East Meets West, LSO St Luke’s, London, review: Lopsided fusion of European and Chinese works

Some arrangements are too westernised to reflect the very different sophistication of China’s own classical tradition

Michael Church
Monday 28 January 2019 17:23 GMT
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The event forms part of the LSO Eclectica series, which is designed to ‘unite’ traditions from around the world
The event forms part of the LSO Eclectica series, which is designed to ‘unite’ traditions from around the world (CMJK)

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Ever since Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar made their celebrated boundary-crossing LP West Meets East, that phrase – or the inversion of it – has come to stand for musical fusions. So the collaboration between the LSO Strings and the Silk String Quartet, which flies the same flag, is treading familiar ground.

This event forms part of the LSO Eclectica series, which is designed to “unite” traditions from around the world. “Unite” can mean many things musically, but here it means an interwoven sequence of works from Europe and China culminating in a fusion in which all eight players plus a pianist present a work specially composed for the occasion.

But it seems unfair to follow an example of Thirties Shanghai “silk and bamboo” music with Mozart’s Divertimento in F major: extreme sophistication trumping breezy simplicity. And the Chinese folk-song arrangements which answer chamber music by Rachmaninov are in some cases too westernised to reflect the very different sophistication of China’s own classical tradition, of which the programme gives little hint.

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The concluding fusion – Keting Sun’s “One Undivided” – does point to a future way to go, however, as violin and erhu fiddle duet over a pipa-lute rasp, and a Chinese singer blends her voice with pizzicato western strings. This is a toe-dipping exercise rather than an immersion, but it could be built on further.

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