‘The future of classical music is more in Asia than anywhere else’ claimed a famous Maestro a decade ago. So does the Western music canon now belong to the East? Mahlerman considers the evidence…

Ah good, I have your full attention.

Let us consider the East. By the middle of this century I will be 104, and I will have lived through a spectacular demographic and economic change. Global output in the West was almost 70% just after my momentous birth; by 2050 that figure will have dropped to 30%. The slow decline has begun, and we had better get used to it. The reasons are complex, and not for these pages – but as I was relaxing recently on the Iberian Peninsula, sipping my fourth caipirinha, and wondering whether my house in London was about to be torched, my mind wandered across the autopista to the shopping centre where, until recently, the Brits held sway – in fact so dominant were they that you could wander around with not a word of Spanish available to you, and feel just as comfortable as you would in Guildford High Street. If you were yearning for a little bit of Olde Albion, the ‘English Pie Shop’ would be your first call. If ‘er indoors wanted a bit of cheap tat to wear once, while doing Karaoke at the Robin Hood pub, then ‘Lads and Wags’ would ensure that she was suited and booted a treat. Barclays Bank, fish & chips, Guinness…..the list is endless.

It is very different today. As fun in the sun has turned into property ashes, and the autopista has become the boulevard of broken dreams, the canny Chinese have moved in en masse to pick up the pieces and do what they do best; trade. Expecting all the girls to be trainee ‘tiger mothers’ I discovered that I had been quite wrong to fear their inscrutable gaze; they were gentle and polite, and appeared to work 23 hour shifts, with just an hour of sleep. And this was the clue.

For most of the last century – certainly from 1920 onward – the Western Canon of classical music was well known, and consumed via radio, shellac, vinyl and later CD, all over the Orient – particularly in Japan. However, they had no performing tradition until quite recently – perhaps the last 30 years. Orientals by no means dominate any of the major orchestras in Europe or America – but their numbers are increasing rapidly. First Konzertmeister of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra? Japan’s Toru Yasunaga.

The reasons are obvious; let’s call it graft. Parents in the Orient dream about their children becoming doctors, lawyers or engineers, but they are no longer ignorant of the need for a ‘well rounded’ education, and that often means an early start on either violin or piano, these being the ‘glamour instruments’ most likely to produce a career of some kind – or better if little Li shows real promise. Link this to the Asian culture, particularly among the academically inclined, of a high level of discipline combined with a steely work ethic, and you have a powerful driver for success. Sumi Jo the Korean lyric coloratura soprano was practicing for eight hours every day – at the age of eight!

So much for the width. What about the quality? Yes, I feel hungry an hour after a Chinese meal – but what do I feel listening to a Chinese teenager playing Mozart or Beethoven perfectly? Is there something missing? If yes, what?

Ten years ago Maestro Kurt Masur, late of Leipzig and New York made a bold statement that ‘The future of classical music is more in Asia than anywhere else’, and this from a man steeped in the German tradition. So yes, they can play the notes – but can they know the music? And can they know it well enough (in their early 20′s) to convince you and me that these are not just dots on the page, but represent something much deeper and perhaps unknowable?

The little minx at the top of the page is Yuja Wang, the 24 year old Chinese, who arrived on stage at the Hollywood Bowl recently intent upon making sure that the audience were not just concentrating on Rachmaninov. On her recent album she opened her heart to us ‘I really like to grasp the flow of the Russian soul through Russian literature’. I smell a marketing guru. The 3rd Piano Concerto is, technically, one of the mountain peaks of romantic piano literature. She played it with a dumbfounding perfection that all but silenced criticism. Here she is warming up backstage.

There can’t be many people on the planet unaware of the amazing Chinese pianist Lang Lang (Brilliant Brilliant). Musician or “circus act” (Andre Previn), the jury is still out. Time Magazine acclaimed him in 2009 as one of the world’s most influential people and, I suppose, if you are credited, as he is, with encouraging 36 million Chinese children to take up the instrument, it could well be true. He wears a tuxedo with tennis shoes by Adidas, with whom he has a contract, along with Audi, Rolex, Steinway and others. My own preference is for his near contemporary Yundi Li, who perhaps lacks Lang Lang’s wow factor, but gains immeasurably, to my ears, by a poetic sensitivity that won him the Chopin Piano Competition at the age of 18, the youngest ever. Here, the Nocturne No 2 by Chopin.

The (violin)cello does not really qualify as a ‘glamour’ instrument – small repertoire, looks a bit odd stuck between the legs – and I suppose the late, lamented Jacqueline du Pre was the only soloist in the last 50 years to stamp herself onto the wider consciousness of the listening public. That is until the Korean Han-Na Chang burst onto the scene in 1994, winning the International Rostropovitch Competition at age 11. She has kept a sense of balance in her life by limiting the number of performances she gives, and taking up philosophy studies at Harvard. I’ve heard her live a couple of times and it is her personality and fevered commitment to the music that I remember with a thrill. You can see it quite clearly in this short clip from the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto. Watch her at about 1.00 She can’t wait to get going, but while she is waiting she ‘involves’ all the players around her by looking from side to side with an impish smile and they, of course, sense this and visibly show that they are ‘ready for a tear-up’. The great Rostropovitch was a master in this work, but even he did not ‘rock’ like little Ms Chang. What a talent.

Born near Tokyo 63 years ago (Dame) Mitsuko Uchida was also a teenage prodigy, but her career has grown in very small increments over almost 50 years. A direct line can be traced back through her teachers to the great Artur Schnabel, whose pupil Maria Curcio taught Uchida. For many she is unsurpassed in the core repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but she also has an important corner in the more prickly world of the Second Viennese School. Her antics as a conductor/pianist here, in the dark D minor Piano Concerto K466 by Mozart will perhaps not be to everybody’s taste – the opening of Macbeth comes to mind. If it disturbs you simply close your eyes. Mine will be open.