Paul Zetter – From Water into Wood

(Vietnamese version available / Đã có bản tiếng Việt)

Our music reviewer catches up with the stately marimba as part of Manzi’s ongoing eclectic art events programme.

Where else in Hanoi can you sit one metre from a full concert marimba played by a highly acclaimed percussionist while sipping drinks served by attentive staff surrounded by the latest in Vietnamese contemporary art? Why Manzi of course.

There’s something magical about the sound of the marimba. It’s as though all the tropical rain soaked up by the rosewood tree from which its wooden bars are made is reincarnated in sound. And someone who knows how to make the marimba speak this way is Tran Xuan Hoa – even his concert was called ‘Like A September Rain’. As one of the few instruments you have to walk from one end to the other, Hoa himself struck an equally imposing figure as he entered in full mandarin attire treating the instrument with the reverence it deserves.

As if matching Manzi’s open philosophy of featuring different art forms, Hoa’s programme also cut across genres from European classical to American contemporary, from Spanish traditional to Mexican dance. Although the marimba repertoire isn’t that extensive, he gave us a showcase that highlighted his technique that shone on Paul Smadbeck’s Rhythm Song, and exquisite emotional control that made Evelyn Glennie’s Little Prayer feel hewn out of a deep spirituality that I suspect is Hoa’s musical underpinning.

Recognizing the marimba’s central/latin American descent (wikipedia tells me Mexico) Hoa clearly enjoyed Kai Stensgaard’s Spanish Dance (complete with foot shakers) and excelled in the Mexican folk melody Fun Fun Fun with its dance-like lines. When he finished with Francisco Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra (featured in the film The Killing Fields) we were all sold on Hoa’s authentic showmanship, emotional impact and musicality.

Just to enjoy the theatricality of watching Hoa astride the marimba, 4 mallets in hands, hitting the wood bars with the precision of a surgeon is a musical experience not to miss. But equal to this was Manzi itself, the lighting on the marimba dramatic, the atmosphere intimate, the acoustics reverberant, the mixed audience attentive, transforming just another Hanoi night into something to remember.

Photographs by Nguyen Tang Khanh