"Sing a mountain song to the party, I compare the party to my mother." Since its birth in 1963, "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" has reverberated countless times on the land of China. Today (the morning of the 1st), this song once again fluttered in Tiananmen Square. Shu Qun, the wife of the late composer Zhu Jian'er, and conductor Chen Xieyang listened to the familiar melody and excitedly told the story behind the song and Zhu Jian'er's life course of devotion to the party.
Zhu Jian'er watched the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra play a concert of his own works before his death, and gave a thumbs up on the stage in the audience (Shanghai Symphony Orchestra / Courtesy photo)
So far, "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" has been sung by several generations of singers on the land of China for 58 years, and it is still deeply loved by the Chinese people. In Shu Qun's view, "probably because the music of this song is relatively smooth and the lyrics are better." The famous conductor Chen Xieyang has led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to perform many of Zhu Jian'er's symphonic works, and is also a good friend of Zhu Jian'er. He recalled, "When I heard this song, I was still a student and felt very smooth and affectionate. ”
"Sing a Mountain Song to the Party" has words first, and then there are songs. In 1958, Yao Xiaozhou composed the poem "Sing a Mountain Song to the Party". When creating, the original second paragraph was written that "the three mountains of the old society pressed me", but Yao Xiaozhou always felt that the taste was not enough, he picked up a villain book on the table, and saw that there was a landlord on it who was holding a whip to whip the long worker, so he was inspired in an instant, and changed this sentence to "the whip of the old society sucks me out". Later, Lei Feng saw this poem, so he copied it in his diary, and changed the original work "mother can only give birth to my body" to "mother only gives birth to my body". For a long time, especially after this song was sung, many people thought that it was written by Lei Feng, but it was not.
But the composer Zhu Jian'er did read the poem in Lei Feng's Diary. That was what Zhu Jian'er, then a teacher at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, read in the activities of learning Lei Feng after Lei Feng died in the line of duty. At that time, he was very excited, according to Shu Qun's recollection, he used one night to write this song, in one go. "We're in a room, I'm already asleep, he's still working." Shu Qun said: "When I woke up the next morning, he had already written it and sent it to Ren Guizhen to sing. In Shu Qun's impression, Zhu Jian'er, whether he was composing songs or later creating large symphonic works, as long as he was mature, he did not write slowly," He wrote things, if he was not sure, he would never write, if he mastered in his heart, he would write quickly. ”
Ren Guizhen is a famous opera performance artist in China and a singer at the Shanghai Opera House, "The score was handed over to Ren Guizhen, she did not say a word, and soon recorded the sound." Shu Qun said that in 1963, after the song was first sung by Ren Guizhen, it was immediately welcomed, "and the whole of Shanghai was sung in a day or two." Later, the Tibetan singer Tseten Dolma, who was studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, heard the song and was greatly touched by the hardships he experienced and the happiness of turning over. She approached her teacher, Wang Pinsu, and asked to sing the song, who was impressed by her sincerity but told her frankly to strengthen her learning Mandarin Chinese. So Tseten Dolma learned the lyrics word for word, and it was at the 1963 Shanghai Spring Music Festival that she sang the song. In 1964, she sang "Sing a Mountain Song to the Party" in the large-scale musical and dance epic "Dongfang Hong", which has been circulated nationwide ever since.
For Shu Qun's long-term memories, Chen Xieyang said that he also heard the story of Zhu Jian'er's search for Ren Guizhen to record soon after writing, and he emphasized more emphatically: "I guess he must have been very touched to see this poem at that time, and wrote this song with passion." ”
In Shu Qun's view, Zhu Jian'er's passionate creation stems from his love for the party and new China. Zhu Jian'er was born in 1922, personally experienced the War of Resistance Against Japan, the War of Liberation and other historical periods, in the words of Shu Qun, "He followed the party all his life." Zhu Jian'er's original name was Zhu Rongshi, because he loved nie er's songs full of patriotism and revolutionary spirit from childhood, so he changed his name to "Jian'er", he once said: "I changed my name to 'Jian'er' because I wanted to take the road he did not finish." Zhu Jian'er began to compose music in the 1940s, and after hua Jia's year, he also composed 10 symphonic works. Among his life's works, there are a large number of works that record the revolutionary course of the party, of which the symphonic chorus "Heroes' Poems" is a masterpiece.
"Heroes' Poems" is a symphonic choral work created with Mao Zedong's poems such as "Long March" as the theme, showing the heroic image of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in the Long March. This is Zhu Jian'er's graduation work between 1959 and 1960 when he studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, which was acquired by the Soviet State Radio. In 1962, when it was performed at the Shanghai Spring Music Festival, it also caused a sensation. In recent years, Chen Xieyang has also conducted the China Symphony Orchestra to perform this work.
Shu Qun said that "The Poet's Poem" is also a work that Zhu Jian'er attaches special importance to, "He especially values this kind of chorus work that is both skillful and artistic, and the form of the symphony has weight, which can express the long march of the workers' and peasants' Red Army, and can represent China when it is taken out." Chen Xieyang believes that both "The Hero's Poem" and "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" contain Zhu Jian'er's "Chinese soul", which has his deep affection for the earth, the people, and the party.
Source Beijing Daily client | Reporter Han Xuan
Edited by Jin Liwei
Process Editor Liu Weili