Wu Suhua, female, graduated from the Folk Music Department of Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Mr. Huang Haihuai's classic work "Jianghe Shui" was handed down by her and her premiere was performed and recorded for the first time. Mr. Wu used to be the director, associate professor and master tutor of the Folk Music Department of Wuhan Conservatory of Music. The current president of the French-Chinese Art Exchange Association. She has played and taught on stages and pulpits in dozens of countries and regions around the world, with international influence.

The erhu songs "Horse Racing" and "River Water", which are as famous as Ah Bing's "Erquan Reflecting the Moon", enjoy a high reputation among Chinese people all over the world. It is the 40th anniversary of the death of Huang Haihuai, the famous erhu performer and composer.

Yesterday, the "New Century Chinese Erhu Art Inheritance and Development Academic Forum" was held at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music where the master worked before his death. When Wu Suhua, a French-born Chinese erhu performer and president of the Sino-French Music and Art Exchange Association, who came to Wuhan from France on a special trip, recalled his teacher Huang Haihuai, he disclosed for the first time the birth process of the two famous pieces.

Inspiration for "Horse Racing" came while washing feet

In the early 1960s, when Wu Suhua was studying at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, Huang Haihuai was a young teacher who had just graduated from the school and stayed at the school, and was also her erhu teacher. Because the age difference is not far away, and Huang Haihuai is cheerful and talkative, Wu Suhua feels that he is also a teacher and a friend. The works created by Huang Haihuai are not only used as teaching materials to teach students, but also often talk with students about the creative process with great interest. In the 1960s, a group of folk music performers and composers such as Huang Haihuai and Liu Dehai created or transplanted a large number of brand-new works on the basis of field collections across the country. "Horse Racing" and "Jianghe Water" are one of them.

Wu Suhua recalled that in the spring of 1961, Huang Haihuai excitedly said before giving her a class one day that he was composing an erhu solo, which was to describe the Mongolian horse racing scene, and immediately pulled a few phrases on the erhu, which was exactly the The first four bars of "Horse Racing" imitate the rhythm of horseshoes.

Huang Haihuai told Wu Suhua that the inspiration for the work came when he washed his feet the night before. "At that time, I was reading a music magazine and humming the music that I had compiled while collecting folk music in Inner Mongolia, when I suddenly got inspiration! I didn't even have time to dry my feet, so I took a pen and paper and started writing like crazy. I didn't look at the clock at that time. , anyway, in a few hours, I’ll finish writing it in one breath!”

Wu Suhua said that this piece is not only emotionally ups and downs, but also transplanted the plucked strings of the Western violin to the erhu for the first time in the performance skills, which surprised the audience and the erhu community as soon as it came out.

"Jiangheshui" cannot be pulled into "Red Detachment of Women"

"Jianghe Shui", which originated from the folk of the Northeast, used to be played with a pipe. In the art film "The East is Red" filmed in 1965, it was used as the soundtrack of the first "suffering years".

Wu Suhua said that when Huang Haihuai adapted "Jiangheshui", he did not focus on pipe performance, but expressed his original vitality in the way of erhu performance - he determined the string style, bow and fingering of the erhu to play the piece.

In order to participate in the national erhu competition held in Shanghai in 1963, Huang Haihuai decided to let him play "Horse Racing" and Wu Suhua premiered his "Jianghe Water". Huang Haihuai explained to Wu Suhua the idea of the music: "The northeastern folk music "Jiangheshui" was originally a brisk wind music, but when it was adapted into a guanzi solo, the mood changed, and it became a sympathetic tune telling the sufferings of the folk. I was making a bow. When fingering, I thought of ancient women like Meng Jiangnu." Wu Suhua still remembers Huang Haihuai's humorous analogy: "You must not bring out the flavor of the revolutionary resistance of the 'Red Detachment of Women'." Wu Suhua believes that this is the Huang Haihuai taught her the "degree" of artistic expression, that is, the soul of music.

In 1963, both teachers and students participated in the "4th Shanghai Spring National Erhu Competition" with two new works. Unfortunately, both of them failed to win the grand prize due to performance errors.

The day before the competition, Huang Haihuai discovered that after the qin from Wuhan arrived in Shanghai, there was a problem with climate change, so he had to temporarily borrow an erhu. Due to not being used to it and not being able to use it smoothly, Huang Haihuai made a broken sound when he played the prescribed song "Singing in Sickness" in the first round of competition, and had to stop halfway, resulting in a serious deduction of points, and even the second round of competition was not able to be played. Enter.

Wu Suhua introduced that Huang Haihuai was not very famous at that time, and he seemed very nervous when there were many masters in the competition. She took out a letter (copy) written by Huang Haihuai to his teacher Zhou Hualin in those days, and it said: "Involuntary nervousness and trembling greatly affected my emotions (I couldn't control it), and then lined up with some seed players, So when I come to power, I try to control it as much as possible.”

Wu Suhua also made mistakes that time. In the first round of the competition, her performance of "Jianghe Shui" shook four audiences, and the voice for winning the grand prize was very high. But in the second round of competition, she wore a large-sleeved performance costume. When pulling the allegro of "Northeast Wind Variation", she pushed the bow into the left sleeve and had to stop, and finally only won the "Encouragement Award".

Although both teachers and students left with lifelong regrets, they could not hide the charm of "Horse Racing" and "Jianghe Shui" as handed down works. "Horse Racing" won the "Excellent New Work Award" in that year's competition, and it was broadcast at home and abroad after being recorded by a Chinese record company. Wu Suhua's original "Jianghe Shui" was recorded and widely circulated.