New York Classical Review

When Antonín Dvořák was brought to the U.S.A. in the 1890s specifically to foster an American style of composition, he looked first to African-American songs—but also to music of indigenous people. And in fact, in the early 20^th century there was a brief vogue for “Indianist” works by white composers. 

The situation in present-day Taiwan may not be exactly analogous, but on the evidence of Tuesday’s concert in Merkin Hall by the Taiwan Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble and an indigenous song-and-dance troupe, at least some artists on that island claimed by China are embracing indigenous culture as a marker of (whisper it) national identity.

There was a subtle outreach to Western culture as well in the program’s title, “From Formosa,” the name Portuguese mariners gave to the island in the 1540s. (It means “beautiful.”)  

Performing the same program a few days earlier in Phoenix, Arizona, the ensemble had been joined by an indigenous American artist, the Navajo flutist R. Carlos Nakai. If Tuesday’s concert didn’t cover quite so many Taiwanese and American bases as that, it was nevertheless a lively and engaging encounter among Western instruments, indigenous voices, and composers of a new kind of “fusion” musical cuisine.

The appetizer for this banquet was actually a substantial work, Terra/Liturgy of Hakka Music for String Quartet by Yun-Jou Chen, commissioned by the Hakka Affairs Council (a governmental body) and having its world premiere on this U.S. tour. 

The Hakka ethnic minority began immigrating to Taiwan during China’s Qing dynasty, and the agrarian and religious pillars of its existence were reflected in the work’s title and its four movements. 

Here as elsewhere in the program, melodies based on the pentatonic scale shared by Chinese, indigenous, and many other cultures worldwide were predominant, either in the foreground or wrapped in more complex harmonies.

The Taiwan players—Hao-Tun Teng and Yi-Ju Chen, violins; Jubei Chen, viola; and Yi-Shien Lien, cello—opened the work with a sustained, Barber-like adagio, then became more animated against a tremolo background. In the second movement, a lonely viola wandered through a landscape inhabited by spirits, with ghostly sliding harmonics, snapping pizzicato, and hollow knocking sounds.

A swaying harvest dance was over almost as soon as it began, an almost Webernian miniature, perhaps expressing how brief the celebration is compared to the labor. The closing movement, compounded of powerful chords over drones and a tender cello solo, was described by the composer as “a child’s gradual awakening to family responsibility and cultural identity.”

Aaron Copland was represented on Tuesday, but not as a purveyor of Americana. His Two Pieces for String Quartet, a Lento molto and a Rondino, date from 1928 and 1923 respectively, before his embrace of American rural styles. The Lento’s outwardly simple sighing phrases were woven from fine inner lines, which the Taiwan players’ sensitive voicing brought out. 

The Rondino entertained with variety of texture, as the violins played tag with a ragtime tune, tender phrases floated over pizzicato, and bowing ranged from deep to feather-light.

Then there was a sudden splash of color onstage, as the quartet was joined by the five young women of the Taiwu Ballads Troupe, resplendent in embroidered tunics, beads and matching headdresses decorated with feathers, to perform a suite of traditional songs arranged by Ting-Chuan Chen for string quartet and chorus. 

As they danced discreetly to the quartet’s syncopated beat, singing songs from the Paiwan culture, their reedy yet robust voices combined in chords that sounded like a giant harmonica. Whether wooing a lover, greeting friends, or expressing nostalgia for home, the songs were lively and cheerful, often ending with a whooping “wow!” and arms flung toward the sky. The quartet contributed some hoedown-style licks that raised the temperature still more.

At intermission, one could check out a display of Taiwanese cultural items—exquisite embroidery, crafts, handbags, novels, and food. Squid Confit with Butterfly Ginger Lily, anyone?

The Taiwu ladies—Sheng-Mei Hsu, Hsueh-Erh Lin, Sheng-Tzu Chen, Hsin-Tzu Chen, and Yi-Hsin Liu—returned after intermission for an engaging a cappella set of polyphonic Paiwan songs, whose musical language added notes to the Asian pentatonic scale to make rich, even blues-like harmony. Stamping, finger-snapping and clapping laid down beats and accents, as voices started out in unison, then split into complex polyphony. 

The songs welcomed ancestral spirits or expressed joy and praise. For the last song, whose indigenous title translated as “A Dance Full of Memories,” the women danced with hands clasped across their bodies (think the Young Swans in Swan Lake).

The rest of the program was devoted to works for piano quintet, The aforementioned string players augmented by pianist Chun-Chieu Yen. Ke-Chia Chen’s Silver Fields of Taiwanese Indigenous Music, commissioned by the California-based Muzik 3 Foundation, also marked its world premiere on this tour. Its title derived from silvergrass, a plant that covers many landscapes on the island, is used in crafts, and is revered for what the composer calls “quiet resilience; It bends but does not break, yields yet persists.”

Chen’s single-movement piece had the piano introducing a forceful pentatonic melody in chords, then dropping to a distant rumble as strings entered with fragments of melody, then accelerated with vigorous chords in triplets. This bright, episodic, playfully dissonant piece unfolded through vigorous phrases in dotted rhythm, a whirling and syncopated allegro, and finally a brawny march in a hitching hemiola rhythm. The composer came to the front of the auditorium to acknowledge the enthusiastic applause.

Tyzen Hsiao composed The Highlander’s Suite in 1985, right after settling in the United States. The piece owed its Dvořák-like sound to skillful, Romantic piano quintet writing and pentatonic melodies—Taiwanese in this case, not Bohemian. In any case, the players responded warmly to the romantic idiom, especially pianist Yen, who showed a wonderful variety of touch in all registers, whether singing out a theme or just dropping in a comment.

The first movement, titled “Amis Folksong” after the Amis indigenous group of Taiwan, was an energetic piece built on not one but three attractive themes. Instruments took soulful solos over a rich-toned piano in “Love Story.”  “Harvest” depicted people dancing at an autumn festival with lines intertwining in canons. 

Piano and forceful cello drove the “Finale,” with a touch of dissonance here and there for a modern flavor and with pauses for tender or sonorous episodes. The work ended with a reprise of the bold first theme and a sudden, snappy cadence that brought a storm of applause.

The quintet responded with an encore from the actual Romantic era, a rousing rendition of the finale of Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op.44.