Lian Bo, a famous composer and professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, died of illness in Shanghai on August 20 at the age of 90. Lian Bo was the executive director of the Chinese Opera Music Society, the director of the Shanghai Musicians Association and the Shanghai Dramatists Association. He composed music for a number of well-known operas, especially with the Yue opera Yin Pai for half a century, which made the audience enjoy it.
Born in 1931, Lian Bo has loved music since childhood, and has served as an accompanist and composer for Yue opera troupes such as Fanghua, Shaozhuang, Swan and Jing'an. On August 31, 1996, Lian Bo published "Wu Ge Yue Qu is also sentimental" in the "Liberation Daily", "I am a native of Zhejiang, and I spent my youth in Jiangsu, and I feel very close to Wu Ge Yue Qu. In 1958, Lian Bo entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music for further study, and stayed on to teach because of his outstanding major, composing music for more than 100 works such as Yue opera, Shanghai opera, And Peking opera, and cooperated with many genres of Yue opera, such as Fan School, Fu School, and Qi School.
In the middle of the last century, Lian Bo and the Yue opera master Yin Guifang began to cooperate for more than half a century, and the two also formed a deep friendship. The first time the Yue opera Yin school fixed the score was determined by the hands of Lian Bo. "Qu Yuan", "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Jade Dragonfly", "He Wenxiu", "Selling Oil Lang", "Double Pearl Phoenix" and other dozens of Yin Pai famous dramas, full of the results of lianbo and Yin Guifang's cooperation, promote the Yin Pai art to the peak. In the 1980s and 1990s, Lian Bo went to Fuzhou many times and made important contributions to the inheritance of Fanghua Yinpai art.
On October 4, 1979, Lian Bo commented in the "Liberation Daily" "Re-seeing the "Fanghua" talking about the Yin Pai", which pointed out that most of the Yin Pai singing melodies swirled in the middle and low bass areas, but in the key sentences, they used the technique of protruding peaks to make them surprising in peace, such as the sentence "Sister Lin became a sister of Bao" in "Crying Spirit", the melody jumped up, and the singing method of the false voice in the higher sound area was combined to reveal Baoyu's resentment at that time. Another yin school art technique is: regular free movement, that is, with the subtle changes in the character's feelings, consciously use the speed change of speed and the tight and loose rhythm processing between the lines, so that the singing cavity is slow and frustrated, ups and downs, so that the character's inherent complex feelings are vividly displayed and vivid.
Lian Bo believes that in order to go further, Yue opera art should carry forward the spirit of daring to be the first, dare to innovate and take risks. The art of the Yin School is inseparable from the innovation of art, and Yin Guifang's performance of "Qu Yuan" with his hair on that year is a good example. In 1954, lamenting that the Stage of Yue Opera was mostly talented and beautiful, Yin Guifang expressed his thoughts to Lian Bo: "I think Yue Opera should open up a new way of drama. "But can the audience accept such a change? When everyone was worried, Yin Guifang stood up and said, "You can rest assured, we will succeed." It was also in that year that "Qu Yuan", composed by Lian Bo and performed by Yin Guifang, caused a sensation in the literary and art circles.
However, the innovation of art is also inseparable from the inheritance of tradition. Lian Bo once said that some young students of Yue opera are now "too taunting, too soft, and have lost the combination of rigidity and softness", the reason is that they have too few excellent works of their predecessors' performance artists.
Opera art, "singing and playing", with "singing" as the first important, the level of singing and the quality of music design directly affect the quality and circulation of a play. Opera composers must not only understand the technique, but also have a deep foundation, familiar with various trades and genres, the difficulty is very high, coupled with their always in the position of "behind-the-scenes heroes" who are not noticed, making there are fewer and fewer people engaged in this industry. Lian Bo bluntly said that many stage creators do not participate in the script discussion because of composition, resulting in actors who should not sing on the stage, and blindly sing that they should not sing, and the result will only be a set of cards, singing genres, and do not know how to sing human feelings and drama.
At the same time, Lian Bo did not forget to cultivate latecomers, and the "Xiqu Composition Tutorial" he wrote is a professional textbook for students majoring in xiqu composition, and a large number of examples written in simplified scores have also opened a door for the majority of opera lovers to understand opera creation. In addition to adding new contents such as "genre singing style" and "composing music for ancient poems", the book also compares and expounds the similarities and differences between Chinese opera and European opera.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Zhang Yi Photo Editor: Cao Liyuan
Source: Author: Zhuge Yi