After more than five years of hospitalization, the sixth brother Zuqiang is still gone! When the bad news came, I was extremely sad... The past flashes in my mind like a movie, the vicissitudes are merciless, and the love of relatives is deep!
This article is written by Wu Zuchang (first from left) and Wu Zuqiang, the sixth brother (the middle seat)
Most of our brothers and sisters were born in Beijing, the sixth brother Zu Qiang was born on July 24, 1927 in Beijing's Golden Hook Hutong, listened to his mother said that when he was a child, it was difficult to bring, his voice was good, he loved to cry, but as soon as he heard the music released by the record, he concentrated on listening to music and did not cry. When he was four or five years old, he had no teacher to teach himself, just saw and listened to the second sister and the third sister playing the piano etude, he could find a small bench by himself, step on it and climb on the piano stool, and think about popping up the etude played by the two sisters, and the two sisters were very surprised and accepted him as a student. Soon, he took the stage to perform piano solos, and became a piano accompaniment for kindergarten children to sing. From elementary school to middle school, he is a singer in the eyes of his classmates, and his solo voice is mellow and good, and he will always win the applause and applause of the whole hall.
In 1935, our family left Beijing and came to Wuchang, because my father's job changed and he went to Nanjing, the capital at that time. In late November 1937, the Japanese devils wantonly invaded the mainland territory, Nanjing was in danger, my father was dismissed by the work unit, only 80 yuan of severance payment was issued, my father did not want to be a slave to the country, so I had to borrow money everywhere, entrusted people to buy ferry tickets, and the family experienced all kinds of difficulties and dangers, and finally arrived at Chongqing, the capital of the time.
In Chongqing, after another day and night of Japanese aircraft bombardment, for the safety of the whole family, my father arranged for several of our children in primary and secondary schools to accompany their mothers to the national drama troupe where Jiang'an Big Brother worked. In this way, there is no need to be afraid, there is no need to hide from aircraft bombing every day, drill air raid shelters, and spend more than a year in a relatively stable life.
In the former residence of Jiang'an, Zu Qiang, who is in the upper grade of primary school, and Zu Guang, the eldest brother, live in the same house, and the eldest brother is composing the drama "Zhengqi Song", driving a night train to write, and the next day Zu Qiang helps him transcribe the draft.
Brother's mixed-up school song
The National Drama Troupe often needs small actors to perform dramas, and our brothers and sisters have become their "specially invited" objects, Zu Qiang was "specially invited" to perform the little young master in the drama "Leading by Example" directed by Zhang Junxiang and written by Li Jianwu, the little young master in "Returning to the People in the Night of the Wind and Snow", the seventh sister Wu Kui played the palace girl in "The History of the Qing Palace", the little eighth sister Wu Chu played a little princess in the "Us President" directed by Zhang Junxiang, and I was also invited to play Ding Weimin's son in the one-act play "Killing the Enemy and Repaying the Country" who graduated from the fifth graduation of the drama.
When Zu Qiang performed "Leading by Example", he was very interested, and according to the characters in the play, he found old cloth heads and sewed nine small cloth people, including men and women, large and small disguised as the people in the play. The bed in the sixth and seventh sisters' rooms is used as a stage, and symbolic props such as paper stacks and stools are placed, and while he reads the lines in the play, he holds a small cloth person in his hand to make various actions, and performs this three-act drama to us to watch without missing a word, which is very wonderful. The sixth brother is really versatile, he likes music, has literary and artistic talent, can write articles, can seal carving (stone carving, bamboo carving), and can also act... But he loves music. When he went to school in Chongqing and Nanjing, he always arranged time to practice piano at Mr. Tao Xingzhi's Yucai School, learned the basic knowledge of music under the guidance of musicians Zhang Dinghe and Sheng Jialun, and often performed solo singing on stage in school, and also learned to compose music for Tang poems. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to the National Conservatory of Music as he wished, and then transferred to the Central Conservatory of Music, where he stayed on to teach after graduation. Fortunately, he was selected to study in the former Soviet Union, during which time he composed the String Quartet in C major, which was recorded and broadcast on the State Radio of the USSR by the Konmitas Quartet, composed of four professors from the Moscow Conservatory. What an honor for an international student!
In 1958, Zu Qiang graduated with full honors and returned to Beijing to teach at the Central Conservatory of Music. He has not failed to live up to the cultivation of the party and the state. For more than sixty years, whether he has held teaching work, leadership positions, or busy social activities, he has not relaxed the music teaching work of cultivating musical talents, and has trained a large number of musicians with international standards. After smashing the "Gang of Four", he was transferred to the Literary Association as the secretary of the party group organizationally, and he did not give up the work of teaching students at the conservatory. At that time, as long as his administrative relations were transferred, he could be promoted to a ministerial-level cadre. But he never took this step, gave up the high-ranking official Houlu, and devoted himself to the cause of music culture. His contributions to the cause of music and culture are well known to the world, for example, the music of the popular ballet "Fish Beauty" and "Red Detachment of Women" is well known; according to chairman Mao's advocacy of the principle of "ancient for the present" and "foreign for chinese use", he has combined the conception of Chinese national music and the techniques of Western symphonic music to create a large number of works, such as his adaptation of the string ensemble "Erquan Yingyue", "Pipa Concerto "Little Sisters of the Heroes of the Grassland", as well as "Mountains and Rivers", "Spring River Flower Moon Night", "Listening to Pine", "Good Night" and so on. He has also written dubbing music for many movies and dramas, such as "Twelve Trains", "Zhan Tianyou", "Yang Kaihui", "Resurrection", "Fei Jiale's Wedding", "The Return of the Snowy Night" and so on. He served as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference for five or twenty years, and he used this platform to do a lot of work for the prosperity of the motherland's music and culture. For example, he led more than ten proposals for the creation of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. In 2007, when the National Centre for the Performing Arts was inaugurated, he was hired as the director of the Arts Committee of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, continuing to contribute to the prosperity of the national music culture and art industry.
I remember that after the liberation of Shanghai in May 1949, Wu Kui, the seventh sister who had just graduated from high school in Nanjing, came to Shanghai to say goodbye to her family, and she had signed up for the army and was ready to go to Kunming, Yunnan. At that time, the underground party had not yet been made public, and she told us privately that she had joined the underground party and met the sixth brother at the underground party members' meeting after the liberation of Nanjing, and she did not expect that the two had embarked on the same road, and the two were very happy, and we were also very envious, they were the first party members among our brothers and sisters to join the party. I only recently figured out that there are actually three underground party members in our family, and one is the fourth sister Wu Dong. The three of them are our forerunners and our role models!
The sixth brother Zu Qiang was very concerned about our brothers and sisters, and at the end of 1948, it was he who took me and Xiao Bajie by train to Shanghai to wait for "liberation". After liberation in 1949, he also took me to Shibei Middle School to register for high school. In 1964, he was responsible for the overall design of the music of the ballet "Red Detachment of Women", led the team to Hainan Island to "collect wind", and when he returned, he detoured to Shanghai to visit me and my third sister and his parents-in-law and other family and relatives and friends, and brought me a porcelain deer and a white coral, which I have always treasured in the decorative cabinet of my home. At the time, he slept for a few nights in a tightrope bed in my one-bedroom apartment. After smashing the "Gang of Four", I was transferred to a middle school that was badly damaged during the "Cultural Revolution" as the principal, and in 1982, in order to rectify the school spirit and strengthen the construction of campus culture, I launched the activity of mobilizing students to "recall school history and write school songs". He was very busy, but he still squeezed out time for me to revise the lyrics and compose the music, and finally played and sang to the family, and everyone expressed satisfaction before it was completed. He wrote to me and suggested that the author name "Lu Chang", he xing lu, my name Chang, do not use the real name. However, the school committee could not pass, or used the real name. Through the school history, school song education, our school students have been greatly encouraged, the school appearance has changed greatly, in 1985 the school was rated as a national advanced unit for the promotion of Mandarin, here also has the credit of the sixth brother...
Farewell Sixth Brother Wu Zuqiang, rest in peace! I will always miss you! (Wu Zuchang)