Butterfly Lovers Concerto & Paganini

“I found it interesting,” the young Singaporean violinist Chloe Chua tells Apple Music Classical, “to bring these really different violin concertos together in one album—to mix music cultures from East and West.” Luscious and open-hearted, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, composed in late-1950s China, might appear literally a world away from a violin concerto composed by the notorious showman, Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini, in 1815. Yet, Chua argues, for all their differences they do require a similar approach from their soloist: “Both these concertos have really strong stories to tell. I feel like my violin is the narrator for both of them.” This particularly makes sense when you realise both works were inspired by opera—albeit, from two very different traditions. Butterfly Lovers’ co-composers, Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, were fellow students at the Shanghai Conservatory who fell under the spell of Yue opera, fashionable in the city at that time. Yue opera’s characteristically sweet pentatonic melodies and subtly expressive harmonies are strongly evident in their concerto, which also uses a story typical of that genre. Butterfly Lovers sets an ancient Chinese love story in which a girl, Zhu Yingtai, disguises herself as a boy in order to become a student. Inevitably, a mutual attraction grows between herself and a nerdish fellow student who, despite her dropping several hints, fails to realise the gender of his new close friend. Their earthly love has a tragic end, yet they are reunited in their afterlife as butterflies—hence the name of the concerto. Chua explains that part of the challenge for the soloist is to communicate something of the subtle and elliptical communication between the two students. “Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto is a Chinese work, and in ancient China, the way romantic lovers would express themselves would not be to say straight up ‘I love you’.” More likely, she says, they would talk in similes, comparing their beloved’s eyes with something found in nature. At one point, Zhu Yingtai compares herself and her beloved “brother student” to a pair of mandarin ducks, a traditional symbol of lovers in Chinese culture. “The expression is really in the detail,” says Chua, “and it makes such a difference from Western romantic pieces.” You can also hear the influence of Yue opera in the way Chen and He’s work includes traditional playing techniques such as grace notes and huá-yīn (literally “sliding notes”). There is also the use of a traditional percussive instrument, the guban, which makes a literally striking appearance in the “Presto resoluto” movement. As a “bridge” between Butterfly Lovers and the Paganini, Chua includes another work by Chen Gang, Sunshine Over Tashkurgan, this time inspired by music from the western frontier region of Xinjiang. Here a strong Persian flavour is added to music which is predominantly inspired by the traditional music of the Muslim Chinese Tajiks. Chua describes the style of Chen’s work as sitting “somewhere between the Butterfly Lovers and the Paganini Concerto”. Even so, it’s quite a journey from this frontier region—potently depicted both by Chua and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of their associate conductor, Rodolfo Barráez—to the concert halls of Europe where Paganini astonished audiences with his Violin Concerto No. 1. Operatic inspiration, this time, came from the bel canto works of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Chua admits she devoted many hours of practice to its demanding passages, including extended double stopping (when two melodies are played in parallel at once) and left hand pizzicato. But, as she tells Apple Music Classical, the Paganini means far more than just an opportunity to show off technique. “It isn’t just a showy piece—it is also a really passionate and very expressive work through which I can express my musical side.” And so she does, bringing out the work’s lyrical beauty as well as playing the virtuosic pizzicato and double-stopped passages with charismatic ease and evident delight.