“Music is not just black and white. Music is every color and some that even painters don’t have.“
– Isaac Stern, Violinist/Music teacher.

We know the cul­tural dif­fer­ences between west­ern coun­tries and China. Peo­ple of these 2 coun­tries can­not come together with any of their qual­i­ties, lan­guage and cul­ture. But one thing can eas­ily fill up the gap and that is MUSIC.

In 1979, Isaac Stern and his pianist friend made a cul­tural trip to China as invited by the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment. As part of the trip, they trav­elled, con­ducted con­certs and exchanged the good­ness of their rich west­ern music with the tra­di­tional and dis­ci­plined music of China.

We can’t imag­ine how restricted Chi­nese cul­ture to let the west­ern music into their sys­tem. There was a cul­tural change going on between 1966–76.

Doc­u­men­tary

The doc starts with a plane land­ing in Bei­jing air­port wel­com­ing the west­ern Music teacher Isaac Stern and his team. Isaac Stern, a Jew­ish vio­lin mas­ter brought up in San­fran­cisco. The best part of Isaac is that he is not only great violinist/music teacher but he was also enor­mously inter­ested in spread­ing his knowl­edge to younger gen­er­a­tion. Dur­ing their visit, they con­duct con­certs, take lessons, and share the best prac­tices in han­dling the instru­ments. Isaac is sur­prised by the young tal­ent in China and their dis­ci­plined mas­ter­ship in the work with lack of emo­tion in play­ing. He explains the sweet spots in play­ing the instru­ment and every­thing about music. He vis­its the music con­ser­va­tory and learns how the music infra­struc­ture works there. In turn, he shares his views on tun­ing what they already do to ele­vate their skills.

Though it was intended to be a con­cert tour, he took some addi­tional steps to boldly express what he thinks.. That too in China. The doc­u­men­tary also reveals the repres­sion hap­pened to the music teach­ers who favored for­eign music. Though the trip was just a month long, the impact and infec­tious enthu­si­asm Stern showed to Chi­nese musi­cians had a dra­matic impact.

View

- Slightly resem­bling Alfred Hitch­cock, Stern vig­or­ously and also nicely shares his views on music and the best prac­tices like hav­ing a sponge pad hid­ing under shoul­der to rest the vio­lin base.

- His lessons are irre­sistible and it is under­stood from the stu­dents lis­ten­ing to him. He doesn’t stop him­self explain­ing the intri­ca­cies of the instru­ment and also the emo­tion and life in play­ing the music.

- One fine scene was that, he asks a Chi­nese girl to sing what she played in violin..She hes­i­tates as singing is not taken lightly in their cul­ture. Stu­dents hap­pily accept his impro­vi­sa­tions and repro­duce the same instantly.

- The doc touches also upon the tough times the musi­cians faced for favor­ing for­eign music. Music teach­ers who favored for­eign music were arrested and tortured.

- After vis­it­ing the inten­sive sports coach­ing of Chi­nese tots, Stern Amaz­ingly tells that ‘but they can’t play Mozart’ :)

Con­clu­sion

Stern said ’ What is music all about? The instru­ment is not that impor­tant. It just the means to the end. Don’t use music to play vio­lin but use vio­lin to play music.’

He is an excel­lent and highly prac­ti­cal teacher. I admire his knowl­edge and admire him more as he also shares to the next gen­er­a­tion. Stern later vis­ited China after 20 years and amazed by the change he has observed.

He ended the doc­u­men­tary with..’ You know what I mean.. Open up’. China opened up.  True !

:)

Toto.

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