As for the four concerts he will conduct in Taipei this month and next, Fischer-Dieskau said that they had thematic links that loosely bound them together. The main one was change, which led to mutation, variation and transformation, he said.
Consequently on April 25 there’s the Paganini Variations of Boris Blacher, a German composer who was born and spent his early life in northeastern China, with Elgar’s better-known Enigma Variations on May 24.
But the theme also covered the way a musical form like the concerto had evolved, he said. Next Wednesday’s concert features Mendelssohn’s colorful yet traditional Concerto for Two Pianos, but also a modern concerto for gu zheng (古箏) and orchestra by the very eminent Taiwanese composer Ma Shuei-long (馬水龍).
“The instrumentalist is the winner in this newer work, with the orchestra only commenting here and there. That’s different from the traditional conception and really interests me,” Fischer-Dieskau said.
The concert will end with Brahms’s Second Symphony, the most popular of the composer’s four according to an American survey. “It represents where I come from,” the maestro said with a characteristic smile.
Fischer-Dieskau’s second concert with the TSO, on April 25, will feature guest soloist Wu Wei, internationally acclaimed master of the 3,000-year-old Chinese instrument, the sheng (笙). Also on the program is the Symphony No. 1 (premiered in 1900) by Reinhold Gliere, a Russian composer who wrote melodic and dramatic works in the tradition of Scriabin and Glinka.
Returning to the topic of classical music and the young, Fischer-Dieskau said it would be nice if the TSO could have its own youth orchestra. But there were many possibilities, he added, citing Simon Rattle’s venture of inviting 250 underprivileged adolescents to dance to music played by the Berlin Philharmonic (the results are available on a DVD entitled Rhythm Is It!).
As for his father, the world-famous baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, his son said that he’d sent Taiwan his warmest regards. “He’s 83 now, and a bit old to travel. But I’d love to persuade him to come here. He doesn’t sing much any more, but he likes to conduct. So maybe I’d be a bit jealous! After all, he’d be competition, wouldn’t he?”
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