also gave six solo performances, three in Taipei's Sun Yet-sen Memorial Hall, and one each at Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung.
Known as a "master of Chopin's works," Fou shows some irritation at being thus typecast: "My love for the works of Beethoven, Shubert, and Mozart is definitely not second to my love of Chopin. Why, when people speak of me, do they always associate me with Chopin?" Whatever the reasons, his April 6 all-Scarlatti performance and the April 7 rendition of works of Beethoven, Shubert, and Mozart were highly impressive, underlining his point.
Despite a demanding performance schedule, rigid practice sessions, and the physical discomfort of a cold, Fou, in cooperation with New Aspect, conducted two master classes open to the public, and one closed session for local Taiwan pianists together with Eschenbach and Frantz—and he even made it to the Taipei suburbs for a soak in the famous Peitou hot sulphur springs.
"I have my roots deep in Chinese culture," he offered. "Actually, when I play, foreign experts can tell right away that there are differences between myself and a Western-born musician. I don't consciously try to emphasize them, nor to do away with them." Perhaps there is a connection in his avid affection for classical Chinese poetry: most certainly, he often talks of Chinese poetry and what it expresses in connection with the music he plays.
It might seem a rather unusual combination-heirs of Wagner from middle Europe, and a Chinese poetry-infatuated interpreter of European music from the "Middle Kingdom." However to those who happened to see Eschenbach and Fou Tsong sitting in the Tainan night market well past midnight, alternately singing to one another parts of the score they would perform that day, it was a match made in heaven.