In 1967, in Berlin, Germany, Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa held a baton and rehearsed with the Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. Picture/ic photo
In 1959, a young man who was just 24 years old rode a moped and boarded a Japanese freighter and drifted for two years at sea. After more than a month, he arrived in Europe and began his "motorcycle study tour".
As the road got farther and farther, this young man with a strong thirst for Western culture gradually adjusted and adapted to European and American society, and finally gained a legendary music conducting journey.
At the age of 25, he won the first prize in the Besançon International Conducting Competition, studied with Charles Munchy, Karajan and other conductor masters, and later became Bernstein's deputy conductor in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2002, 67-year-old Seiji Ozawa said in an interview with Yang Lan: "I love opera. Being a conductor in an American orchestra is very busy. Sometimes I can take on one opera a year, and sometimes I can't complete one throughout the year. , time is too limited. It is great for me to have the opportunity to go to Vienna to concentrate on opera. I will conduct a few more operas before I die." That year, he became the music director of the Vienna State Opera .
Time goes back 29 years to the first time he stepped onto the more than 100-year-old wooden stage of the Tanglewood Music Center in Boston. Ozawa was full of ambition and ready to show off his talents. Starting in 1973, he served as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 29 years, establishing his status as a world-class conductor.
On February 6, 2024, Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa died at home at the age of 88. He always said to the students he mentored: "Music is the sunset. There is only one sunset, but everyone, every day, in every different place, sees and feels the sunset so differently." Looking for the sunset is a small matter. Sawa Seiji's lifelong journey, "If you want to find a beautiful sunset, go to music, beautiful music is always there."
Art without borders
"Because of music as a medium, I can communicate with such a great person It’s really a kind of happiness to have contact with such people!” “I feel extremely happy to be able to work in music.”…
The word “happiness” appears many times when Ozawa describes his feelings. This book “Conducting Career— —My Study Travel Essay" records Ozawa's journey from Japan to Europe and the United States to study music conducting. In the recollection of more than three years of past events, there is not much talk about music. It focuses on the story of how a young man who emerged in the 1960s with a strong yearning for Western culture adjusted and adapted to European and American society and achieved legendary success. The book was a hot seller in Japan that year and was reprinted more than ten times.
In 1998, Seiji Ozawa participated in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Picture/Visual China
Ozawa expressed many times in the book "the excitement of a musician" - once a person understands and sees him, it is completely complete. Strange things will naturally make people particularly happy.
Such excitement often made his whole back sweat. This was the time when he set off from Kobe on a cargo ship and sailed for four days. He saw Estancia Island in the Philippines for the first time abroad since he was sensible. It was when he rode a scooter after a long 60-day sailing journey. After a few days, we gradually approached Paris and suddenly arrived at the banks of the Seine. With some fantasies, I lived in Qilelu, climbed up the silvery snow peaks, looked around the mountains, and enjoyed the snowy ridges and ice peaks. It was when he flew directly from Europe to Boston and saw the American continent for the first time on the plane; it was when he flew over the Pacific with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and saw the mountains and rivers of Japan...
He recalled Boston, USA The suburban Dangu Forest is full of trees, lakes, hills and fresh air. In order to seek advice from the respected teacher Charles Minch, Ozawa won the first place in his disciple selection competition. That was after he and nearly 30 young conductors from all over the world passed several difficult examinations and conducted performances. obtained later. As a result, he received the Kushevitzky Prize named after the late Kushevitzki, the founder and conductor of that music festival. In this way, Ozawa got the opportunity to be taught by Mingxi himself.
For Ozawa, Berlin is a music city with a large lake.Because he wanted to learn conducting from Karajan, who "seemed to have some kind of magic", he rushed to Berlin to participate in the "Young Conductor Competition to Learn Conducting from Karajan." There, Ozawa used Mahler's "Song of the Earth" and Rossini's "William Tell" Overture as the subject pieces for the examination, and won first place again. For a few months, he traveled from Paris to Berlin to study with Karajan.
In the following days, at Carnegie Hall in New York, Ozawa conducted the first performance of Dai Minlang's "Feast" in the name of deputy conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. To his surprise, the performance won warm applause from the American audience and praise from conductor Bernstein. The orchestra players also beat their instruments to express their praise. "Music is an art without borders," Ozawa lamented. "I feel extremely happy to be able to work in music."
On November 26, 2008, Boston, the United States, Ozawa Seiji conducted the orchestra at the Boston Symphony Hall. Rehearsing Hector Louis Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" Photo/Visual China
"Would you like to try playing like this?"
In addition to his own music conducting, Ozawa also has a unique method of teaching students.
In the summer of 2011, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami went with Ozawa to activities at the Seiji Ozawa Swiss International Music Academy. This is a lecture for young string instrument players held in Basil, a small town not far from Montreux on Lake Geneva, hosted by Ozawa. Excellent string instrument players from different countries, mostly in their twenties, come from all over Europe to receive instruction on a residential basis. The lecture
is held every summer for ten days, and that year was already its seventh year. Haruki Murakami recalled, "The centripetal force of all members condensed day by day. At a certain time, it was like an engine that was originally difficult to start. It suddenly started, integrated into one autonomously, and began to rotate. To put it another way, it was like an animal belonging to a new species. , was born in an ignorant world. It gradually mastered how to swing its limbs, wag its tail, hear and see. It was a little hesitant at first, but its movements became more natural and graceful day by day, and it became more skillful. At this time, this animal The animals instinctively began to understand what kind of sound and rhythm Mr. Ozawa requested. This process is not training, but a unique communication that pursues resonance. During the communication, the students began to discover the rich meaning of music and the natural joy."
Ozawa encourages students to look for musical “sunsets.” "Would you like to try playing like this?" He always guided in this tone, making little jokes from time to time to amuse everyone and ease the tense atmosphere at the scene. In Haruki Murakami's view, Mr. Ozawa's instructions to the orchestra can be described as meticulous, which may be about beat, volume, timbre or bowing technique. Like a finely tuned machine, he may ask the player to play the same passage repeatedly until it is satisfactory.
On February 26, 2004, Seiji Ozawa communicated with the orchestra at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Picture/Visual China
The indissoluble bond with China
Seiji Ozawa was born in Shenyang, China, in 1935. He moved to Beijing with his family the following year. I spent six years of my childhood here. Ozawa once said that many of his childhood memories are related to Beijing. In 1941, after the Pacific War broke out, the Ozawa family returned to Japan.
Ozawa came to China again in November 1976. Setting foot in Beijing, where he had been away for a long time, Ozawa specially brought his father's portrait with him and returned to his childhood home. Many years later, Ozawa's mother passed away, and some of her ashes were buried under the flower bed of the main house in the courtyard of the Beijing Hutong where she used to live. Several neighbors planted a cherry blossom tree on it.
In the winter of 1976, there were no concerts of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven music in China. Ozawa told everyone, "I will come back. I believe that one day I will have the opportunity to conduct Brahms and Beethoven here." At that time, a friend invited Ozawa to his home and opened the floor. There were many things hidden inside. Records and tapes, "It's incredible!" Ozawa is still deeply impressed by this scene many years later.
A year later, Ozawa came to China again and conducted the Central Symphony Orchestra to play Brahms, "The Moon Reflects on Two Springs" and Pipa.When Seiji Ozawa heard the performance of the Erhu song "Er Quan Ying Yue", he was moved to tears and said that this kind of music should be "listened to on one's knees". In 1979, when Deng Xiaoping visited the United States, Ozawa was lying at home in Boston suffering from a cold. He heard on TV that Deng Xiaoping told U.S. President Carter that China and the United States would strengthen cultural exchanges. China would send a Peking Opera troupe to perform in the United States and welcome the Boston Symphony Orchestra to visit China. In this way, Ozawa's dream finally came true. He led the Boston Symphony Orchestra to visit China that year. At that time, the ticket price was 10 yuan, and some people queued for 20 hours.
In 1999, Ozawa once again led the Boston Symphony Orchestra to visit China. The ticket price was 500 yuan, and the seats were still full. In 2002, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the Japanese government invited Ozawa Seiji to collaborate with the Four Seasons Theater Company to stage "Madama Butterfly" in Beijing. Ozawa joked, "I am always given as a gift by the government."
On December 29, 2007, at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Seiji Ozawa and Lang Lang talked at the 2008 Beijing New Year Concert/ Visual China
“I can’t say goodbye enough”
When the 24-year-old Ozawa suddenly wanted to ride a motorcycle to study in Europe, he had no money to buy a car, so he lobbied Fuji Heavy Industries, but the company was attracted by his enthusiasm. I was so impressed that I actually gave him one. When he got the opportunity to go to Europe, Ozawa was in a difficult period: he and his friends, who had been singing together since middle school, went skiing in Nozawa, Shinshu, and stayed at the house of an old man who had often disturbed them in previous years. Unexpectedly, not even four days after living there, Ozawa fell off a cliff and injured his waist. He started to have a high fever that night.
Unexpectedly, on the way back, Ozawa drank a beer on the night train and got better. When he reluctantly walked home, he just waited for the reply to all the previous inquiries: it was a freighter, the fare was not expensive, and he had agreed to take Ozawa.
Ozawa was happy to encounter such an unexpected opportunity so soon, while making all the preparations before departure. He had held countless farewell receptions with some of his close friends and relatives. However, no matter how he held such farewell receptions, "I just couldn't seem to say enough goodbye." The two weeks before boarding the ship were so hurried. spent. Ozawa recalled, "I think I will never have such a nervous moment again in my life." On the night of
's departure, everyone came to Tokyo Station to see Ozawa off, and he almost shed tears. . The next day, Ozawa stayed at a hotel in Kyoto and slept on the tatami with his elder brother who came from Sendai to see him off. Years later, Ozawa still felt happy when he thought of that tatami.
In a sense, that was the starting point for Ozawa to chase the sunset of music. Until his later years, he still lamented, "Time is too limited...I will conduct a few more operas before I die." In the melody of the world, there is still that sigh, "I can't seem to say goodbye enough."
References: Seiji Ozawa's "Conducting Career - My Study Tour Essays", Haruki Murakami "With Ozawa" "Afternoon Music Time with Seiji", Yang Lan's "Interview with the old naughty boy with wild hair - Interview with Seiji Ozawa".
Southern People Weekly Reporter Han Ruxue
Editor-in-Chief Zhou Jianping
