Tag: pipa

William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

Is that William Carter on the theorbo or a Naxi Musician in Lijiang on the pipa?

I was most amused, when I tracked down the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) blog piece about the concert we attended on 24 September 2010 – click here for the whole piece – to read this snippet:

The mood’s lively tonight. William Carter (theorbo) comes in to the dressing room in the interval telling us that a punter has accosted him and enquired whether his instrument is Chinese. “No”, replies Bill. “It looks very much like an instrument I saw in China”, insists the punter mysteriously.

I can now solve the mystery – Janie (Daisy) is the mystery punter.

We had been to China a few months earlier and had seen a concert of ancient Chinese music performed by Naxi musicians in Lijiang, Yunnan province – pictures 97 to 107 on the following album:

036 Weishan Scenes P1000335

I remember Janie asking me whether that big lute thing…

…”theorbo,” I said…

Theorbo

…was the same as the Chinese instrument we saw in Lijiang.

“No”, I said.

“That’s what he said”, she said, confessing that she had asked William Carter that question as we were leaving the hall for the interval.

I explained that there was a fair bit of cross-fertilisation of musical instruments between east and west in the Renaissance period, but that instrument is a close relative of the lute and that family of instruments is more of a middle-east to west cross-fertilisation than a far-east to west influence. I also explained that the Chinese instruments of that kind might be far more ancient than any in the west, so technically, there might be a dim and distant connection.

“So, basically yes, then?” suggested Janie.

“Basically no,” I dared to disagree.

It is most amusing to find, so many years later (writing in December 2017)  Janie’s exchange with William Carter preserved on the AAM blog.

We have since seen pipa concerts and I think Janie could now distinguish theorbo-type and pipa-type instruments with some skill.

I have one other anecdote about William Carter, from a few months later. By that time, my mum was in Nightingale House, her dementia worsening. I was at that time often visiting her and then jumping on the tube to go to the city.

Walking along Nightingale Lane towards Clapham South, I saw a young man just ahead of me carrying a large musical instrument case that looked to me as though it could only contain a theorbo.

I hurried my step, caught up with the young man and said, “excuse me, but is that instrument of yours a theorbo?” He beamed a smile at me and said, “yes it is. I have been lugging this theorbo around London for years now and have had the daftest questions asked about it…you are the first person who has actually recognised it and enquired after it by name!”

It turned out that the young man was one of William Carter’s students at Guildhall and was on the way to see him. We had a most pleasant chat about early music on the tube into the city together.

China Trip – From Beijing On To Nanjing, 18 November 1993

We did a little bit more sightseeing in Beijing before dashing to the airport for an internal flight to Nanjing.

Lama Temple

18th – Beijing to Nanjing – went to Lama Temple & briefly Confuzi Temple. Then on to airport for flight to Nanjing*…

*amazing business moving us from Gate 16 to Gate 19 & then back across the tarmac

I think this is the Confuzi Temple but this photo was not labelled at the time, so I might be getting “confuzied”

I remember the business at the airport, because we were solemnly told we needed to relocate to another gate in order to be in close proximity to our plane, then ended up wandering rather haphazardly across the tarmac to our plane, which was close to the original gate. Frankly that was one of my lesser health and safety concerns about the internal flights back then – more on that topic anon.

…straight on to coaches for trip to amazing bird market and then on to hotel – 5-star Jinling Hotel.

As yes, the bird market.

Live birds…

…not only birds…

…and many deceased birds on sticks

Janie and I found it fascinating and I’m sure these days Janie would have taken dozens and dozens of photographs there. Still, enough above to give you an idea. Some of our fellow tourists found the place unsettling; it certainly didn’t smell like a place where you’d want to try the street food. It’s probably highly regulated and much safer hygeine-wise now.

As for the 5-star Jinling Hotel – so famous and having had so many high-falutin’ guests it gets a Wikipedia entry – it was a strange sort of 5-star. My guess is that there were different grades of room and our tour group was in last grade:

Dig the rabbit-skin hat and rattan slippers. I still have that short- sleeved shirt in my “holiday collection” 25 years later.

My memory had Janie’s hairdryer debacle happening in this hotel, but my notes have now sent me to the Holiday Inn Beijing for the electrical debacle and I now recall that the incident occurred before our peking duck dinner, not before the music concert, so I have moved that anecdote to the previous day’s write up – click here or below:

Squeezing A Heck Of A Lot Into One Day In Beijing – Including Making The Holiday Inn Beijing Go Pop, 17 November 1993

What the “awards” notes do remind me is that the elevators in the Jinling Hotel were somewhat below five star standard. I awarded that hotel:

The London Regional Transport Efficient Elevator Service Award

On reflection, I think our departures from that hotel were always delayed by people unable to lifts get down from their rooms.

Dinner in town – not bad meal – good ribs. Music concert at which we didn’t fall asleep (but almost everyone else did).

So that will have been our very first encounter with Chinese traditional instruments, including the pipa – an instrument that has fascinated us since and which Janie has subsequently likened to a theorbo with predictably hilarious results in the early music world:

William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

But I digress.

All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 18 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:

CB_1993_I5_ (10)