Chapter 67 Xian Xinghai/Immortal "Yellow River Cantata"

After the fall of Wuhan in November 1938, the famous poet Guang Weiran led the third anti-enemy drama team to cross the Yellow River from the vicinity of Hukou in Yichuan County, Shaanxi Province to the Luliang Mountain Anti-Japanese Base.On the way, they witnessed the Yellow River boatmen wrestling with the strong wind and waves, and listened to the high-pitched and melodious boatmen's chant.After arriving in Yan'an in January of the following year, he wrote the lyrics of "Yellow River" and recited this poem at the New Year's Eve party of this year.Xian Xinghai was very excited after hearing this, and expressed that he would create "Yellow River Cantata" for the drama team.In a simple earthen kiln in Yan'an, Xian Xinghai wrote continuously for six days while sick, and completed this large-scale vocal work "Yellow River Cantata" with historical significance.After that, it premiered in the auditorium of Yan'an North Shaanxi Public School, which aroused great repercussions and soon spread throughout China.

More than seventy years have passed, and the "Yellow River Cantata" is still the highest example of Chinese choral works, both ideologically and artistically. Xian Xinghai (1905-1945), a famous modern Chinese musician and composer.He used to be named Huang Xun and Kong Yu.His ancestral home is Panyu, Guangdong. Born in a poor boatman family in Macau on June 13, 1905, he entered the High School Affiliated to Lingnan University as a violinist in 1918, and studied in the Music Institute of Peking University and the Music Department of the National Academy of Arts in 1926. In 1928, he entered the Shanghai National Institute of Music to study violin and piano, and published a famous short essay on music "Universal Music". In 1929, he went to Paris for a work-study program and studied under the famous violinist Pani Obedofel and the famous composer Paul Duca. In 1931, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory of Music.Studying in the composition class of Shola Cantorum, he is the first Chinese student in the class in decades.During his stay in France, he created more than ten works including "Wind", "Wandering Zi Yin", "Violin Sonata in D Minor".

After returning to China in 1935, he actively participated in the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement, composed a large number of mass songs with strong fighting spirit, and composed music for the progressive films "Top Gun", "Youth March", and the drama "Thunderstorm".After the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, he joined the Second Shanghai National Salvation Drama Team, and later went to Wuhan to work with Zhang Shu to carry out the National Salvation Singing Movement. From 1935 to 1938, he created "Song of the National Salvation Army", "I'm afraid I will not resist", "Guerrilla Army Song", "The Road Is We Open", "The Vast Siberia", "Children of the Motherland", "Going Behind the Enemy", "In Taihang On the Mountain” and other types of vocal works. In 1938, he served as the director of the Music Department of Yan'an Lu Xun Academy of Arts, and taught at the "Women's University".In addition to teaching, he created immortal masterpieces such as "Yellow River Cantata" and "Production Cantata". In 1940, he went to the Soviet Union to study and work, and died in Moscow on October 30, 1945.

In Xian Xinghai’s short life, he spent more than ten years creating and writing hundreds of songs (more than 250 are extant), including four cantatas, one opera, two symphonies, four orchestral suites, and one rhapsody As well as violin, piano and other instrumental solos and ensembles.Among Xian Xinghai's creations, the most numerous and most influential are various mass songs.Among them are "Song of the National Salvation Army", "Youth March", "Defend the Marco Polo Bridge" and "Go to the Enemy's Rear" which positively express the Chinese people's struggle against Japan; "Counterattack"; there are "Top Hard", "Plowing the Plow Song", "Moving the Husband" and "We Open the Road" which express the working life of the workers and peasants; ", "Children of the Motherland" and "March 8th Women's Day Song" and so on.In these mass songs, Xian Xinghai creates musical images with different personalities according to different content, or expresses passionate and generous emotions and mighty and heroic aura with impactful rhythms and upright, high-spirited and angular melodies; The broad and smooth melody, soothing and calm rhythm and lyrical tones reflect the rich inner world of the revolutionary people.