Alan
Fraser's Wuhan Students
"The summer of
1999 I was invited to teach at the Wuhan Conservatory, P. R. China. When
I arrived in October, the first thing that happened was the audition to
enter my class. Instead of the resident professors feeling jealous about
letting their students go to study with a guest newcomer, it was considered
an honour to have the visiting professor select one's students for his
class. Thus I had the pick of the pianists from the entire Conservatory.
Some candidates were an obvious pick, but there were others that barely
made the cut who later advanced exceptionally. I ended up with a group
of kids from 13 to 22 years of age, about evenly divided between high school
and college level. Below, I tell you a little bit more about each of them,
and provide Mp3 links for you to listen to their exam performances."
'When I first heard
Chen Yuan play, she had fingers and brilliance for sure, but her rhythm
was quite unstable, her phrasing was not so developed and she did not have
a very big sound. But with all that technical brilliance already in place,
I figured she could really blossom if given the right information... By
the end of first term she could play Rachmaninoff's Second Sonata in the
original version, with decent phrasing and rhythm but a sound that was
still small. Second term started with intensive work on Beethoven Op. 101.
We worked very hard on the first phrase alone, just to make it 1) sing
and 2) lilt properly. When she "got" that - what a subsequent transformation.
Listen to her sound in Dante Sonata - and this from a hand that barely
takes an octave! Due to nerves she muffs the first octave, but from there
on in, it's a blistering performance that is as intense emotionally as
it is brilliant tehcnically and huge sonically. I'll never forget her face
as she played her final exam recital - it seemed to glow but she was very
quiet, concentrated. All her energy went into the piano, into listening
to her sound - nothing was wasted on any effortfulness in producing that
sound. She was like the Buddha.
I remember that after
the first semester I was searching for a way to get more of her soul involved
with her playing. Looking at some childhood pictures that her teacher,
the esteemed Xie Mei Ai, showed me over Christmas dinner, I noticed for
the first time the slight Mongolian aspect to her features, and the thought
hit me, "give her Islamey, Balakirev's oriental fantasy". It worked: here
was western music that her eastern sensibility had no trouble getting her
teeth into.
With Dante Sonata there
was a more serious problem. For instance, in the second, "heavenly" theme
I explained to her about Liszt's dual nature, his carnal leanings and his
aspirations towards the spiritual life, how the sonata explored this conflict
and how this theme was his expression of prayer. Nothing. She played the
theme but it didn't live. So I tried another tack: "Imagine
that you are the emperor of China, and that you are making your yearly
pilgrimage to the circular Temple of the Sun in Beijing. It is your responsibility
to pray to the Gods and convince them that the people deserve to have a
good harvest this year. Without the beneficence of the Gods, thousands
of your people will die. You enter the temple, you prostrate yourself,
you pray with all sincerity, all your heart, all your love for your people.
And then, it's not as if you imagine some golden sound of trombones from
on high, no, you really do hear them. You look up: the dome
of the temple is subsumed in a golden light, and from that haze comes the
sound of the heavenly trumpets - somewhat far off, yet distinct. Your prayers
have been answered... Try to think of this as you play this theme"
What happened next in
that lesson remains engraved in my memory: time stopped. She played, and
it was prayer. Xie Mei Ai was there - we glanced wordlessly
at each other - the elderly mentor understood only too well what magic
was happing! The point is, it was through Chen Yuan's
own
culture
that she could access the spiritual understanding of the work. Western
culture is foreign to her, but the spiritual materia of a work like Dante
sonata is universal: to communicate it to a student, you just have to translate
into the student's home culture, the one that touches his or her soul.
It was an important lesson for all of us...
Chen Yuan,
female aged 21 Sonate
apres une lecture de Dante
Franz Liszt
Islamey',
an Oriental Fantasy
Mihi Balakirev
Mazurka
in G minor
Frederic Chopin
Mazurka
in C major
Frederic Chopin
'Qian
Cheng was one exceptional young man. At 16 his technique was somewhat virtuosic
but a bit unsteady. However, when he improved his physical organization,
his relationship to the keyboard, and started to get real sound coming
out of the piano, an extraordinarily sensitive, noble and passionate spirit
was unlocked. He played with exceptional maturity and a fire that many
times left me in tears (and that's not so easy to do!). Unfortunately I
don't have recordings of two of his best performances: the Chopin Ballade
in A flat major and the C sharp minor Scherzo. These were world class,
unbelievable from anybody, not to mention someone so tender in years...
I am happy to say that he went on to study at Kiev Conservatory where he
was a prizewinner in the Horowitz competion in 2005.
Qian Cheng,
aged 16 Sonata in E flat major, Opus 7
Ludwig van Beethoven
Molto
Allegro i con brio
Largo
con gran espressione
Allegro
Poco
Allegretto i grazioso
Ballade
in G minor, Op. 23
Frederic Chopin
Fantasy
in F Minor, Op. 49
Frederic Chopin
Prelude
in B flat major, Op. 23 #1
Sergei Rachmaninoff
'Kuang
Li was not so brilliant in the audition - a young, confused 14 year old
that could hardly play his way through the score... There were many who
by their playing deserved to enter my class more than he. But he had 
such
amazing hands! I took him only because of his hands. They were huge but
not fat. Fine boned for their size, but so large that I just ached to see
what he could make them do. They reminded me of Ratimir Martinovich's -
but Ratko is 25, not 14! And in the end, when I showed those hands how
to make real sound come out of the piano, mostly by learning how to stand
with both physical stability on the board and rhythmic stability, it turns
out that there was a soul in there as well, that could feel and express
real passion no problem... The first time Kuang Li surprised us all by
catching fire was in his Appassionata Sonata, but these two performances
from his final exam show that it wasn't a fluke...
Kuang Li, male aged
14 Moment
Musical #4 in E minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Spanish
Rhapsody
Franz Liszt
'I was supposed
to take 12 in my class, but there were so many really attractive candidates
at the entrance auditions that I finally created a group class for five
extra students. These five would take turns playing for me in a weekly
two-hour lecture that would also serve to present my ideas to the entire
Conservatory - anyone who wanted to listen in was welcome. Each week I
would generally hear about 3 students out of the 5 on a rotation basis,
and the 'master class' was always played to a full house.
'Those 5 served
as "guinea pigs" in my presentation of the system that would eventually
become my book, and I think they were none too happy about not getting
individual lessons. But do you know what? I think they benefited more than
they knew. In the second term I discontinued the group class and started
working with those 5 individually, and they progressed much more than many
of the 12 that had been receiving individual attention from the beginning
of the school year! Why? Because they had absorbed the IDEAS as they were
presented through those weekly seminars...
'Jiang Jie was one
of that "group of 5". Listen to the flamboyant exuberance, the manic energy
of her Prokofiev sonata. And this from someone who didn't even rank among
the first 12 at the beginning of the year...
Jiang Jie,
female aged 18 Sonata
#3
Sergei Prokofiev
'Gong
Wei, a bit of a dark horse, another one of the "group of 5". She was always
very correct but never really showed much personality or flamboyance. But
once again, when she really "got" what a phrase is, what RHYTHM is, she
started to fly...
Gong Wei,
female aged 18 Alborado
del Grazioso, from 'Miroirs'
Maurice Ravel
Sonata
#3 in B minor, 1st movement
Frederic Chopin
'Li
Jia Dai, another one of the 5, was only 15 years old, and had a fairly
small hand. She took awhile to figure out that if it's not collapsing all
the time it can begin to produce sounds that would belie its size. But
by the end of the year, this sizzling scherzo would indicate that she did
finally understand...
Li Jia Dai,
female aged 15 Scherzo
in B Flat Minor
Frederic Chopin
'When I discontinued
the group class in the second semester, I thought to myself, what else
could I do to make this year special? I came up with the idea to have an
all-Beethoven mid-term exam. In the end not quite everybody played Beethoven,
but we had the last five sonatas plus several earlier ones, and the 4th
& 5th concerti. That was quite an afternoon's listening, I'll tell
you!
'Bao
Jie was endowed with a natural sensibility and maturity that was a delight
to work with. It was to her that I entrusted the most difficult of them
all, Beethoven Op. 111, and in many of the lessons she really reached a
magical level of understanding of the philosophical content of that work.
Somehow she managed to put into sound his nearness to death, his looking
back over a life more fulfilling than most, his vision ahead into the unknown.
Sadly I do not have a recording of this to offer you. I also did not record
her impressive Brahms F minor sonata nor her B flat major concerto from
the same composer - Bao Jie really had a Brahms year! The chapter in my
book on Bach's B minor Prelude is from a lesson with her... She was also
a fine accompanist, and altogether a musician's pianist - she really listened...
'Tao
Qi, one of my big talents that year. He won fourth prize at the Hong Kong
International Piano Competition, and under my tutelage prepared an excellent
Emperor Concerto, Debussy's Cloches a travers les fueilles, Bach's joyful
G major Toccata and this fine G minor Ballade and la Campanella. A very
humble young man, but seriously dedicated to a higher pianism...
Tao Qi,
male aged 16 Ballade
in G minor Op. 23
Frederic Chopin
La
Campanella
Franz Liszt
'Ran
Xiao was my youngest student at 13. She was accepted for the Gina Bachauer
Junior Competition that year, and so her exam program was a little bit
on the long side - I let her play both her competition programs in their
entirety! It was a little bit much for her, as the occasional fluff or
hesitation indicate, yet I'm putting all of her performances on this site
just because I'm proud of this achievement from someone so young and unassuming...
Ran Xiao,
female aged 13
Italian
Concerto
Johann
Sebastian Bach
December
(from 'The Seasons")
Piotr
Illich Tchaikowsky
Gnomenreigen
Franz
Liszt
Impromptu
in E flat major
Franz
Schubert
Waltz
in D flat major ("Minute")
Frederic
Chopin
Etude
in E flat major
Sergei
Rachmaninoff
'Liu
Qiong was a young woman full of energy - TOO full, in fact. She could not
keep a steady tempo but kept flying ahead, so all her digital dexterity
was for naught - she couldn't translate that into true virtuosity... How
to get her grounded? I gave her an interesting regime as medicine for her
manic condition: all four Brahms Ballades Op. 10, Liszt's Au Bord d'une
Source (the book chapter on pressing and holding comes from a lesson on
this work with her), and the little gem of a Mozart sonata presented here.
When she actually managed to get a hold of herself, so to speak, a really
heartfelt musicality began to emerge that had been hidden by all the hysteria.
Of course, once she achieved that, then it was only appropriate that I
reward her somehow, and so I let her take on Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody.
It appears that getting her feet back on the ground did not prevent her
fingers from flying as they did before - but now there was organization
in all that...
Liu Qiong,
female aged 16 Sonata
in B flat major K 575
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Spanish Rhapsody
Franz Liszt
'At
15 Lu Jing Yi was one of my top students despite her young age. Among other
things she prepared a strong Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand, a
very fine F major Sonata Op. 10 #2 of Beethoven, and this l'Isle
Joyeuse. But, despite her facile fingers, she had to work hard to develop
her sense of phrasing and counterpoint. It was only at the very end of
a long, arduous year of work on various Bach compositions that she reached
the level of control and phrase you hear in this Prelude & Fugue.
Lu Jing Yi,
female
aged 15 Prelude
& Fugue
in B flat minor
Johann Sebastian Bach
L'Isle
Joyeuse
Claude Debussy
'1999-2000 was
a golden year for me. As I left my apartment to catch my plane at the end
of June, my entire class was there waiting to see me off, and many professors
too. More than a few tears were shed as we said our goodbyes. That group
will always have a place of honour in my heart - they worked hard, advanced
far, and served music well..."
Sister
sites: 
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