Catshanghai

The Kronos Quartet is an eclectic chamber ensemble with attitude, but they didn’t manage to show enough of it until the second half of their show at the Shanghai Concert Hall last night. The first set featured Iraqi folk songs, Sigur Ros’s Flugufrelsarinn, selection of Chinese classics and Terry Riley compositions.

Wu Man is known to The Kronos Quartet as”The Princess of the Pipa”. She came on the stage after two songs to give the music a feminine Chinese flavour. “Ambush” is an adaptation of an old Chinese war song about soldiers circling around the King to protect him from attack. The tension between Wu Man’s screechy pipa playing and TKQ’s powerful riffing was really thrilling, but then the performance got all slow and noodley for half an hour until the interval. Half way through, I was quite disappointed, because the music was too intellectual like a studied fusion between experimental classical and traditional Chinese music. Don’t get me wrong. The Kronos Quartet are wonderful musicians who were always trying to blend new styles into a modern classical format, but there was something missing at points during the show last night. I felt the venue didn’t help, because it is too elegant and made the event seem serious and formal.

The second half was much more fun. Everyone changed into black and took new positions around the edge of the stage to perform Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera. This set was much more experimental and unpredicatable. The musicians did not just play string instruments. They used a variety of noises and sounds, including cymbals, screaming voices and even water. There were quiet moments and a lot of dissonance. This sounded much more like the mischievous avant-garde music that I had come here to listen to. By this stage, the theatre was less of a barrier between the audience and the musicians. The music had more life and that the performers were having a lot of fun, but it still lacked the passion and urgency that makes TKQ’s soundtrack to Requiem for a Dream so compelling.

If only the musicians had played the encore during the first hour of the show. Wu Man’s solo pipa playing was extraordinary. Then she left the stage and TKQ came on to perform an amplified version of Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze that could have blown away any rock band. The audience loved the noise and energy coming out of the chamber quartet, although two old ladies sitting in front looked horrified. I wish the whole show could have sounded so wild and reckless.

Sonic Youth are playing at the Shanghai Concert Hall in a few weeks time. I hope they get over the fact that they are playing in a venue designed for wealthy people to listen to music for corpses.