"People's musician" Xian Xinghai: singing for the times from the people
2021-12-24
Xian Xinghai's artistic life as a "people's musician" I have my personality and conscience. Money can't buy it. My music should be dedicated to the motherland, to the working people and serve to save the national crisis. At the end of the recently performed contemporary dance drama Xian Xinghai, this passage appeared on the stage screen. Xian Xinghai, a pioneer of China's new national music career and a modern Chinese musician, has a rough life, but he worries about the world and serves the country wholeheartedly. Approach this great "people's musician" and feel how he absorbs creative nutrients from the people and resonates with the times with music. In his grief, he raised his faith in saving his country from danger Xian Xinghai came from a poor boatman family in Macao. His father died before he was born. In 1905, Xian Xinghai's mother gave birth to him on a ship alone. Because his family was poor, he had nothing around him, only the sky was full of bright stars and the sea was boundless, so he was named "Xinghai". Xian Xinghai, who was born in a poor family, learned the truth from childhood that "only when you eat hard, can you be a superior". Even though life was hard and he couldn't eat enough, he bravely pursued his music dream with tenacious will and firm faith. Xian Xinghai, a young man who loves music, studied music hard, played violin and clarinet, and gradually enjoyed the reputation of "Southern flute player". He has worked part-time in the middle school attached to Lingnan University, the music institute of Peking University and the Music Department of the National Academy of Arts. In 1928, Xian Xinghai, who studied violin and piano at Shanghai National Conservatory of music, published the famous musical essay "Universal Music". "Do what ordinary people can't do, and eat what ordinary people can't eat." Xian Xinghai wrote in "Universal Music". Therefore, he called on those who study music to "study hard" and "be a really great person, not a great person". At the same time, Xian Xinghai realized on the basis of his suffering and understanding of society, "what China needs is not aristocratic or private music, but universal music." Therefore, "music learners should shoulder a heavy responsibility to save China from depression." Since then, "Universal Music" and "national salvation music" have become the direction of music creation and social practice that Xian Xinghai has adhered to all his life. In the summer of 1929, Xian Xinghai was forced to drop out of school because he participated in the school tide, and went to Paris to study that winter. In the first few years in Paris, in order to make a living, he worked part-time, ran errands in restaurants, worked as a handyman in barbershops, and guarded the telephone... Xian Xinghai did all these jobs. After heavy and trivial work, he can spare only time to learn piano, read music and practice composition. Once, because he was tired from class during the day, he came back and worked until 9 p.m. when Xian Xinghai brought vegetables upstairs for the last time, he fell to the ground because of dizziness. After being scolded, he was fired the next day. It was in this environment, on a cold winter night in Paris, young Xian Xinghai lit a lamp to boil oil in a seventh floor room with broken doors and windows and wrote the trio wind. This song was broadcast on the radio and attracted attention. Xian Xinghai got to know the famous composer Paul Ducas. Then he was admitted to the advanced composition class of the Paris Conservatory of music and became a student of Ducas. Recalling this past, Xian Xinghai described his mental journey in my experience of learning music: "I trembled, listened to the cold wind beating the wall, through the doors and windows, and roared violently. My heart also shook violently. All the bitterness, bitterness and misfortune of life and the motherland surged up. I couldn't help myself and wrote this work through the wind." Everyone has experienced misfortune and pain in his life. Some people only think of themselves in suffering, they are pessimistic, negative and cry of despair; When some people think of others, collectives, ancestors and descendants, the motherland and all mankind, they will get faith and courage. "I think of my difficult motherland, mixed with all kinds of bitterness, helplessness, loneliness, sadness, anger and depression I have suffered in Paris for three years. My eyes can't help but be filled with tears. I go back to the store and cry secretly. In my grief, I miss how to save my motherland." Xian Xinghai wrote. In Paris, Xian Xinghai likes to watch the French National Day parade. The enthusiasm of the people to love the motherland in the sound of the National Anthem hits his heart violently. In his grief, he raised his faith in saving the motherland from danger and determined to make music rooted in China. The struggle of the people is our song After returning from Paris, Xian Xinghai actively participated in the Anti Japanese and national salvation movement. When the national war of resistance against Japan broke out, he joined the second national salvation drama team in Shanghai and went to Suzhou, Nanjing, Luoyang and other places to carry out Anti Japanese literary and artistic propaganda. After that, he moved to Wuhan to go deep into schools, rural areas, factories, mines and troops to promote and guide people's national salvation singing activities. During this period, Xian Xinghai created Anti Japanese war songs full of patriotic passion and fighting enthusiasm, such as "national salvation military song" and "guerrilla military song". Later, when evaluating his music creation activities, he said: "my works had found a way to absorb the feelings of the oppressed people." In 1938, at the invitation of teachers and students of Lu Xun Academy of art, Xian Xinghai went to Yan'an to serve as the director of the Music Department of Lu Xun Academy of art. In Yan'an, a land rooted in the masses and filled with the dawn of hope, Xian Xinghai's artistic life burst out amazing energy, and notes flowed from the bottom of his pen one after another. He created large-scale works such as production chorus and September 18th chorus, and published music papers such as Nie Er - the creator of China's emerging music and on the national form of Chinese music. The world-famous Yellow River Chorus was also born here. He fought against Japanese imperialism with songs and shouted for the war of resistance with music, becoming the bugler of the times. Xian Xinghai adhered to the requirements of "going to the masses" and "learning from the masses", and realized the goal of "cultivating a school of artists with lofty ideals, rich life experience and good artistic skills" put forward by Mao Zedong to Lu Xun art college. He is very enthusiastic about the music and cultural life of the masses, and the mountains, rivers and ditches in Yan'an have left his footprints of hard work. Xian Xinghai has a good foundation in western music. He also loves Chinese folk music. In Yan'an, he is enthusiastic about collecting folk songs in Northern Shaanxi. He believes that folk songs are a great treasure and are very important for the development of China's emerging music, "Absorb the excellent forms of folk songs in the past, fill them with new content, and then go further, merge them with a creative method of new content and new form, break the traditional feudal and semi feudal writing methods and habits, so that we can practice the folk songs of emerging music and occupy a position in the world music world." Xian Xinghai believes that if the works are to be accepted by the people, they must adopt the music language familiar to the people. He deeply explores the national music language. The works have distinctive national characteristics and are accepted and loved by the people. When creating the Yellow River Chorus, Xian Xinghai repeatedly asked the author Guang Weiran and his comrades in arms to describe to him the spectacular scene of the Yellow River and the thrilling scene of crossing the river, and learned to sing the song of the boatman of the Yellow River, so as to experience the spirit and power of the Yellow River. In his mind, the people are a vast ocean of Anti Japanese, like the Yellow River. In particular, the boatman rowed desperately. Xian Xinghai deliberately sang it three times to express the indomitable national spirit. "Defend your hometown! Defend the Yellow River! Defend North China! Defend the whole of China!" This passionate roar caused a sensation in Yan'an, spread all over China, roared for the war of resistance against Japan and made a voice for the public. In Xian Xinghai's creative motivation, the most fundamental is his incomparable love for the motherland, the people and the nation, which also reflects the most prominent aesthetic emotion and aesthetic concept in his works. Xian Xinghai deeply felt the danger of the motherland, the disaster of the nation and the pain of the people. He often said, "the struggle of the people is my song." He wanted to use his works to awaken the aggrieved, oppressed and enslaved people to strive for independence, liberation and freedom. He especially emphasized the role of national salvation songs in emerging music in the war of resistance against Japan, and believed that national salvation songs were the spirit of the times, the strong voice of the times and the voice of the people. These songs eventually became battle horns in line with the people's aesthetic needs. "We have to work together to defend our motherland which is greater than our mother." While leaving behind the famous works handed down from generation to generation, Xian Xinghai still continues to explore and pioneer in art. "I have struggled for many years to establish China's new music. This music must truly express the people's hearts and have new forms and new harmony." He solemnly wrote down his pursuit in his diary. "The success of the Yellow River Chorus is nothing to me. I have to redouble my efforts and contribute my energy and efforts to the great Chinese nation... I have to write until my last breath." Xian Xinghai always emphasizes "Universal Music", the combination of artistry, ideology and mass of music, and the social responsibility of artists. He said: "during the Anti Japanese War, we are not allowed to have our own works of 'art for art'. Composers should produce a large number of Anti Japanese songs to enhance the mood of the war." In 1940, entrusted by the CPC Central Committee, Xian Xinghai left Yan'an for Moscow to complete the post production and soundtrack of the large documentary Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army. However, the sudden outbreak of the Soviet German war trapped him outside the country. During his five years in Mongolia and the Soviet Union, Xian Xinghai persisted in writing the national liberation Symphony despite his illness and the hard life in wartime, and wrote many Orchestral Suites and many vocal and instrumental works. He made many valuable and bold attempts in using the form of symphonic music to express the people's life and revolutionary struggle, in exploring the nationalization and popularization of symphonic music, and in using the musical theme, structural form and percussion instruments of national style. In his deep longing for his hometown, Xian Xinghai died in a foreign country after completing his last work "Chinese Rhapsody" on his sickbed. Xian Xinghai once said to his mother, "it's a shame for children without the motherland. The children of the motherland are striving for the strength of youth to support the motherland with thousands of years of culture. We are nurtured by the motherland as we are nurtured by mother and fetus. In order to survive, we have to work together to defend the motherland greater than our mother." On his deathbed, Xian Xinghai, who was unable to return to his motherland, was like looking for his mother's children, but he also gave back all his last enthusiasm to his mother. As Xiao Xiangrong, the chief director of the dance drama Xian Xinghai, said, the deeper Xian Xinghai is, the more he feels that his life is wandering, his mission is innate, and his faith is persistent and loyal. An outstanding musician dies in a foreign land at last. At the last moment of his life, he still misses the motherland and looks forward to China's bright future. When he wandered outside the border countless times, when life gradually passed in the flying snow in Moscow, what was he worried about in his heart? There are too many to cut
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
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