A Brief Study of the Historical Significance of
the 4th ″Shanghai Spring″ Erhu
Competition in 1963
From April 7 to 14, 1963, the 1st National Erhu Competition was held in Shanghai. The competition was one of the major events in the 4th “Shanghai Spring” Music Festival, and China’s largest erhu competition in history.
This was the year when the great erhu master Mr. Liu Tianhua had been dead for 31 years, and it had been 13 years since Mr. Yang Yinliu discovered Mr. A Bing in Wuxi and recorded his three greatest erhu pieces including “The Moon Reflected on Erquan Spring”. During the period after the death of these two great musicians, i.e. from 1949 to 1963, over a hundred new works for erhu had been composed, many at quite high level, which was a really inspiring phenomenon to the circle of erhu music.
This was the year when the second generation of erhu musicians such as Jiang Fengzhi, Lu Xiutang and Chen Zhenduo, were in their prime of life, and their techniques and artistry had already reached the summit of their music careers.
This was the year when the third generation of erhu musicians, having been educated by the second generation, started their teaching or performing careers and when all the eight national conservatories of music established the erhu discipline courses with sufficient qualified teachers and increasing number of erhu students. It marks the new ear of rapid development for erhu education and performance.
This was the year when China, after having suffered three years of natural disasters, recovered its economic vitality, and historical turning-points emerged for the social life, culture and arts of the nation.
It was at this right moment with fine compositions, fine talents, music pioneers of high reputation, and the strong support from the social and cultural environment that the first erhu competition was organized.
Would it be possible again if the competition were postponed one or two years later?芽 I believe anyone who has experienced the suffering of that age would say “no”. That was because after the year of 1964, China’s political situation was immediately deteriorated under the left-wing movement, which brought the political, social and cultural life into such a horrible turmoil that no one ever dared to have the idea of organizing competitions of this kind.
This means that the competition in the spring of 1963 was neither too early nor too late, but was at the very right moment. More significantly, this competition, serving as a link between the past and the future with far-reaching impact upon the art of erhu, turned over a new page for the development of erhu in the next half of the century, and moreover, became an extremely important turning-point in the centennial evolution of erhu. Thus, we have the story of this great historical event in the modern history of the art of erhu.
Ecstasy, Silence and ″Rebellion″:
The Spiritual Course of Ma Sicong
in the 1950's
Most of the researches on the great Chinese violinist and composer Ma Sicong focus on the period before his departure from China as it is much easier to find relevant documents and information about this part of his life. In contrast, it is much more difficult to learn about his later years, the period from his “defection” until his death, simply because for quite a long time he had been a “traitor to his own country”, and also information about him was either blocked out or intentionally hidden. Even though he returned to the public life when he was politically “rehabilitated” after 1985, news about him was brief and transient, fading out among the numerous cases of “implementing the rehabilitation policy” for so many officials and intellectuals. In fact, official media remained in dilemma for quite a long period in regard to Ma Sicong. Although his unfortunate sufferings during the “Cultural Revolution” and his unwilling departure from the country naturally gained sympathy and understanding from the general public, he published, in his early years after he left China, an article entitled “The Fleeing Song”, which was regarded harmful to the image of the nation, and later went to perform in Taiwan for several times and was even received by top Taiwanese leaders including Chiang Kai-shek. These historical facts, unfavourable to the “positive image” of the artist, could hardly be avoided, but had to be ignored intentionally or unintentionally in the official publicity. Thus it can be easily understood that even after Ma Sicong was rehabilitated, his entire life seemed to be incomplete.
The already published book The Complete Works of Ma Sicong together with its Supplementary Volume, aimed at seeking the truth from the facts, has not only collected in a systematic way his writings before 1967, but also covered and publicized more extensively related materials about him even after 1967, including some of the precious documentation and recordings which may help us better understand his entire life and career, especially his later years much unknown to the general public.
In the 1950's in China, Ma Sicong as an intellectual, shared the same spiritual course as his peers, ranging from the joy and inspiration in the early period since the founding of the New China, to the increasingly serious left-leaning ideological trend following the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, and even to the suppressions brought about by the insane persecution during the ″Cultural Revolution″. However, due to his peculiar personality and life experience, he made his choice of ″rebellion″ at a critical moment. If we compare him with He Luting, then the President of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who had almost the same sufferings, we may find a great difference between them. The latter, a native of Hunan Province and member of the Communist Party, appeared more like a fearless fighter who even dared to grab the microphone from the Red Guards beating him at the televised persecution assembly, in order to express his own thoughts. In contrast, Ma Sicong chose to flee from the situation, making himself a distinctive ″alien″ in that age, and thus ended up with a life totally different from that of He Luting.
It is perhaps true to say that ″personality determines one's destiny″ by looking at similar historical experiences of various kinds shared by all these Chinese musicians.