The Shanghai Symphonic Music Lovers' Association turns 20 tomorrow and members recall the early years when the classical music of the West began to be heard in China once again.
The family dinner at Zheng Anping's home can compete with the best that any French restaurant can offer -- at least in terms of ambience. He has a habit of having music from classical concertos or operas played to accompany the dishes when the family comes together for the evening meal.
"Life without music is a life of mistakes," says this 61-year-old retired factory director who is also vice president of Shanghai Symphonic Music Lovers' Association. "Music takes away the boredom and sorrows of daily life. In music I find great satisfaction and release."
Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the association. Dozens of members gathered together last Saturday for celebrations in the rehearsal hall of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.
Renowned conductor Chen Xieyang, who is also artistic director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, founded the association made up of lovers of classical music --including Zheng --in 1985.
That was the year Chen was inspired by the passion displayed by audiences who queued all night to buy tickets for the orchestra's series of Beethoven concerts from the "Symphony No. 1" right through to the "Symphony No. 9" ("Choral").
It was the first voluntary classical music club to be formed in China after the mid-1970s. Similar associations and music clubs later sprang up in other cities, including Beijing, Tianjin and Suzhou (Jiangsu Province) and in some universities. However, the Shanghai association seems to be the only one surviving today -- the others have either vanished or become smaller, private gatherings.
"The association had only 88 members at the beginning but now we have some 300 to 400 active members with around 100 attending each meeting," says Zheng. "Their occupations include teachers, translators, judges, architects, engineers, policemen, students, white-collar workers, doctors and businessmen."
Zhang Rongwei, one of the members, clearly remembers his original membership number -- No. 150." An architect now working in real estate, he fell in love with the music of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky in the 1970s when he was a student at Tongji University. After graduation he became a regular attender at the city's only professional music venue -- the Shanghai Concert Hall.
After joining the association after its founding in 1985, Zhang made friends with many musicians and he has a collection of the signatures of more than 200 of the artists who have performed in Shanghai over the years. Conductors Cao Peng and Huang Yijun even gave him their batons as gifts. "Cao was also the chief witness at my wedding in 1994," Zhang smiles.
Over the past two decades, the association has presented lectures every month. Some involve talks by musicologists who introduce the "ABCs" of music to beginners. Some are given by musicians from overseas who explain their concerts. Sometimes a member of the association shares his or her passion for and knowledge of the works of a particular composer. The association also hold lectures on university campuses and visits factories free of charge.
The association publishes a four-page monthly newspaper, "Music Lovers," which has a solid reputation in music circles for the high standard of its articles and its music criticism.
In 2001, the association began to present free concerts in the rehearsal hall of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to give students from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music the opportunity to perform on stage.
"I grew up in a period when there was a great lack of music and there were no classes teaching music after high school," recalls Zheng. "In the 1960s and 1970s, I joined the army and lived for years without any music."
Zheng was later assigned to work as a teacher in a school attached to a film technology factory.
"Although I taught technology, I often played classical music like Beethoven's 'Symphony No. 5' or Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Sheherezade' at classes and I took students to concerts in the Shanghai Concert Hall," Zheng says. "Before every concert, I would explain to them how to appreciate the music although I wasn't an expert."
Zheng says some members of this association have grown up to become music critics, music program hosts, record reviewers or translators for musical films.
Li Yanhuan, 22, who joined the association at the early age of 13, is a typical example. He works for a Taiwan-based record company but writes a lot of music critics and regularly hosts a classical music program on a local radio station.
The Shanghai Symphonic Music Lovers' Association is a non-profit organization whose budget comes from its annual membership fees of 50 yuan (US$6.17) per person and some limited aid from a local cultural fund.
To save costs, the association is still using the application forms and stationery from 20 years ago which still have the old seven-digit telephone numbers on them.
One problem worrying many of the association is the unreasonably high ticket prices for local concerts.
"I think the price for wage earners should be around 50 yuan or at the most, 100 yuan," says Zhang. "Now some people are buying expensive tickets just as business gifts. As a result, many in the audience today don't know how to appreciate classical music because true music lovers cannot afford to buy tickets. I think we should also be taking primary and middle school students to a concert at least once or twice every year."
Zheng says he cannot agree with the saying that culture should develop like any other industry.
"It's a necessary undertaking and we should do more to popularize classical music and protect our heritage like the 125-year-old Shanghai Symphony Orchestra," he says. "Every form of art has peaks and valleys but I have always believed that what is true treasure will be passed down forever."
Yes, as long as the passion is there, this association of music lovers -- although small in scale -- will survive and remain one of Shanghai's musical treasures.
(Shanghai Daily September 21, 2005)
