Reprinted with
permission of the author, from the South China
Morning Post
July 2, 2006

NOTE: Oliver Chou was a presenter at the ISPA Academy in Hong Kong.

Despite fist fights among its members, suicides and jail terms, the China National Symphony Orchestra is still going strong.

THE CHINA NATIONAL Symphony Orchestra has much to celebrate at its 50th anniversary this month: it has finally found a music and artistic director after the position was left vacant for over five years.

Shao En, music director of Macao Orchestra and a regular guest with the three Hong Kong orchestras, begins his tenure in September. The appointment of the conductor and composer is the latest in a series of management changes in keeping with the tumultuous and dramatic past of the country's oldest state orchestra.

It began as the Central Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) at the start of the so-called Hundred Flowers era, after Mao Zedong proclaimed in 1956: "Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend."

The CPO owed its existence to Premier Zhou Enlai, who needed the ensemble to take on a diplomatic role to counter the cold war rhetoric against the new China. Zhou passed the task to Li Ling, his right-hand man in liaising with the music circles in the 1940s. "If you want a good soccer team, hire a Brazilian coach," Li said. "If you want a good orchestra, get us a German conductor."

Werner Gosling, a veteran conductor from East Germany, was flown to Beijing to coach the inexperienced but eager musicians. His public debut was an all-Bee-thoven concert in October 1956 that won rave reviews. But the collaboration didn't last. The Anti-Rightist Movement gripped the capital during the summer of 1957 and Gosling fled home after performing the New World Symphony.

Li Delun, who returned from the Moscow Conservatory about that time, became principal conductor - a position he held for the next three decades.

But the country was on the brink of huge social and political upheaval. By the mid-1960s, the orchestra found itself increasingly isolated in the volatile political climate. It was saved by a visit in January 1965 from Jiang Qing (Mao's wife), who described the orchestra as "a very good weapon". "Bourgeois music is destined to die and you should not die with the foreigners," she told the musicians.

The orchestra followed Jiang's advice and turned a modern Beijing opera, Shajiabang, into a symphonic work for full orchestra and chorus. Jiang didn't attend the October premiere, which came as the Cultural Revolution was being unleashed.

The CPO was one of the few beneficiaries of the subsequent decade of havoc. Shajiabang Symphony was named as one of Jiang's eight so-called model plays, and the CPO became the model troupe.

Despite this honour, the musicians split into different factions, supposedly to defend Mao against alleged enemies within the orchestra. According to Yim Hok-man, deputy concertmaster of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, most of the players joined either the East is Red or Jinggangshan factions. It wasn't uncommon for musicians to engage in fist fights during the day, then share the same score stand and perform on stage in the evening. "We were all insane because the entire country was insane," says CPO violinist Jian Zhaoxiang.

The infighting was blamed for four suicides, the jailing for 10 years of a "counter-revolutionary" concertmaster and, in 1970, the segregation of ideologically suspect players to a quasi-concentration camp on the outskirts of Beijing. People's Liberation Army members took over the leadership and remained until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

Signifying China's new reform era, the CPO's role in liaising with foreign musicians reached its height in 1979. First came the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa in March, then Isaac Stern in June, Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan in October, and Yehudi Menuhin in December. In 1986, the CPO played debut concerts in Hong Kong and Macau.

The orchestra returned to the limelight during the pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen in 1989. The entire orchestra and chorus, led by guest principal conductor Chen Zuohuang, took to the square and performed in support of the students. Except for a few so-called study sessions, no one was prosecuted. Chen left for the US and settled there with his family.

He returned in 1996 to revamp the orchestra, which changed its name to the China National Symphony Orchestra. In 2000, Chen's contract was renewed, but with a new condition: all decision-making rests with the orchestra's party secretary.

With the emergence in May of a new state orchestra, the China Philharmonic, nearly 40 players left. Chen resigned in protest. The battered orchestra was saved at the last hour by the appointment of Tang Muhai, the only Chinese apprentice of the late von Karajan. But Tang didn't stay beyond the first season due to a clash with party secretary Yu Songlin.

Since September 2001, the China National Symphony has operated without a music director. Shao's first concert, after he takes over in a few months, will be the Manfred Symphony and the First Piano Concerto with Shen Wenyu (first runner-up in last year's Hong Kong International Competition) as the soloist. It's an occasion the veteran musician says he's looking forward to.

"The China National Symphony retains some fine traditions bequeathed from the old Central Philharmonic, and it stands a very good chance of being the best orchestra in China," Shao says. "For now, I'm too busy and have not got time for anything else apart from making music for the China National Symphony."

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