From Silk to Polyester

This is just a guess, but I would wager that few other music reviewers in New York have had the pleasure of spending time in the city of Urumqi, China, as I have. Located in Xinjiang province, on the way to Afghanistan, the Turkic settlement was traditionally the beginning of theSilk Road, that caravansary route that transported the trade goods of the Chinese capital to the markets of the Middle East.Urumqi is a fascinating, modern Central-Asian city. The population is primarily Uighur, Muslim by faith. Virtually the only Han Chinese in town are the members of the national government and the ubiquitous Red Army. In a significant way, the music of the area is one of the few avenues in which native cultures can freely express themselves.This, in part, is why YoYo Ma decided to head up the Silk Road Project, underwritten by Carnegie Hall. But he is also an avid and enthusiastic fan of this part of China and its polyglot of styles.The Silk Road Project has provided many fascinating concerts of Asian music, but perhaps even more significant is its educational outreach. As part of its scholarly side, the project has been holding seminars and workshops. On Saturday evening at Zankel Hall, the group treated us to some of the exotic fruits of its labors.This past season, my travels brought me to Tzhambarak, within the buffer zone between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I was therefore especially enthusiastic to hear some authentic examples of traditional Azeri music and was, at first, not disappointed.Alim Qasimov intoned two love songs composed in maqam, the microtonal scale system developed in Arabia. He accompanied himself melodically on a percussion instrument similar to a Western tambourine and was also joined by two string players, one with a gourd guitar and the other a miniature cello-like affair known as the kemancheh. Some of the high notes that Mr. Qasimov reached were amazing, both technically and emotionally.After a very short performance, however, these fascinating native musicians were replaced by a modern string quartet that proceeded to offer up a cliche-ridden piece of contemporary music. Although no one in the audience had ever heard this work before, actually we have all heard it many times over. It was formulaic: mysterious night sounds followed by the usual frenetic section underlined by percussion. Although well played, this music seemed to be simply a retread out of the Juilliard cookie-cutter factory.At least the Uighurs can still practice their art under their repressive masters. Persian traditional music exists today only in diaspora. It was thus all the more thrilling to hear a long and well-developed solo by Siamak Jahangiry. Playing the ney, a recorder shaped flute, he traversed one of the 12 organizational systems of this complex tradition in a manner similar to the more adventurous polytonal jazz of Yusef Lateef. Again there was a kamancheh in the back-up group, as well as a santur, a sounding board struck with small hammers in the manner of the Hungarian cimbalom.But much as we enjoyed this authentic ancient music, we were quickly steered back to the vapid here and now as Mr. Ma (apparently as well as being an ethnomusicologist, he plays a little cello) joined the string ensemble for a hackneyed piece entitled “Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur.” Doesn’t anything contemporary ever happen in the daytime?This finale turned out to be little more than evocative of a bad Hollywood soundtrack to a B-movie about Operation Desert Storm. Quickly it settled in to a string figure, reminiscent of the bacchanal from “Samson et Dalila,” played over and over again in a strangely condescending and ironically ethnocentric manner. The composer and arranger of this work comes from that school that theorizes that, as long as they add violins to a piece, it will sound classical. The result was little better than that dreadful “symphony” based on the rock music of Queen.The musical world is vast, and we all live in our own small corner of it. Concerts like this are meant to open our minds, clean out our ears, and encourage further travel. But be careful: At least according to this most recent evidence, the contemporary Silk Road leads only to polyester.

From Silk to Polyester

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