"Young. Euro. Classic." This has been the title of the Berlin Music Summer Festival since 2000. And while the name does not convey anything Chinese, this year the festival will take on a very Eastern air as it is opened on August 5 by the student orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, while the student orchestra from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music will perform on August 14, half-way through the musical extravaganza.

Asia is the new direction of the annual festival that is dedicated to showcasing young musical talent from around the world. In the last five years, the event has proved a huge success and timely filler of the vacuum that comes when Berlin's orchestras and concert halls take their traditional summer break.

Besides China's student orchestras, the 2005 "Young. Euro. Classic" festival will feature a tour through Eastern European countries including Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, plus a more Western flavor from Scotland, Italy and Vienna as well as an orchestra from Juilliard in the United States.

From August 5 to 22, each evening will welcome on stage a different orchestra and all will play challenging programme including 20th century symphonic masterpieces by composers like Mahler, Shostakovich and Prokofiev as well as brand-new works by unknown composers that the orchestras have brought with them from their respective countries.

Conducted by Tang Muhai, Shanghai's student orchestra will perform Alexander Glazunov's "Violin Concerto" with violinist Wang Zhijiong, Xu Yi's "Tai Concerto for Zheng and Orchestra" and the world premiere of Paul Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber."

The Beijing student orchestra was invited back to Germany after their impressive performance at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn last summer, said Andreas Kunz, chief representative of BMW Group Beijing Office.

The German company sponsored the orchestra's last tour to Bonn and will continue to do so this time round.

Under the baton of Hu Yongyan, the orchestra will play Beethoven's "Symphony No 6 Pastorale," the violin concerto "The Butterfly Lovers" composed by Chinese musicians Chen Gang and He Zhanhao and movements 5 and 6 of "Song of the Earth" by Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang

"We specially choose to play Beethoven's Sixth Symphony for the concert. We've challenged ourselves to play Beethoven's work in his homeland and we'll try to display Chinese understanding of the great German musician," said Wang Cizhao, president of the Conservatory.

Chinese version

However, the real focus is expected to be on Ye's "Song of the Earth," which is a Chinese answer to Mahler's great work of the same name which was written in 1908 and based on Chinese poems from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

Last September, Yu Long, artistic director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, commissioned Ye to compose the symphony for the orchestra's 2005 tour to the United States and Europe. According to Yu, the tour in March was a "Chinese orchestra telling Chinese stories," because every program featured Chinese music or symphonies about Chinese culture composed by Westerners and the Chinese version of Mahler's "Song of the Earth."

"Yu wanted to find something connecting Chinese culture and Western classical music. He believed a Chinese composer's interpretation of the poems of the Tang Dynasty would be a good answer to Mahler's mortal work," said Ye.

Mahler's "Song of the Earth" is arguably his best symphony. In 1908, a friend gave him a copy of "The Chinese Flute," a tome of Chinese Tang poetry translated into German by Hans Bethge. Mahler was very taken with the verses and chose seven of them (two are combined into one movement) to adapt into "Song of the Earth."

"I admire Mahler's score and love some of the episodes. But in my view, his composition is just his personal view, or say, a Westerner's view, of Chinese poems which were roughly translated into German and a little bit removed from the real mood and situations portrayed in the poems," said the composer.

"I believe a Chinese composer should have some chemistry to add to interpreting the mood of the Chinese poems and expressing Chinese culture and philosophy."

Under great pressure to "challenge" Mahler, Ye finished four movements on February 14, which, under the baton of Yu Long, were premiered by the China Philharmonic Orchestra on February 18 at the Poly Theatre in Beijing.

Then the Chinese version of "Song of the Earth" won wide acclaim on the orchestra's tour of the United States and Europe, which included a concert in Berlin in March. Ye's score raised the interest of local critics and many began to look forward to the complete version.

Thus, the "Youth. Euro. Classic" festival, which promotes contemporary works, commissioned Ye to add the last two movements to the symphony and requested that it be premiered at the opening concert on August 5.

Following the approach of the previous four movements, the two new ones feature Chinese folk operas such as Chuanju Opera from Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"I was born and grew up in Shanghai, and you can hear the folk melodies of that region in most of my previous works. I knew little about Chuanju Opera until last November when I watched some of it when I was on a jury for the national theatre selection. I was fascinated by some of the tunes and 'stole' some for my 'Song of the Earth'," Ye said.

Ye's "Song of the Earth" is a vocal symphony with soprano and baritone telling a story just like a traditional Chinese opera. And different from the first four movements, a baritone will alone sing the last two. Well-known Chinese baritone Yuan Chenye will sing the two new movements at the concert on August 5.Enditem

(China Daily August 3, 2005)