Chapter 64 Hua Yanjun/Eternal "The Moon Reflected in Two Springs"

People who heard A Bingla play "The Moon Reflected in the Two Springs" on the streets of Wuxi and at the Erquan in Huishan would have been moved to tears by the deep sound of the piano and A Bing's tragic life experience; If you hear Erhu and other adaptations of "Er Quan Ying Yue" on TV, you will be moved to tears by its slightly sad and beautiful melody. "This kind of music should only be heard on your knees!" This is what the world-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa said with tears after hearing the erhu play this piece. The person who left this art treasure for us is a street blind artist who has experienced many vicissitudes of life and suffered a lot of torture——Blind A Bing.

Blind A Bing, whose real name was Hua Yanjun, was born in the nineteenth year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1893).Born in Xiaosifang, Dongting, Wuxi County.After the age of thirty-five, he became blind in both eyes and was known as "Blind A Bing". A Bing's father, Hua Qinghe, was a Taoist priest in the Lei Zun Temple, a Taoist temple in the Sanqing Temple in Wuxi City. Erhu, Pipa and other musical instruments.At the age of twelve, he was able to play a variety of musical instruments, and often participated in activities such as worship, chanting, and playing music.He studied hard, kept improving, and widely absorbed folk music tunes, breaking through the shackles of Taoist music. At the age of eighteen, he was hailed as an expert performer by the Taoist music circle in Wuxi.

His father died when he was twenty-two, and he became the head Taoist priest of Lei Zun Temple.At the age of thirty-five, he lost his sight successively. In order to make a living, he carried a pipa and a huqin on his back, took to the streets, wrote and sang, rapped and sang news, and became a street performer.Sing in the paddock in front of the Sanwanchang Teahouse in Chong'an Temple every afternoon.He dared to hit the current situation, attacked the darkness of the society, and attracted the audience with the rap style that people love. After the "January 8th" Incident, he composed and sang the news of the 19th Route Army's heroic fight against the enemy in Shanghai, and played "March of the Volunteers" with the erhu.In the boycott of Japanese goods, he used passionate words to inspire people's patriotic enthusiasm.His singing sang the aspirations of the masses and won the love of ordinary citizens.

He also walks the streets and alleys every night, practicing the erhu with his hands, playing while walking, with a touching tone.The internationally renowned "Erquan Yingyue" was created during this period.After the Japanese invaded and occupied Wuxi, A Bing went to Shanghai and worked as a violinist in the Kunqu troupe Xianni Club, playing Sanxian. In 1939, he returned to Wuxi to resume his old career.He went to the teahouse every morning to collect various news, came back to conceive and create, and sang in front of the teahouse of Chong'an Temple in the afternoon; at night, he played the erhu on the street and played "Cold Spring Wind Song" created by him.His qin skills are very superb. He can place the pipa on the top of his head to play, and he can also use the erhu to imitate the sounds of men, women, old and children talking, sighing, laughing, and cocks and dogs barking.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he was forbidden to rap and sing news at the fixed place of Chong'an Temple. In 1947, he had a lung attack and was bedridden to vomit blood. Since then, he stopped performing on the streets and repaired huqin at home, struggling to survive.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in the summer of 1950, the Central Conservatory of Music appointed Yang Yinliu and Cao Anhe to make a special trip to Wuxi to record three erhu pieces for him, "Erquan Yingyue", "Listening to the Pine", "Cold Spring Wind", and "Da Lang Tao Sha". ", "Dragon Boat", "Zhaojun Out of the Fortress" three pipa pieces. On December 12, 1950, Hua Yanjun died of illness at the age of fifty-seven. He was buried in the Taoist cemetery next to Mingyang Temple in Canshan, Wuxi. In October 1983, a new tomb was rebuilt next to Yingshan Lake in Xihui Park.