Two music masters who talk about "school music songs"
——Modern Chinese Music (5)
Towards the sun
In the development process of "Xuetang Music", the most contributed and influential were Shen Xingong and Li Shutong, two music masters. In addition, people like Zeng Zhichen, Li Huaxuan, Zhu Yunwang, etc. were also representative enlightenment musicians in this period.
First, Shen Xingong
Shen Xingong (1870-1947), formerly known as Shen Qinghong, pen name Xingong, zi Shu Kui, composer and music educator of the Xuetang music period, a native of Shanghai. In 1895, he taught at John College in Shanghai; in 1896, he entered the newly opened Nanyang Public School Normal Class; in 1901, when Nanyang Public School founded the attached elementary school, he was hired as a teacher; in 1902, he traveled to Japan to study and investigate education, and it was at this time that he became interested in music singing and wrote his first song "Bing Cao". He also founded the "Music Workshop" with Tsang Shih-chan at the Edo (China) International Student Hall in Japan, and hired a famous Japanese music education teacher, Mijiro Suzuki, to teach music to Chinese students. In 1903, he returned to China and devoted himself to music education, teaching music in colleges and universities around Zhejiang and Shanghai. Since 1904, he has been writing textbooks for school songs, and the original music textbook was "School Singing Collection". He has been teaching at Nanyang College for a long time and from 1911 he was the Principal of Nanyang College For 27 years. He not only taught music at the school and the Wuben Girls' School, Longmen Normal School, Shanghai Society, etc., but also wrote music and song textbooks such as "School Singing Collection" (three episodes, 1904-1907), "Re-editing School Singing Collection" (six episodes, 1912) and "Republic of China Singing Collection" (2 episodes, 1913) since 1904. He wrote and composed many songs, most of which were later included in the "Heart Work Singing Collection" (1936).
He wrote 180 school songs in his lifetime, making great contributions to the popularization and socialization of music and the modeling of the new era. The works that have been handed down to the present day include "Yellow River", "Boys' First Ambition" (gymnastics), "Revolutionary Army", "Boat Racing" and so on.
Shen Xingong has a relatively distinct bourgeois democratic republican ideology and patriotic thinking, so many of the songs he compiled reflect the political propositions and revolutionary spirit of the bourgeois revolutionaries before and after the Xinhai Revolution.
Most of the songs he composed were children's songs. Because he has been engaged in education for a long time, he has a deeper observation of children's psychological characteristics and singing requirements, so he is better at instilling new ideas such as patriotism, democracy, civilization, and science into children through the description of the things they come into contact with in their daily lives. He is one of the first authors to use vernacular writing lyrics, the lyrics are shallow and vulgar, more image, the tune used is also more childlike, the combination of song and song is more appropriate, it is easy to catch, therefore, like his "Soldier Exercise", "Boat Race", "Bamboo Horse", "Blacksmith" and other works, very popular with students, can be widely sung.
Shen Xingong in the process of selecting songs and filling in lyrics in a large number of times, but also tried to compose his own tune, compiled into a few creative songs ("HeartGong Singing Collection" indicates that the music composed by him, there are "Revolutionary Must First Grid People's Hearts", "Soldiers' Guns", "Yellow River" and "Lotus Picking Song" and other 4 songs), of which "Yellow River" has a greater influence. Huang Zi gave a high evaluation of the song in the "Preface to the "Heart Work Singing Collection", saying: "This tone is very majestic and generous, and the spirit of the appropriate lyrics. Chinese people make their own school songs with such boldness, which is rare. ”
The content of Mr. Shen Xingong's school music works can be divided into three categories:
1. Children's songs: "Bing Cao", "Bamboo Horse", etc.;
2. Works propagating bourgeois democracy and patriotic ideas: "He RiXing", "Revolutionary Army", "Beautiful China" (Lyrics: Shen Xingong, Qu: Zhu Yunwang), etc.;
3. Independent creation: "Revolution must first revolutionize people's hearts", "Soldiers' Guns and Bullets", "Lotus Picking Song", "Yellow River", etc. Among them, "Yellow River", with the symbol of the image of the Chinese nation - "Yellow River" as the theme, adopts the march style, and its tone is majestic and heroic, giving people a sense of triumphant return after defeating the enemy, showing the author's strong patriotic enthusiasm.
2. Li Shutong
Li Shutong (October 23, 1880 – October 13, 1942), also known as Li Shishuang, Li An, Li Liang, was known as Wentao, the young name Chengqi, the scientific name Guanghou, the character Shishuang, and the nickname Gargle. Li Shutong is a famous musician, art educator, calligrapher, theater activist, and one of the pioneers of Chinese drama. After returning from studying in Japan, he served as a teacher and editor, and later became a monk, with the legal name Yanyin, the trumpet Hongyi, the late trumpet Evening Qing old man, and later revered as Master Hongyi.
Uncle Li is also a native of Pinghu, Zhejiang Province, and came from a hugely wealthy family of salt merchants and bureaucrats in Tianjin. His father was once the richest man in Jinmen, and Uncle Li was born the same time, carrying a golden spoon. His father, Li Xiaolou, was born as a jinshi, and was once the head of the official department, and then resigned from the official to inherit his father's business, and the business became bigger and bigger. On the day of Li Shutong's birth, there were magpies with pine branches, and the family thought that this was a heavenly blessing, and the three sons of the Li family would be the material of the beams in the future. He did not live up to the high expectations of the people. He was gifted and intelligent, reciting famous poems and aphorisms at the age of five, studying the Selected Writings of Zhaoming at the age of six or seven, and learning the Four Books at the age of eleven. But his heart was miserable. Because his mother came from a humble background, he was accustomed to the thin feelings of rich and noble families since he was a child, and he understood his mother's loneliness, so he wanted to support his mother and his position in the family by himself. Unfortunately, his father died when he was 5 years old, losing his blessed mother and son, and his life deteriorated. At that time, the prosperity of the Li family did not seem to have anything to do with him. Whenever the dart board sent boxes of salt and silver to the mighty, the courtyard was full of people, and the mother could only take her young son to watch from a distance. When he was 26 years old, his mother died, and when Li Shutong transported his mother's body back to Li's home from Shanghai, he was told that "the rules are still the same, and the funeral cannot enter the door." This was Li Shutong's most embarrassing and painful encounter. Li Shutong, who had long hated the old rules, angrily held a Western-style funeral for his mother. A piano, an auditorium, a eulogy, he invited 400 people dressed in black, solemn and calm, to send his mother's last journey. The death of his mother drained the psychological support he relied on, and also made him realize the truth of human feelings and worldly causes. "Life is like the day of the western mountains, and wealth is like frost on the tiles." This was Uncle Li's deepest feeling when he was young in the same year, and it also became the belief that carried out his life.
Later, this teenager who was depressed in his original family and repeatedly frustrated on the road to the imperial examination plunged into the rolling revolutionary wave. However, the restoration and change method supported by him shouting "The old China, there is no way to survive without changing the law" was only maintained for a short period of 100 days before it failed. Fearing implication, Li's family asked him to move out. In October 1898, Li Shutong moved to Shanghai with his family. Fortunately, at that time, at the invitation of his friend Xu Xianyuan, Uncle Li lived in the Chengnan Caotang. He married Jinlan with Xu Xianyuan, Yuan Xilian, Cai Xiaoxiang, and Zhang Xiaolou, known as the "Five Friends of Tianya", and several people were like-minded, often discussing poetry and songs together in the "Chengnan Caotang". Although Li Shutong spent the happiest time of his life in Shanghai, the good times did not last long. Due to the turmoil of the times and the outbreak of the financial crisis, the one million taels of silver invested by his friend Xu Xianyuan in the stock evaporated, and he had to mortgage the Chengnan Caotang to the British. One evening, Xu Xianyuan stood outside the door and bid farewell to Uncle Li, "My family is bankrupt, I want to leave Shanghai for the time being, there will be a period later..." Uncle Li chased him out, only to see the snow, he stood alone in the snow for a long time, turned back and wrote: "Outside the long pavilion, beside the ancient road, the grass is blue." The evening wind blows the willow flute, and the sunset is outside the mountain. The end of the sky, the corner of the earth, the knowledge of the half-scattered, a pot of turbid wine to the end of the joy, tonight do not dream cold. In just a few sentences, I wrote all the sorrows and sorrows of the world. Born in a chaotic world, no one can grasp their own destiny.
From 1905 to 1910, Li Shutong studied Western painting at the Ueno School of Fine Arts in Tokyo, Japan, and studied music. Together with Zeng Xiaogu and Ouyang Yuqian, he also founded China's earliest drama group "Spring Willow Society", and played female characters in dramas such as "La Traviata Girl" and "Black Slave Wu Tianlu". During this time, he independently founded China's earliest music journal, Music Magazine, in Japan in 1906. In this journal, he published the "Portrait of Le Saint Bidufen" and the translation of the "Biography of Le Saint Bi dufen", which is the earliest known Chinese beethoven statue and an article about Beethoven. In 1910, Li Shu returned to China with Dongdu and successively engaged in art, music, and literary editing in Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing and other places. He has made many achievements in fine arts, music, calligraphy, seal engraving and poetry, and has had a great influence and cultivated a group of outstanding talents. In 1913, he was hired as a music and picture teacher at the Zhejiang Provincial Normal School (later renamed the Zhejiang Provincial First Normal School). Since 1915, he has also been a music and picture teacher at Nanjing Higher Normal School, and composed the first school song in the history of Nanjing University. However, in his heyday, he turned around and fled into the empty door to accompany the Green Lantern Ancient Buddha. That is to say, in 1918, Li Shutong ended his teaching career and became a monk at the Hupao Temple in Hangzhou. Although Li Shutong became a monk and bid farewell to the red dust, he did not completely sever his ties with the art world and the education world.
After becoming a monk, he began to specialize in the study of the precepts, and still preached the scriptures with the intention of joining the world, promoting the Dharma, and saving the people. Go to the cities on the southeast coast to preach the Bible. Yellow roll green lights, morning bells and twilight drums, this time has been gone for decades. He carried forward the Nanshan Vinaya, which had been lost for more than 700 years, and eventually became the eleventh generation of the Vinaya. He did not sell his reputation and reputation, and once went to Qingdao to preach the law, and after the lecture, he closed the door to thank the guests, and the mayor set up a fast to invite him, and he politely refused with a sentence of "for the monks to live together in the valley, and it is not appropriate for the national soldiers to eat together." Along the way, he has his own perseverance, not seeking fame or profit, but only seeking to achieve his wishes, and crossing people to cross himself. The Buddhist family has a saying: "Out of the valley, out of the trees, back to the basics, the personality is complete." "In this life, people are always confused by all kinds of desires, troubled by various relationships, and have relatives when they pick up, and have many regrets after letting go. Today, when everyone shouts to give up, who can really have an epiphany like Hong, and then decide to stay away from the prosperity? Later, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, Li Shutong also combined Buddhism with the fight against the Japanese army, showing his patriotic feelings.
Li Shu tongcai gao badou, music, painting, drama and other arts, proficient in everything, especially good at poetry, words, songs, fu, any one in the field is a leader, is a multi-field achievement of the famous master, known by the world as a wizard in the history of Chinese culture. As for the works of art, music, literature, calligraphy and drama he involved, due to the war, many of them have been lost, and not much has been preserved.
Li Shutong edited the "Guoxue Singing Collection", and after liberation published the "Li Shutong Song Collection", which included most of the music songs he wrote. In his early years, he was inclined to innovation, and in works such as "Song of the Motherland" written in 1905 and "Song of the Army" compiled for Huang Zunxian's patriotic poems, he expressed his patriotic enthusiasm, anxiety about the survival of the motherland, and patriotic ambition to save the people. But most of his songs are lyrical songs that depict natural scenes as the main content (chanting scenes). Because he has a very high literary accomplishment and artistic attainment, the lyrics filled in are beautiful, rich in mood and charm, and some of the combinations of song and song have reached the level of almost no traces of filling, singing smoothly and freely, and he was a very cultivated and accomplished artist at that time. The selected "Spring Scene", "Farewell", "West Lake", etc. were loved and welcomed by the intellectual youth at that time, and were widely sung. In addition to filling in the lyrics, Mr. Li Shutong also has many attempts to compose songs, including "Spring Tour", "Farewell", "Early Autumn" and "Sui Di Liu", among which the song "Spring Tour" is more prominent. It is a three-part chorus and the earliest choral song seen in our country today.
Uncle Li was talented in the same life, but the background color was sad. Yet he is still loving the world in his own way. When he was making music, he published and distributed the "Music Magazine", which became the first music publication in China; he did drama and founded the Chunliu Society, becoming the first drama troupe in Chinese history. He studied seal engraving, founded the Leshi Society, wrote calligraphy, and became the most famous calligrapher in the Republic of China. In terms of artistic attainment, he used his life to live out the lives of many people. He is extremely sincere and dedicated to others. When he was young, he took care of his mother, and in middle age, he took care of the family, and after the Bankruptcy of the Li family, Uncle Li changed many jobs, and every month when he arrived at the account, he would send it to two families separately to maintain the expenses of his wife and children. He taught very seriously, "one hour of class, to prepare for half a day; when lecturing, every minute and second is tightly controlled, never waste half a moment." "He loves his students. The proud protégé Feng Zikai fought with the leader, and he wiped his face to beg, just to save the future of the students.
The most cherished apprentice, Liu Tianping, could not complete his studies because of financial constraints, so he had to save 20 yuan in his salary of 105 yuan to cover his tuition. And said, "This money is given to you, and you don't need to return it in the future", so that the apprentice can study with peace of mind. It was Li Shutong's pursuit of art and his sincerity in treating people that made the literary and artistic circles at that time full of talents, such as cartoonist Feng Zikai, musical talent Liu Tianping, and Chinese painting master Pan Tianshou...
Li Shutong once stopped briefly in this world, shining and heating, but after all the dust settled, he let go of all this. Professor Yu Dan, head of the Department of Film and Television Media and master tutor of Beijing Normal University, once said:
"The red dust in life has never dissipated. They are deeply engraved in the depths of history and cherished in the memories of future generations. We will use the whole first half of our lives to pick up, and we will use the whole second half of our lives to put down. "In life, it is an ability to take it, and it is a kind of cultivation to put it down."
On October 13, 1942, the 62-year-old Master Hongyi passed away in the evening sun room of the Wenling Nursing Home in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, leaving the four words "intersection of sorrow and joy". Just four words, but also throughout his life. Sorrow for the pain of 'red earthly desires', and the peace of 'inner world freedom'. When he was young, he longed for love, pursued his ideals with all his heart, took care of his family, stood on the podium, and took on all his mission. After middle age, he saw through everything, cut off his love affair and decided to leave the world, and spent the rest of his life with a lone lamp cloth and shoes. When you join the WTO, you are fully engaged; when you are born, you have no worries. Life is like a reverse journey, and I am also a pedestrian. The first half of life can be taken up, and what is picked up is hope and responsibility; the second half of life can be put down, and what is let go is vanity and persistence. This is the best way for a person to live!
In this life, Uncle Li has been in the prosperity of sound and color dogs and horses, has had the heroism of wanton indulgence, and has also faced the impermanence of the end of the song. When I understood and tasted his ups and downs, sweet and sour 'sad and happy' life, I found that the best way for a person to live is only: the first half of his life can be taken, and the second half of his life can be put down.