Qu Xianhe: Reciting Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" to feel the "Sound of Destiny"

In 2020, Qu Xianhe collaborated with the Symphony Orchestra to recite "Pipa Line" at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, provided by the author of this article

In 2020, Qu Xianhe recited "Pipa Line" at the Harbin Grand Theatre

In the summer of 2016, I was sorting out the bells in my studio over the years, and one morning I suddenly felt unwell and immediately went to coal general hospital. Doctors and nurses saw the situation and decided to "do it in one step" - directly do MRI, thus diagnosing "cerebral infarction" and starting infusion within two hours. At that time, I couldn't speak clearly, I couldn't write, but a passage of "the sound of fate" played with a lute echoed in my ears, as if to say: "Are you still awake?" "Isn't this the main theme of "V. - Reading the Tang Poem "Pipa Line" has a feeling"?

I was awake and didn't believe that my artistic life was over. I must overcome the disease and return to the stage as soon as possible. From the first day of admission, I had to recite Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" silently from my hospital bed morning and night, and insisted on writing a small diary every day.

Speaking of the experience of reciting "Pipa Line", it is still quite unforgettable. I have worked with pipa players in Jiujiang, Jiangxi To shoot "Pipa Line" with pipa players, recited "Pipa Line" with background music next to a boat by the water' edge, and presented "Pipa Line" with the Symphony Orchestra in the Coliseum... Every time there are new experiences and gains. Not only have I read it myself, but I have also heard friends who like ancient poetry read it, and Mr. Ma Baoqi, an entrepreneur in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, will recite "Pipa Line" every time he has a small gathering with us, only the words are not bad, and there is no pause in the middle.

I remember the first time I heard "Voice of Destiny" was when I was recording a program on CCTV. In 1987, Wang Hao, the director of the "Screen Poetry" column, invited me and pipa player Zhang Hongyan to perform "Pipa Line" together, and during the rehearsal process, I found that Bai Juyi's original poems needed more than seven minutes to recite at normal speed, while Zhang Hongyan's performance of the whole song "V- Reading Tang Poems "Pipa Lines" created by composer Mr. Wu Houyuan took eleven and a half minutes. After agreeing, we all retained the integrity of the works, Zhang Hongyan presented the whole song of "v. Reading the Tang Poem "Pipa Line" with Feeling", and I handled the pause between the passages of recitation, in a state of appreciating the music and feeling the music. In addition, director Wang Hao also made some picture conversions in the post-editing, such as adding the shadow of a vague historical figure in the "Xunyang Jiangtou Night Sending Guests", "The Host Gets Off the Horse on the Boat", "I Resigned from the Imperial Capital Last Year", and "Get Off the Horse" to pick up the picture of the reciter descending the steps in the studio. Reciters and lute players one after the other or one left and one right, before the real and after the virtual or before the virtual after the real... It should be said that the director used various methods that were already available at that time.

After the film was broadcast, it caused a warm social response. Zhang Hongyan told me on the phone that this was the first time that Mr. Wu Houyuan's work had appeared on television in a more comprehensive way, and she was happy about this cooperation. I said that Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" also changed from words to images, in fact, this cooperation is also my narration for your performance.

"The Sound of Destiny" appears twice in Zhang Hongyan's performance, the first time after "self-proclaimed to be a Beijing woman", and the second time after "Dream CryIng Makeup Tears Red Dry", which is the original structure created by Mr. Wu Houyuan. But as a reciter, I always hope that it will appear sooner, because I think this "voice of destiny" shows the feminine temperament of women, and before the pipa girl appears, it should be "people have not appeared, the voice has arrived first".

To this end, I made some more attempts, that is, at the "Yellow River Poetry Society" in Yinchuan. There is water in front of the stage, there are black canopy boats in the water, I asked the music editor Yang Yang to compile into the sound of rocking and water, after which there was a pause, when I finished reading "drunk will not be happy and miserable, farewell to the vast river immersed in the moon", "the sound of fate" sounded, as if the pipa girl appeared, and then made the word "overheard" three-dimensional.

Because it is not a live performance, the "sound of life" does not continue, but after the musical image appears, it returns to the feeling of "reel plucking the strings..." and "gently twisting slowly...", and then enters the playing scene of "big strings are noisy..." and "small strings are cut..." The edited music is more in tune with the rhythm of the recitation.

Later, Tian Xinguo, the director of Jiangxi Television Station, invited me to participate in the filming of the "Falling Ying Colorful" column, and I went to Jiujiang, Jiangxi, which is the place of "Jiangzhou" mentioned in "Pipa Xing". Tian Dao's treatment is that the reciter wears a suit to shoot in real scenes, all in the tone of the narration, only the picture uses ancient works, the soundtrack, the pipa woman's passages are all voice-overs with female voiceovers, and the whole work is the feeling of "poetry TV".

From this, I wondered if I could let the lute players tell themselves on stage. It is not played when speaking, but it is memorized. Interlacing is like a mountain, which has a certain degree of difficulty. Some pipa players have never read on stage, some pipa players can read but can't memorize it, and some people think that this treatment is not entirely reasonable... In Zhengzhou, Henan Province, I tried it once with the young actress Chen Xi, whose playing skills were quite good, not only playing the "Sound of Destiny", but also reciting from "Self-proclaimed Is a Beijing Girl" to "Dream Crying Makeup Tears Red Dry", and resuming playing after completing a complete self-description. Performing artist Yu Tongyun not only agreed, but also continued to use this form in subsequent performances.

In 1999, the film artist Sun Daolin recited "Pipa Line" for the premiere of "Wishing People For a Long Time - Famous Music Recital of China's Tang and Song Dynasties", which was well received when performed in Zhongshan Park Music Hall and other places. When the re-performance in 2020, Teacher Sun Daolin had passed away, and the organizer asked me to cooperate with the symphony orchestra, and the orchestra conductor was the ninety-one-year-old teacher Zheng Xiaoying, which was another beneficial practice of reciting "Pipa Line".

Teacher Zheng and I have cooperated in the "Yellow River Chorus", and her seriousness and dedication make me revere and move. The night she arrived in Beijing, she asked me to perform an "rehearsal" in the hall of the Media Hotel where the orchestra was not present. I was looking for my favorite "Sound of Destiny" in the score, but found nothing, Teacher Zheng told me that this time it was the background music created by composer Gu Guanren specifically for the recitation of "Pipa Line"!

According to the score, Teacher Zheng arranged the time and place of the reciter's appearance, especially the pause and quiet field before the appearance of the pipa solo passage in it. In describing the pipa girl's weeping verse "Four strings and one sound like a crack", she hopes that the reciter will enter the passion point with the orchestra.

As we all know, Bai Juyi' description of the unfortunate life of the pipa girl, combined with the blows he suffered in the eunuch, led to the sigh of "the same is the fallen man of the end of the world, why should they have known each other when they met". The whole poem is a poignant emotional tone, with a total of 616 words, divided into four paragraphs in fourteen, twenty-two, twenty-four, and twenty-six sentences. How exactly should this recitation climax stand out?

After "I have sighed when I smell the pipa, and I have heard this language again", it is necessary to read "the same is the fallen man of the end of the world, why should I have known each other" twice, the first time with normal speed, the second time combined with the melody (

To strengthen the voice, pull the spacing apart, and use the drum to push to the climax, in fact, it is to use the language of musical sense and the visual image to express the feeling of listening and feeling. This is the deeper "Voice of Destiny"!

(Qu Xianhe and Zhang Junying, "Recitation Practice Talk: 100 Hundred Senses", published by China Drama Publishing House in December 2021)