Chao Yuan-pu—Exploring the Wonders of ­Classical Music

When it comes to introducing Chiao Yuan-pu, it is more or less inevitable that his famous family will be mentioned. His father is Chiao Jen-ho, former chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, Taiwan’s semi-official body for dealing with mainland China, and his younger sister is the popular singer-songwriter Deserts Chang. As the only son, the intelligent and “not especially rebellious” Chiao took a path far different from what his father planned, but nonetheless hopes to satisfy his father’s expectations even as he realizes his own form of self-expression.

Chiao studied political science at National Taiwan University, then got a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy in the US. His parents both were delighted that he seemed to be on course to carry on the family tradition and become the fourth generation in the law. But he suddenly made a radical change in direction, and declared that he wanted to become a conductor. When his father heard that, he said—half-jokingly and half-worried—“If you learn violin, when you can’t find a job at least you can busk in the subways; but if you study conducting, do you think there’ll be an orchestra waiting down there for you to busk with?”

Chiao wrote two essays analyzing schools of piano performance and applied to universities overseas. King’s College of the University of London immediately agreed to accept him into their doctoral program in music, with a full scholarship.

There doesn’t seem to be much in common between diplomacy and music, but for Chiao, both are “high arts of communication.” As long as you have a grasp of this greatest common denominator, then as you learn them you’ll find places where they overlap.

The piano is the instrument that Chiao feels most comfortable with, and has studied in the greatest depth.

Once Chiao starts talking about classical music, it’s like opening a floodgate—the words just keep pouring out.

It all started when he was in fourth grade and first heard Brahms’ “Tragic Overture.” This symphonic work is rather too deep and melancholy for most primary school students, but Chiao felt as if beckoned by a higher power. Though only obscurely understanding what he was hearing, he was deeply attracted to the rich vitality of this somber piece. From then on, relying on his naturally gifted ear, his sharp and subtle mind, and lots of hard work, he began systematically building up his knowledge of the theory and practice of classical music, collecting countless recordings and penetrating the maze of the various schools of the classical music world.

In high school, when attending performances at the National Concert Hall, he was one of the very few students—indeed probably the only student—of his age to bring along the score. As the house lights dimmed, he would pull out the music and lay it across his knees, the pages covered in musical notes inevitably drawing stares of amazement and incomprehension from those in neighboring seats. “The written music is the only thing we can look at in common with the performer, so it’s too bad more people don’t put in the effort to study it.”

For example, works by Chopin often carry notes and symbols calling for powerful emotional expression, but many performers routinely soften the compositions to make them more accessible to a wider audience. “In fact, Chopin, who was very prickly and had a real attitude, was probably the only one who played them in accordance with his original intent, even if he didn’t necessarily produce the most pleasing sound.”

On finding a boxed set of recordings of works of 20th-century composer Bela Bartok, conducted by Pierre Boulez, Chiao Yuan-pu smiles with childlike joy. The photo was taken at the Xuchang Street store of G-Music.

Chiao, who began studying piano at a very young age, devoted much time and energy to analyzing the traditions and styles of the various European and American schools of piano performance. In 2007 he completed an enormous book collecting together interviews with over 50 of the world’s leading pianists, The Colors Between Black and White. That he was able to do it at all has been called “a miracle.”

Why would he want to spend five years flying all over the US and Europe to record the thoughts of pianists?

Chiao Yuan-pu says his original motivation was “a sense of frustration.” “Whenever I went to concerts or compared different recordings, lots of questions would pop into my head: ‘Why isn’t he following the score here?’ ‘Why did he decide to play that part in that way?’ Naturally the answers could only come from the pianists themselves; that’s the richest source of first-hand information.”

But how did a mere graduate student, with no impressive institutional credentials, persuade renowned pianists to take time out from their packed schedules to sit down and chat?

Chiao Yuan-pu says the first 10 pianists were the hardest, but once he started to build up a reputation, people he had already interviewed would vouch for him to their colleagues, and after that scheduling interviews became much easier.

Writer Yang Chao, likewise a connoisseur of classical music, states in the preface to Chiao’s book that while sincerity and patience were certainly parts of the story of Chiao’s success, what he really relied on was his ability and knowledge. These great masters of music “learned to respect his musical knowledge and perspicacity, so they took him seriously, and you could even say they began to consider it important to have the opportunity to speak with him…. They could tell that he was, in terms of character, depth, and taste, ‘one of us.’”

“At opportune moments he would come up with very specific questions for the pianists about this or that recording of a piece,” relates Yang, “such as ‘In the 18th bar of the second movement, why did you decide not to use the pedal?’” When world-class pianists get asked questions like this, they can’t help but focus their attention, take the interviewer very seriously, and give serious thought to how to answer.

Take for instance Krystian Zimer­man (born 1956), an internationally respected pianist who had refused to be interviewed for 20 years. After seeing that Chiao had prepared over 30 in-depth questions for him, he willingly gave Chiao his telephone number and said, “We can do the interview, but you have to give me 20 hours, that’s the only way I can answer these questions in detail.”

During their conversation, the two discussed how Zimer­man’s childhood had been scarred by war, the impact of the Chopin Competition on musical education in Poland, the “Piano Concerto” that the modern Polish composer Wi­told Lu­to­sław­ski wrote especially for Zimer­man, the reasons for his 15-year abandonment of solo piano recording, and his moral courage in publicly denouncing the US invasion of Iraq.

It was originally thought that this book would interest only a small audience, and would probably just go through one print run and stay on the shelves for a year before disappearing, but in five short months it has gone through six printings, which tells you something about Chiao’s musical tier and his ability to write in an engaging style.

Through writing, lectures, and radio programs, Chiao Yuan-pu does what he can to spread knowledge about music. And his lectures are by no means your typical “music appreciation” stuff. “If I always played Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’ or Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’ during my lectures, or the theme was always some familiar work by Beethoven or Mozart, then the comprehension that the audience has of classical music would always be stuck at a superficial level, and they wouldn’t want to invest any further effort or time to get a deeper understanding.”

For the present, Chiao will continue with his global interview series, and he already has a writing schedule laid out for the next six years. As our own interview with Chiao closes, he also mentions doing a series of music documentaries. He aspires to follow in the footsteps of French director Bruno Mon­sain­geon, who made now-invaluable documentary interviews with great pianists like Glenn Gould and Svia­to­slav Richter who have since passed away. ­

Having found his ideal existence in the world of classical music, Chiao Yuan-pu wants to make for the rest of us a textual and visual record that will make our own journeys to that world more enjoyable and enriching.