When it comes to the origin and spread of Western classical music in China, many people may mention the story of the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci who offered the ancient piano to the Ming Dynasty Wanli Emperor in the early 17th century, which is also the first piano ever to enter China.
In addition, Matteo Ricci also brought the musical scores used in the West at that time, and presented eight Xiqin songs, and the budding of Western music in China began.
But no one expected that this small-scale embryonic state lasted for nearly three hundred years. Because of the limitations of the circle, the spread of these Western music has always stayed among the nobles of the imperial palace, and the chances of folk hearing it are very small.
It was not until after the Opium War, when China was forced to open its locked doors, that classical music poured in with Western culture, and the general public finally had access to the classic music that had been circulating in the West for a hundred years. Many people in the music industry and literary and art circles have made a lot of efforts to introduce these good music to the public.
Among them are foreign musicians with world-minded hearts, as well as compatriots of our predecessors who are familiar to us. In today's article, we will take a detailed look at how classical music has spread in modern China, and how great musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart have been recognized by the masses.
Speaking of this topic, first of all, I have to mention a very important name: Mei Baiqi.
▲Plum hundred utensils
We have mentioned him many times in the previous content, he studied under Liszt's closed disciple Sgambati, was also the teacher of the famous Chinese pianists Fu Cong and Wu Yili, and was the first generation of conductors in China to lead the band to insist on popularizing music to the public.
▲ Mei Baiqi and his students
In 1919, Mei Baiqi came to China to conduct in the Shanghai Public Orchestra, which had only a dozen musicians, and he recruited the best musicians from Europe, increased the number of performances, and expanded the repertoire of orchestral works. In 1922, the band was renamed "Shanghai Gongbu Bureau Band", and under the leadership and efforts of Mei Baiqi, it became the "First Orchestra of the Far East" at that time.
The orchestra's performance program includes classic works such as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, as well as excellent repertoire of contemporary composers such as Stravinsky, Gershwin, Shostakovich, etc., which is very close to the performance repertoire of European orchestras at that time.
▲The program list at that time
They hold open-air concerts in the park in the summer, chamber concerts in the autumn and winter, and special children's concerts, which are broadcast on the radio to give more ordinary people the opportunity to hear classical music.
It is worth mentioning that Mei Baiqi also attaches great importance to the participation of Chinese musicians and listeners. Since the band was founded in the Shanghai Concession at that time, the early audience consisted entirely of foreigners from the concession, who were very reluctant to Chinese enter the concert hall. Mei Baiqi was very dissatisfied with this and issued an ultimatum to the concession government: either Chinese audiences were allowed to attend the concert, or he resigned. In 1923, a Chinese audience finally appeared for the first time in the concert.
In addition, with the support of Mei Baiqi, Chinese violinist Tan Shuzhen also successfully joined the orchestra, becoming the first Chinese musician in the Shanghai Gongbu Bureau Band, and after that, Chinese musicians such as Huang Yijun and Chen Youxin joined the orchestra, and China's strength gradually grew.
▲Group photo of the Shanghai Ministry of Works Bureau band
By 1933, the orchestra even began to perform symphonic repertoire composed by Chinese musicians, sponsored by Mei Lanfang and lu Xun came to see the performance, which caused considerable influence in the literary and art circles. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, this band was renamed the "Shanghai Symphony Orchestra", which continues to this day.
▲ 1933 orchestra performance program list
In 1908, in northeast China, the Harbin Dongqing Railway Administration Symphony Orchestra was established and performed its first performance, performing Tchaikovsky's "Overture of 1812" and Borodin's symphony fragments. This is the predecessor of today's Harbin Symphony Orchestra, and unlike the Shanghai Ministry of Works Orchestra, most of the members of this orchestra are from Russia, the Czech Republic, etc., and the two bands, one from the south and one from the north, jointly opened the development of symphony in China.
Under the influence of the orchestra atmosphere, modern music schools and university orchestras have also been established.
It is said that in Harbin alone, more than 30 music schools were born.
In 1921, the Jewish genius pianist V.L. Gerschgorina founded the Harbin First Music School, which not only created many opportunities for Chinese to learn Western music, but also provided a refuge for many Russian refugees who escaped war and exiled to Harbin, and the Jewish violinist Helmut Stern was a great musician who went out of here.
At the same time, Haefez's brother-in-law, the famous violinist Trakhingenberg, worked here as a music teacher, and he also formed a string quartet with violinist Hiferblatt to play chamber music, which was famous in East Asia at that time.
Trahkinberg is mentoring Chinese students such as Huang Kuidi
In 1932, another Grazunov Higher Conservatory of Music, founded by a Russian couple in Harbin, held five concerts in honor of Musicians such as Mozart, Schumann, and Brahms.
▲The former site of the Grazunov Higher Conservatory
At this time in Beijing, Xiao Youmei, China's first doctor of music and known as the "father of modern Chinese music", was also committed to promoting music education and popularization in colleges and universities.
▲Young Xiao Youmei
At the behest of Cai Yuanpei, minister of education at the time, Xiao Youmei founded the Music and Physical Education Department of the Beijing Women's Senior High School, and in 1922, he set up a music institute at Peking University, and also established China's first small orchestra composed of Chinese, and personally conducted it.
Although the band has only 16 members, it has held 40 concerts in five years, playing works by composers such as Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and other composers, creating a new world of hearing for the ordinary people of Beijing.
Based on the musical atmosphere in Shanghai at that time, in 1927, Xiao Youmei and Cai Yuanpei jointly founded China's first higher music school in Shanghai, the National Conservatory of Music, which is the predecessor of today's Shanghai Conservatory of Music. At that time, many members of the Shanghai Gongbu Bureau Band were pulled to teach part-time at the Conservatory of Music.
In addition, there are many literary and artistic circles who are working hard for the popularization of classical music.
Li Shutong, the Hongyi master who wrote the lyrics of "Farewell", was the first to introduce Beethoven to China as a "le sheng" and introduce it to the public.
In 1906, Li Shutong founded the first Chinese music magazine in the history of modern Chinese music in Japan, "Music Magazine", and wrote the article "The Biography of Le Shengbi Dufen", although it is only more than 300 words, it completely introduces Beethoven's life, and also accurately portrays his character and creative style.
Not only that, Li Shutong also personally painted a portrait of Beethoven and printed it in the magazine. This is the earliest portrait of a musician to appear in Chinese publications, and it is also the earliest Western painting by Li Shutong. It can be said that Li Shutong's introduction to Beethoven is the starting point for the Chinese public to contact Western classical music composers.
▲ Portrait of Beethoven painted by Li Shutong
Feng Zikai, a student of Li Shutong and a great cartoonist, has also put a lot of energy into the popularization of music while conducting art research and creating paintings. Perhaps many people do not know that in addition to painting, Feng Zikai also followed Uncle Li's classmates to play the piano in his childhood, and also studied violin in Japan, so he also has a lot of research on music. He is even the composer of the current Fudan University school song.
▲Feng Zikai
At the same time as publishing the comic book collection, he composed six books on music, such as "Common Sense of Music", "Introduction to Music", and "World Musicians and Famous Songs" from 1925 to 1949, which told the basic knowledge of modern music and expounded his cognition and understanding of Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Schubert and other great composers.
For example, he said that Mozart "composes music like writing a letter"; he says that "life is short, art is long." Napoleon may be forgotten, and Beethoven will never die"; he said Schumann "composed in a poetic manner". In that era, these works effectively lowered the threshold of entry caused by the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and helped many people better understand Western music.
This is the effort of the ancestors 100 years ago to popularize music. Although it has undergone countless historical changes later, once the seeds of music are sown, they take root and sprout in this land, bursting out with endless vitality. It is precisely because of their efforts that we can soothe the soul and comfort life with such beautiful music today.