On June 8, 1932, Mr. Liu Tianhua, the founder, pioneer, composer, performer and music educator of Chinese modern folk music, unfortunately contracted scarlet fever because he went to Tianqiao to collect gongs and drums and died of illness in Beijing. On June 8, 90 years later, a concert titled "Pursuing the Forerunner of Brightness - Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of Mr. Liu Tianhua's Death" was staged in Liu Tianhua's hometown of Wuxi. This is another masterpiece of the Wuxi National Orchestra following the large-scale national symphonic epic "Xing Guangming".

That night, the curtain of the stage slowly opened under the cold moonlight. Different from the past, this concert is a national concert carefully crafted with Liu Tianhua's life story as the timeline. Deng Jiandong, the artistic director of Wuxi Chinese Orchestra and erhu performer, served as the general planner and narrator of the concert. He described Liu Tianhua's lifelong pursuit of innovation in Chinese folk music and his patriotic enthusiasm for continuous pursuit of light. At the same time, he combined Liu Tianhua's classics Easy-to-understand music appreciation of the repertoire allows the audience to have a clearer understanding of Liu Tianhua's creative concept.

The concert specially invited Liu Yuxi, a descendant of Jiangyin's "Three Heroes of the Liu Family" and violinist, to come to the scene to cherish the memory of the master and share the master's story with the audience. The concert scene was full of warmth and people's nostalgia for the master.

In the whole concert, the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra selected 9 classic pieces composed by Liu Tianhua, including the well-known "Singing in the Sick", "Good Night" and "Bright Walk", as well as "Variation of New Water Order", which appeared on the stage of Wuxi for the first time. ". A hundred years ago, Liu Tianhua composed a fresh piece of music from the folk silk and bamboo "Xin Shui Ling", which has now been recreated by the artists, showing the vitality of the new era. This is the only ensemble piece composed by Liu Tianhua, showing the trend of Chinese music.

Under the performance of conductor Chen Zhisheng and the young artists of Wuxi National Orchestra, the master's classic repertoire showed a new appearance, including song-like recitation and dance rhythm "Song and Dance", showing the combination of Chinese and Western music. It is a new trend of Chinese music; it absorbs the folk single-stringed opera technique, vividly imitates Wang Wei's poetic "Birds in the Empty Mountain", and shows the erhu's flexible and changeable playing techniques vividly. Finally, the concert came to an end in the passionate "Bright Walk". Passing down the fire from generation to generation, I hope that future generations will be born in a prosperous age, and my generation should do it.

The whole concert adopts a variety of forms such as pipa, erhu solo, and folk music ensemble, which highlights Liu Tianhua's folk music creation concept of combining Chinese and Western music, using foreign languages for Chinese, seeking progress and reform, and also shows the new era artists' appreciation of Liu Tianhua's classic repertoire. The enthusiasm for re-creation truly implements what Liu Tianhua said, that music has no distinction between high and low. Different music has different values. Only by basing on the national music culture and learning from foreign music forms and techniques can we create excellent works that reflect the characteristics of the times.

The Wuxi Chinese Orchestra has always been based on the deep cultivation of local culture, and has repeatedly polished the era's fine products with the characteristics of "Wu culture, Taihu culture and Jiangnan culture". The voice of feelings is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, contributing to Wuxi's efforts to spread the voice of China with a unique Jiangnan flavor all over the world.

During the rehearsal, Deng Jiandong gave a special lecture for the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra with the title of "Fanghua of Chinese Music - Talking about the Performance of A Bing and Jiangnan Style Erhu Works from My Artistic Experience".

Deng Jiandong (right) gave a special lecture for the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra

Erhu player Zhou Yu said: "Through the lecture, I deeply felt the delicacy and delicacy of Jiangnan music. Teacher Deng explained to us in detail the common playing techniques in Jiangnan style music through his works, and every seemingly inadvertent movement. , is the key to making music more charming, and to play the charm naturally and authentically, the key is to master the sense of proportion. Through Teacher Deng's remarks, I deeply realized that if you want to play Jiangnan style music well, you must To be rooted in and immersed in local opera, to absorb the nutrients of folk music, and to have a better understanding of local culture, language and even food, etc., just like dialects, only by mastering the local language system can you speak authentically and correct the style and charm. "

Erhu player Ji Li said, "Mr. Deng came to guide us in "Erquan Reflecting the Moon", "Gusu Chunxiao" and "Jiangnan Spring", which has benefited me a lot. He introduced the history of each piece and the expressions of some characters. There is also the creative background, especially "Erquan Reflecting the Moon", which made me feel it. Before I came into contact with this piece in school, it was only the score, and I felt that the score was always cold, but the characters were vivid. Teacher Deng's narration It brought me into the scene of the piece and made me pay more attention to the emotional expression in my performance, which was lacking in my previous performances. "Gusu Chunxiao" and "Jiangnan Spring" are representative works of Jiangnan style. The performance is different from the previous treatment, such as some portamento in "Gusu Chunxiao". Before listening to the lecture, my focus was on pitch and timbre, but now I focus on playing the piano with my heart. Only when you move yourself can you move others, not just stop at On some things on the score, we must achieve a state of harmony between the human and the piano. Thank you for providing such a valuable opportunity in this group, so that we can have time to take professional courses after work and improve our professional level. In the future, we will practice the piano. I will treat each note more carefully, and even the usual practice will be performed with full emotion."

In Deng Jiandong's view, the advantages of young people are technology and innovation, but they also need to inherit traditions. "Using the gap between rehearsal to communicate with everyone, I am also very rewarding, and I am very happy to do this."