New Music Players
Gerry Cornelius, Conductor
Narrated by Tim Bentinck & Niki Yan
Divine Art Recordings/ Metier MEX 77142
This release presents a fascinating cross-cultural experience. Light Music Society member Nicholas Michael Smith has been living in China for many years and has blazed a musical trail, keen both to raise awareness of Western classical music in China and to make Chinese music more widely understood by Western audiences. He founded the Peking Sinfonietta as well as the Beijing International Festival Chorus, serving as artistic director and chief conductor.
The Girl from the French Fort is a work for orchestra and narrator, following in the footsteps of (and indeed the same orchestration as) Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a work with which it has been often paired. Its form is that of a symphonic fable: a fantastical but humane tale that follows the boy Sangsang, who is drawn into a magical world after a simple act of kindness is noticed by a girl in a grey dress. It is a tale of how seemingly insignificant actions can have significant and far- reaching consequences, full of unexpected twists of fate leading to a deeply touching conclusion.
Musically, Smith draws heavily on Chinese pentatonic scales but allows for Western influences to arise when topically appropriate to the story, most notably a waltz theme which appears twice in the story, the second time with a series of variations. This allows for greater chromaticism to collide with the five-note based Chinese scales and there seems even a
cheeky allusion to Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier in one key scene. At the heart of the story is a love affair between a Chinese girl, Meiniang and a French soldier, Peter. Thus the musical worlds drift together and apart as this tale unfolds.
The musical language is wholly accessible, perfectly suited to the listener who enjoys tuneful, melody driven and often very memorable material. Being a narrated tale, there are times at which the music may first seem a little fragmented, but all of the disparate themes are skilfully woven throughout so that, by the end, there is a very satisfying sense of threads tied neatly together. I did wonder if limiting the work to the Prokofiev ensemble did also limit the timbral possibilities when drawing on the rich culture of Chinese folk music, but it is a perfectly rational and practical decision to use the instruments most likely to be available.
Smith deploys the ensemble very sensitively, thus the music requires great lightness of touch from the players. That sensitivity is amply displayed by the New Music Players under the conductor Gerry Cornelius, always allowing the key themes of each character to be clearly audible whenever they arise. In terms of the recording, there were a couple of moments where I felt as if the ensemble had been “turned down”, as opposed to playing quietly to accommodate the narrator – I assume this is purely practical and that Bentinck and Yan both reading with the ensemble would have meant recording the entire piece twice. Again, a legitimate practical decision, but it did seem noticeable within what is otherwise a very true-to-life recording. Otherwise, the sound overall is crystal clear, perfectly suiting the light ensemble without feeling too closely micd or too echoey.
The piece is narrated twice on the CD: first in English, with a wonderfully warm-toned Tim Bentinck and second in Mandarin Chinese, by a beautifully expressive Niki Yan. Even for the non- Mandarin speaker such as this listener, it makes for a fascinating comparison and it is wonderful to hear Hong Ying’s words spoken in their original language. Likewise the booklet accompanying the release is bilingual and comes with a full rendering of the printed text along with reproductions of the original illustrations for Ying’s book by Cherry Denman.
A most recommended addition to your record libraries and a superb illustration of what Light classical music can achieve in the 21st century.
DA
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