Lutes and branches

>> Virtuoso player Liu Fang on the storied
past and present possibilities of the
Chinese pipa and guzheng

HITHER AND ZITHER: Liu Fang

By RUPERT BOTTENBERG

“When I do concerts in Europe or North America, I don’t want someone introducing and explaining the pieces,” says Montreal-based musician Liu Fang, translated by Dr. Risheng Wang. “I never speak either, because the music tells everything.”

Fang’s presence on a stage certainly speaks volumes. Displays of tremendous passion and precision, her solo performances are divided between the pipa and the guzheng, venerable Chinese instruments on which she is an internationally acknowledged virtuoso player, particularly the pipa. Eyes shut tight, she grips the tear-shaped lute fiercely and plays in the commanding manner her repertoire demands.

“The pipa is a kind of lute with four strings,” Fang explains, “so its playing technique is a bit like a guitar, but in a very different way. The guzheng is a zither with 21 strings, very large. The playing position is like a piano, but one is plucking strings rather than hitting the keys. The pipa has 2,000 years of documented history, and the guzheng is older than that.

“Both instruments are good for folk melodies and traditional music, but the pipa is more for classical music, which is very poetic. The guzheng has a pentatonic tuning, but you can get lots of microtones. It was much more popular at the time.”

Born in Kunming, China in 1974, Fang’s talent emerged early—her first solo public performance was at age nine, and two years later she played for Queen Elizabeth. She didn’t peak early though, as a string of CDs focused on traditional and classical Chinese works for pipa and guzheng have heralded her worldwide, hence her extended absence from Montreal stages. But music’s not a museum, and Fang is always eager to explore the contemporary, even if new works for the tools of her trade are hard to come by.

“In China, there are composers who’ve done a good job in expanding the pipa repertoire, but unfortunately not too many, because it takes time for them to understand the instrument. Some composers don’t spend much time on that, they just use it as a colour, nothing deep.

“There are composers who do passionate work, like Tan Dun, Zhuo Long, and also R. Murray Schafer—he’s made such a big difference, not only for Canadian composers but composers all over the world.”

Beyond participating in Schafer’s “The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix,” from the radically innovative Canadian’s massive Patria cycle, Fang has jammed with players of the Indian bansuri, the African kora and the Arabic oud, the latter a relative of the pipa, the sonorous tone of which complements the pipa’s bright sharpness. In fact, Fang’s collaborative French release Le son de soie earned her the highly prestigious Charles Cros award in France in 2006.

While Fang intends to further explore the crossing of cultural currents, she’s hardly done with the established bank of works she’s mastered, material she’ll share at her first Montreal concert in six years. “A lot of the pieces have stories, a history—some are very old. But in my case, the listener doesn’t need to know those stories. They just need to come with an open mind and enjoy the sounds.”

At Centre Pierre-Péladeau on
Saturday, April 5, 8 p.m., $25