A new album offers a classical treat for clarinet lovers

Clarinetist Wang Tao is very excited these days.

He recently released his first classical album, Schubert, which he says is a milestone.

"This is the best album I have released. I feel like a retired athlete who has got an opportunity to take part in the Olympic Games," the clarinetist says in Beijing.

"I am so excited to release a classical album with the renowned Deutsche Grammophon label."

Despite his modesty, Wang is no underachiever. The clarinetist, who has won many titles and awards, is the first musician in China to receive a master's degree in clarinet from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, a top music school in the country.

He also has 10 crossover albums that are used as teaching material at the conservatory, and he has won a best instrumental-album award from the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan.

For the new album, Wang selected some of Schubert's most beautiful melodies from both vocal and instrumental works and arranged them for clarinet, including Auf dem Wasser zu singen (To Sing On The Water), D. 774, Ave Maria (Ellen's Gesang) D. 839, and An die Musik (To Music), D.547.

He also adapted Schubert's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano In A Minor, D. 821, a piece Wang had listened to hundreds of times as a student.

Swiss pianist and harpsichordist Michel Kiener joined Wang to record the new album at the Salle de Musique of La Chaux-de-Fonds, a famous concert hall in Switzerland.

The collaboration with Kiener, who was awarded the first prize at the Brudges International Harpsichord Contest in 1977 and teaches at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, was both a challenge and source of inspiration for Wang.

"Both of us had our own ideas about Schubert's music. One day, we stopped recording and drove two hours to a lake. The lake sparkled under the sun as we talked for a long time," says Wang.

"I usually exaggerate the emotion in the music, but he told me that even the sadness should be beautiful."

So, in September 2016, Wang visited Schubert's grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery, where he also found the graves of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms.

"When I was told that Schubert was first buried next to Beethoven, whom he had admired all his life, in the village cemetery at Wahring, Vienna, I also went there and spent a few hours there," says Wang.

Wang, who is married to former Olympic gymnastics champion Liu Xuan and is the father of a 2-year-old son, considers the album to be a reflection of his life.

Born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Wang, who is nearly 40, studied the cello and the erhu (a two-stringed bowed instrument) in his childhood besides the clarinet. Ever since he first performed onstage at the age of 9, he wanted to make music his career.

In 2011, as a visiting scholar, Wang studied with two-time Grammy-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman as his first Chinese student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, which is among the oldest independent schools of music in the United States.

Two years later, Wang returned to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing as a teacher.

Speaking about his music career, he says: "The clarinet is not as popular as the piano or the violin in China. So, I didn't have opportunities to play onstage.

"I once even thought that my career as a soloist had ended since I could hardly concentrate on my music, which was really frustrating to me."

But in 2015, Wang had a turning point when he signed a contract with Universal Music and released a crossover album, Night & Day, featuring 10 tracks with the clarinet in a leading role, supported by pop, rock and jazz.

Commenting on that album, Ye Xiaogang, a renowned composer and vice-president of the Central Conservatory of Music, who has known Wang since he was young, then said: "I am proud of him. This album is a new start for him."

Ye is the mastermind and driving force behind the Beijing Modern Music Festival, founded in 2002 to promote modern works and support young Chinese musicians.

Wang will go on a national tour from March to September to promote the album, with his last stop at Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts.

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

Clarinetist Wang Tao has just released his first classical album, Schubert, and will start a national tour in March.Provided To China Daily