On March 14, 2022, Elder Wu left, the one who had given many beautiful melodies such as the dance drama "Fish Beauty", "Red Girl Scout Army", and the Pipa Concerto "Little Sisters of the Prairie" for the land of China.
In the grief and nostalgia, I remembered the brilliant life of Elder Wu from a genius musical teenager to a staunch underground member of the Communist Party of China, until he made outstanding contributions to the cause of music in New China, and his heart was full of respect...
Wu Zuqiang and students Chen Yi and Chen Yuanlin
Wu Zuqiang walked into the Nanjing Conservatory of Music
Growing up in a harmonious extended family
10 years ago, in order to write the "Biography of Wu Zuqiang" prepared by the Jiangsu People's Publishing House, I made several interviews with Elder Wu, and I am still deeply impressed.
Old Man Wu is not tall, has a gentle temperament, and is polite to others. He served as the dean of the Central Conservatory of Music, and served as an alternate member of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Party, but in the conversation, he did not mention anything about these, but only took out a few books and a stack of materials, and said: My situation is here, you can refer to it...
Born in a family of scholars for generations, his grandfather was a civilian worker of Zhang Zhidong, a famous leader of the Qing Dynasty," and his father was Mr. Wu Ying, who was known as "a figure who inherited the tradition of Chinese literati painting in the history of modern Chinese art".
Talking about family lineage, What Elder Wu said the most was the affection and warmth of the big family he once lived in.
My grandfather died early, and although my grandmother never went to school, she was able to read and hyphenate under the influence of her family. My mother was born in Hangzhou in a family of several generations of readers, and according to the custom of our hometown in Wujin, Jiangsu Province, we called our mother Niang. In my memory, my father was busy with work, studying and learning, and my mother was devoted to housework and raising children. The mother is gentle and kind, loves the children, and is diligent and thrifty, and is the best mother under the heavens. Although our family has many children, it has always been a harmonious family, and the children have grown up happily in a warm family that respects the elderly and loves the young from an early age. I remember when I was very young, our brothers and sisters often got together and read quietly in the living room, we sat around my grandmother, and sometimes I read books with pictures with my fifth sister. Sometimes I followed my grandmother to learn Tang poems sentence by sentence, and then I recited them to my grandmother word for word. I still remember that the books my grandmother read to us at that time were "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "The Biography of Yue Fei"...
The closest place to my father that I had the most contact with was my study.
"In The Taiyuan of Jin, the Wuling people fished for their profession, traveled along the stream, and forgot the distance of the road. Suddenly, in the peach blossom forest, hundreds of steps between the banks, there are no miscellaneous trees, the herbs are delicious, and the fall is colorful..." In the memories, Elder Wu recited with deep affection the "Peach Blossom Origin Record" taught to him by his father.
From a genius teenager to an underground party member
Talking about his journey from a teenager who loved literature and music to a young underground member of the Communist Party of China at the Nanjing National Conservatory of Music, Elder Wu told several interesting stories.
When I was a child, under the influence of my family, I loved to read, read ancient Chinese and memorize ancient poems, and loved to write articles. Probably due to the influence of my family, especially my father and brother, I really had a text published quite early. Without counting the fact that when I was five or six years old, I wrote more than a hundred words about the short essay of the class entertainment club in the school journal of the Comte school, my first official literary work in a large journal should be in 1946, when I was seventeen or eighteen years old, I wrote the essay "The Story of Hongxia"... At that time, I was studying at an ordinary middle school in Chongqing, Sichuan, and the article was taken by the eldest brother Zu Guang and used in the inaugural issue of qingming, a literary and art journal co-edited by him and the painter Ding Cong in Shanghai. I am so happy that such a beautiful publication has published my article...
Elder Wu said that his love of music seems to be innate.
I liked to sing since I was a child, the kindergarten teacher praised me for singing well and loud, and several sisters also said that I had a naturally good voice, and said that I could sit by the phonograph and listen to music motionless at the age of 3. My mother once said that because of the lack of milk, I often cried in her arms, and no one could stop crying, but one day when I was crying loudly, I suddenly stopped crying, and it turned out that the music released by the phonograph came from the living room...
I like the piano even more, I like the sound of the kindergarten teacher playing the piano, and I like to watch my two sisters play the piano at home.
When I was 4 years old, one night when my sisters were not at home, I climbed onto the piano stool alone on a small stool and played the song they usually practiced.
When I was 15 years old, I arranged the score for the drama "Returning from the Wind and Snow Night" that my eldest brother Wu Zuguang successfully premiered in Chongqing... My sisters said, this is the musical talent in my body.
Elder Wu also talked about his past as an underground member of the COMMUNIST Party in Nanjing.
I joined the underground party organization of the Nanjing Conservatory of Music in 1947, when our identities could not be made public, and for a long time, we could only contact each other "in a single line". It wasn't until the liberation of Nanjing, when I went to the Nanjing National Assembly Hall with underground party members from Nanjing to listen to Comrade Chen Yi's report, that I learned that several of my classmates who were also members of the Nanjing National Conservatory of Music were also underground party members. What I didn't expect was that when I climbed the steps of the National Assembly Hall in Nanjing to enter the venue, I was suddenly tapped on the shoulder from behind, and at the same time I heard a greeting from "sixth brother", and when I looked back, it was my seventh sister Wu Kui! It turned out that she was also an underground member of the Ccp..."
A rare bestseller for music majors
After returning from staying in Suzhou in 1958, Wu Lao has been teaching at the Central Conservatory of Music, and has cooperated with others or created many excellent works such as the famous Chinese dance drama "Fish Beauty" and "Red Girl Scout Army", the pipa concerto "Little Sisters of the Grassland" and the string ensemble "Erquan Yingyue", which can be described as remarkable achievements. But what Elder Wu brought me from the study was a thick "Composition and Work Analysis" and told me about the process of the "birth" of this book.
After finishing the music creation of the dance drama "Fish Beauty", the leaders of the college asked me to teach composition and open a large class on the analysis of musical works for the three departments of composition, musicology and conducting. At that time, the course had no name and no teaching materials, but the college asked me to start the class, but also to preside over group tutoring, write teaching materials and distribute them in the classroom. So I taught the main class, taught the big class, and wrote the teaching materials at the same time, and the burden was really heavy. What was even more unexpected was that in addition to the undergraduate students of the compulsory courses of the three departments, there were also refresher courses, specialized scientists and off-campus auditors who heard the news, and more than 100 people sat in the largest "301" classroom of the Central Conservatory of Music. At that time, there was no amplification equipment for indoor classes, and after two hours of a big class, I was extremely tired... This overloaded the work for two years. In addition to serving as a composition course for 8 main science students, he completed the new round of courses set up by the college as planned, and also prepared the first draft of the mimeograph version of "Composition and Composition Analysis".
In November 1962, "Composition and Composition Analysis" was officially published as a "Trial Textbook of the Central Conservatory of Music", which received high praise in the mainland music industry. In the following 40 years, this book has been used as the main textbook for music majors in domestic music and art colleges and teachers' colleges, and the cumulative number of books has exceeded 100,000, becoming a rare bestseller in music professional publications.
"I am pleased that over the years, when the book is out of stock in bookstores, there will be people who will come to me directly or to inquire about it; there will also be self-learners who write or verbally thank me. I think this is the most precious reward that the author of the book has received. Elder Wu said.
In 1987, "Composition and Work Analysis" won the "National Colleges and Universities Excellent Education Award" and became one of the first textbooks compiled by national colleges and universities selected and awarded by the State Education Commission. In 1994, with the consent of Elder Wu, the Taipei World Cultural Relics Publishing House signed a contract with the People's Music Publishing House, the original publisher of "Composition and Analysis of Works", and published and distributed the Chinese traditional version of the book in Taiwan that year. In 2003, after careful revision by Wu Lao, the second edition of "Analysis of Composition and Works" was released after adjusting the use of individual conceptual words and sentences, and it was still "unstoppable" and reprinted again and again.
In his later years, he was proud to continue teaching
Ten years ago, when I interviewed Elder Wu, it was summer vacation. Elder Wu told me that he had just supervised his doctoral student Li Xiaobing to complete his thesis, and his results were quite outstanding. Elder Wu also told me that he had just celebrated his 85th birthday, and the students had produced a beautiful photo with the photos and names of the doctoral students he had trained at the Central Conservatory of Music: Zhang Xiaofu, director of the China Modern Electronic Music Center, Chen Yi, chair professor of the "Yangtze River Scholars Award Program", Xu Changjun, dean of the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, Hao Wei, director of the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music, as well as Jia Guoping and Chen Yuanlin... It is a summary of Wu Lao's contribution to the cause of music education in China.
At that time, Elder Wu, who had been re-elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference for 5 years, although he retired from the "official" position, he still assumed many responsibilities such as the director of the Art Committee of the National Centre for the Performing Arts and the honorary president of the Central Conservatory of Music. The most valuable thing is that at the age of 85, he still stood in a teaching position and worked and sowed for the music cause of the motherland. This is also a matter of deep happiness and pride for Elder Wu, as he wrote in the preface to the "Xiahui Collection" and the "Seven Old And Eighty Episodes": "It is said that time never returns, and the sunset is always connected." "In a unit, being able to stop working can still make its due contribution, and this opportunity is not a common opportunity, and I am proud and proud of it."
Elder Wu used his life to create a beautiful melody, and even wrote his own life gorgeously.
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