Xu Yuanbai (1893-1957) was born in Jiaojiang District, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province. A famous modern Chinese guqin musician, a master of modern Zhejiang style guqin art.

His father, Xu Yueqiu, was a famous pipa player and was also good at guqin. Xu Yuanbai and his younger brother Wenjing were influenced by him since childhood and both love literature, art and music. At the age of 16, he finished reading "Four Books" and "Five Classics" in a private school. In 1913, he was introduced by Mr. Li Jishen and went to Guangzhou to follow Mr. Sun Yat-sen and participated in the Northern Expedition. He once traveled to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, Shu and other places, and served as an official in the political and legal department.

He is good at poetry, calligraphy and painting, and works on landscapes and orchids. You Jing Guqin, can compose music, once learned the piano from the famous master Daxiu of the Zhejiang school, and then visited famous teachers all over the world. On the basis of inheriting the characteristics of the Zhejiang school of "micro, subtle, round, and unrestrained", he has learned the characteristics of various schools. , forming its simple and elegant style, deep learning content, and good cadence.

artistic career

In 1912, he worshipped the abbot of Hangzhou "Zhaodantai" in Tianping Mountain in Suzhou, the master of the Zhejiang school Daxiu, who was a teacher in the late Qing Dynasty. Later, he visited Wang Binlu, the originator of the "Zhucheng School", Li Zizhao of the "Shanlin School", Yang Zongji, the founder of the "Jiuyi School", and Zhang Yichang, a qin master of the "Guangling School". Friendship, and frequent exchanges with Beijing "Yueyun", Yangzhou "Guangling", Suzhou "Jinyu", Nantong "Mei'an" and other piano groups, taking art as a teacher, learning from others' strengths, and thus brewing rich piano skills "Heavenly Secret" creates a unique style and promotes the heart of the piano.

Major achievements

Mr. Xu Yuanbai has worked hard in the Guqin music field for 45 years, and has made many achievements and brilliance. His achievements in Guqin art mainly include the following five aspects.

developed piano theory

His theories are derived from traditional piano studies and experimental studies. In 1953, Xu Yuanbai compiled and published some of his old works, titled "Excerpts from Tianfeng Qin Score". In addition to the qin piece "Xiling Dialogue Rain", his qin studies have included "A Brief Introduction to the Sound Selection of Strings and Degrees", "Sounds of Strings and Degrees", and "Contrast of Sounds of String Degrees and Three-point Gains and Losses", etc. articles. In the outline of the method of picking sounds, he put forward a new method of picking sounds for the guqin through the analysis and criticism of the theory of rhythm of the past dynasties: picking sounds in sections of chord degrees. Xu Yuanbai believes that the three-point profit and loss method that has been respected in the past dynasties is not an absolute method for taking sounds. In his long-term research and performance practice, he continued to explore and search for new sounds, and discovered the method of chord selection. Take the sanxian as an example, divide the string length into 90 equal parts, then Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Yu and Gao Gong are at 90, 80, 72, 60, 54 and 45 points respectively. Each segment is an integer. This is not only well-founded in theory, but also proved to be correct by practice, which is of great help to the majority of beginners of guqin listening to the sound. Xu Gong once said that "Excerpts" only included some of his works, and other articles such as "Making the Rotation Palace" and "Expressing Wan Lai with String Sounds" would be continued. However, due to his premature death and the vicissitudes of life, these It is a pity that precious chapters have been lost.

Forming a modern Zhejiang style playing style

The formation of Xu Yuanbai's guqin playing style mainly comes from three elements: first, the origin of family learning, influenced by coastal fisherman songs and folk silk and bamboo music; second, he has inherited the teaching and teaching of Zhejiang style guqin master Daxiu; third, because he has an open mind. Quality and not sticking to a certain school of thought In his own individual style, he finally formed his unique playing characteristics: bright and fresh, high and vigorous. He attaches great importance to the intonation, rhythm and expression of musical meaning. His performance is full of flesh and blood, with abundant artistic vitality and moving artistic appeal. In his life, he had two performance climaxes. The first time was in the 1930s, when he was invited by Shanghai EMI to produce "The Fisherman's Questions and Answers", "Pingsha Falling Wild Goose", "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun" and "Yangguan" More than a dozen guqin solo records such as "San Die", "Ou Lu Forgetting Machine" and "Pu'an Mantra"; the second time was when the Central Institute of Music conducted a general visit to the national piano players in the 1950s after liberation, and recorded "High Mountain" and "High Mountain" More than ten audio tapes including Mozi's Sad Silk and Weeping Faces. These three qin pieces were later included in the "Guqin Songs". In 2002, Hong Kong Longyin Company published Xu Yuanbai's guqin performance collection "Zhejiang Style Guqin Remains", which has been circulated in the world.

Transplant, create, organize music

"Weeping Yan Hui" (also known as "Si Xian Cao") is a short, wonderful and beautiful qin piece, transplanted by Xu Yuanbai from folk music. This piece was first published in the Jinyu Qin Journal published in 1937. Xu Yuanbai wrote in his supplementary notes: "Weeping Yanhui is an ancient tune, but it is only spread in the seaside flute pipe. My late father Yueqiu Gongya was good at the pipa, and he was familiar with the pipa. Play this exercise. When it is deeper and still, slowly twist and gently close, the rhythm is always sad, and the person who hears it is too breathless. When Yuanbai is young, after reading at night, I want to sleep on my pillow. When I hear this, my soul and dreams are clear, so its rhythm and ears are very clear. Listening is the most familiar. And learning how to do it is to turn the score into the qin and play it for many years before you get the charm.” It can be seen that the transplant is not a simple matter of putting it on the guqin and popping it out, but a arduous grinding process. First, you must be familiar with and love the transplanted music, second, you must master the composition and performance skills of the guqin, and third, you must be willing to spend energy to constantly try and revise to make it perfect. "Weeping Yan Hui" is a model of folk music transplanted into qin music. Xu Yuanbai has composed many pieces of qin music in his life, such as "Instruction Song" and "Sea Water and Heavenly Phoenix". Unfortunately, they are lost. Today, there are only two songs, "Xileng Talking Rain" and "Floating Cha". "Xiling Dialogue Rain" was written in 1945 when the Anti-Japanese War was won. Xu Gong returned to Hangzhou from Shu. "Dangju was created after the calamity, and when the old rain fell by the lake, there were mixed joys and sorrows. Mindfulness." Regardless of its conception, selection of materials, and embodying the characteristics of qin music, this piece not only inherits the traditional context, but also injects innovative blood. It is comparable to "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun" by Guo Mian in the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition, Xu Gong has also sorted out some famous qin pieces, such as "Ou Heron Forgetting Machine", "Autumn River Night Park" and "Peaceful View" and other songs, to facilitate popularization. He attaches great importance to the rhythm of the music, and believes that "the tune has a pattern, just like a horse with a rein, a horse is free without a rein, and a tune without a pattern." Sincerely insightful.

Improve zheqin skills

Xu Yuanbai has many years of research and practice on Guqin making. He played more than 50 qin beds in his life, most of which were collected by famous artists. There have been many improvements in the shape and system, and the "Xu's style" qin created was praised by the qin masters of the year. In order to overcome the phenomenon of sound damage and hindrance of fingers caused by improper height of strings on the surface of the guqin in general guqin production, after continuous exploration and improvement, the law of "one left piece of paper, one right finger" has been summed up, which is regarded as a model for qin masters.

personal works

Before the war of resistance against Japan, he was invited by Shanghai EMI to produce albums such as "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun", "Question and Answer with the Fisherman", "High Mountains and Flowing Water", "Pu'an Mantra", "Pingsha Falling Wild Goose" and other albums, which were released at home and abroad. In the 1956 National Folk Music Competition, his performance won the Excellence Award.

In order to promote the art of guqin, he organized the "Qingxi Qin Society" in Nanjing, the "Zhongzhou Qin Society" in Kaifeng, and the "Tianfeng Qin Society" in Chongqing. everywhere. In the 35th year of the Republic of China, he returned to Hangzhou and rebuilt the "half-corner mountain house" under the Leifeng Pagoda of the West Lake. He organized the "West Lake Moon Meeting" with Ma Yifu, Zhang Zongxiang, Xu Yingpu, etc., to discuss calligraphy and painting, piano and chess, and gold and stone.

In terms of playing skills, he inherits the unrestrained and unrestrained characteristics of the Zhejiang school of "subtle, subtle, round, and penetrating", and has developed a unique style of simplicity and elegance, deep connotation, smooth and vigorous, and good at cadence. representative of the family".

He played a lot of small and small qin pieces, the most excellent ones are "High Mountain", "Mozi's Sad Silk", "Xiaoxiang", "Autumn River" and so on. He also composed "Xiling Dialogue Rain" and other qin pieces, which have been recorded by the Institute of Central Conservatory of Music. Some qin pieces were organized into staff by Mr. Xu Jian and published in the first episode of "Guqin Songs".

He is also proficient in poetry, calligraphy and painting, the two kings of calligraphy, and Dong Qichang's writing style, and he has a good face. He is a landscape painter, especially good at painting orchids.

He once compiled the pipa piece "Weeping Yan Hui" passed down by his father into a qin piece, which was published in the "Jin Yu Qin Journal", and authored a volume of "Tian Feng Qin Pu". He has contributed to the promotion and development of Guqin art and the cultivation of Guqin talents throughout his life.