“The husband sings and the wife goes with him” is an old Chinese saying describing domestic harmony. It may also be aptly applied to the musical duo or concert violinist Ma Si-hon and concert pianist Tung Kwong-kwong, a husband and wife team paired at an early age, who have devoted themselves to sonatas or duets for violin and piano.
“It’s just more convenient that we are married,” says Ms. Tung,“ ... if you play with someone a lot, you practically breathe together.” They have played for audiences the world over, appearing in such music festivals as the Marlboro, Casals, Salzburg, Darington, and Montreux, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Boston, San Francisco, Stuttgart, Bayreuth, Neuremberg, and Winterthur. The couple are founders of the Si-Yo music society, which presents a chamber music series at Pace University in New York. Ma is an artist in residence at Kent University School of Music, and Ms. Tung is currently on the faculty of the University of Akron and the State University of New York at Purchase.
Ma Si-hon and Tung Kwong-kwong returned to Taiwan last month for the first time in almost twenty years; they were warmly welcomed by audiences in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. In Taipei’s Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the couples’ performances of Mozart’s Sonata in F major, Bartok’s Sonata No. 1, and Franck’s Sonata in A stirred the audience to repeated applause, a burst of appreciation reciprocated in a double encore.
Backstage after the show, 60-year-old Ma shook hands with young students and old friends, and showed off his prized Stradivarius violin, a 270-year-old instrument valued at US$70,000. Ma was warned repeatedly that Taiwan’s humidity and heat would be harmful to his treasure, but eager for his countrymen to hear its tone, he insisted on bringing it. Ms. Tung, elegantly clad in a traditional, close-fitting Chinese dress, was a more than equal center of attention.
Ma Si-hon is also known in the music world as an inventor. In 1953 he created a special mute for the violin which is in wide use today. Positioned on the strings near the bridge, this mute can be instantly locked into place, creating a more veiled and colorful sound. Earlier, the mute was carried in the violinist’s pocket, and installed only with great inconvenience. Ma’s invention is far less cumbersome to use and greatly reduces fumbling through fast transitions. Isaac Stern took 100 of Ma’s mutes to Russia as gifts when he toured there, and the Soviet musicians were immensely pleased with the new development.
Ma and Tung delight in difficult programs. They often play 90-minute concerts, and recently staged an anniversary tribute to Schubert which included all six of his sonatas and lasted a marathon 2 hours and 15 minutes of playing time. Years ago, when faced with a contract from Columbia University requiring performances of many common, popular sonatas, Ma refused, and instead designed a more profound program. They have recorded sonatas and rediscovered duo concertos for state radio stations throughout Europe.
The couple has been devoting much recent time to their chamber music series in New York; other prominent musicians perform with them. At times Ma and Tung perform individually as well. Both have served for many seasons with city orchestras. Homes in New York, Ohio, and Germany provide bases for their active performing schedule.
Today, Oriental faces are a common sight on the stages of Western classical music. Particularly in string competitions, Asians are often among the prize winners and, according to some predictions, may dominate the field in the near future. This was not the case when Ma Si-hon and Tung Kwong-kwong came to America in 1947. In those days, both Ma and Tung received critical attention just because they were Orientals who exhibited mastery of a Western art. At first, critics seemed overawed by the performers’ nationality and could not appreciate their talents objectively. Thus, every review was tagged by such lines as, “We understand how difficult it is for Orientals to understand our music.” Gradually, this perspective passed. Their personal history includes many “firsts.” Ma was the first Oriental to receive the Heifetz Award. With it, his reputation was firmly established only three years after his arrival. Today, Ma is known first as a violinist, and Tung as a pianist. In 1960, the couple was particularly elated over the praise by Japanese critics for their music.
Ma and Tung—In concert
Back in Shanghai before the war, Ma and Tung were exceptions among their peers. Taste in China for Western classical music was then limited to small, urban, and predominantly foreign audiences, found mostly in Shanghai. But both Ma and Tung were born into and educated in a Western classical music environment. Of Ma Si-hon’s eight siblings, five are well-known professional musicians. While growing up then, his household contained a cellist, a flutist, a pianist and two violinists.
Ma had begun, at an early age, to train with his elder brother in their Canton home. At 13 he traveled to Shanghai to perform, creating an uproar. His accompanist at the time was a seven-year-old girl, Tung Kwong-kwong.
She, too, had been surrounded by Western music. Her mother was the first Chinese woman to leave the country to study music abroad; she returned home carrying the first diploma awarded to a Chinese graduate by the New England Conservatory of Music. A celebrity in Shanghai, Tung’s mother received over 1,000 albums of concert music from people desiring her educated review. Ms. Tung’s siblings are also accomplished musicians, one a conductor in Philadelphia, and one a cellist with the St. Louis Symphony.
Shanghai, at the time, was a haven for many of the world’s best musicians. White Russians fled to Shanghai from the Soviet Union, and World War II later drove many European artists to China. Ms. Tung’s younger brother was thus able to train from “open strings” with the first cellist of the Berlin Symphony. And thanks to her teacher, Mario Pacio, all the first chairs of the Italian State Orchestra were imported to China.
“The Shanghai Municipal Orchestra was the finest in the Far East at the time,” remarks Ma Si-hon. Thus, history played a part in nurturing the early development of Ma and Tung Kwong-kwong. As some of the best of the West were in Shanghai during their youth, their early training was rich in Western culture, and they arrived on Western shores with something of an advantage over most American native musicians.
In the West, they forged links with great musical tradition, Ms. Tung studying with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Leonard Shure, and Ma Si-hon with two of the most distinguished disciples of Joseph Joachim-Richard Burgin and Alfred Wittenburg.
After distinguished accomplishment abroad, Ma and Tung are rightfully welcomed back to the Republic of China this year as long absent, highly honored members of the family.