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Golden Chinese Classics of the 20th Century I&II

Golden Chinese Classics of the 20th Century I

The highly narrative nature of Chinese music is highlighted in this selection, and some of the best known figures in Chinese legend and folklore come alive through the romantic interpretation of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra: Let your heart melt with the lilting strings of The Butterfly Lovers, or follow the adventures of Hua Mulan, the brave young woman who took her father's place to join the army by disguising herself as a man. Capture the colours of Peking Opera behind In the Deep of the Night, or be transposed to the Great Wall where you would have a panoramic vision of not only China’s magnificent landscape but also of the historical figures associated with it in The Great Wall Capriccio. The soloists for the evening are Ngai Kwun-wa, Lu Yunxia, Liu Yang, Wong Ching and Wong On-yuen. Romantic or exuberant, muted or high-flung, Chinese instruments are versatile and expressive. Feel them in your heart.

Four of the winning selection of Ten Most Popular Solo and Orchestral Works give you four totally different musical experiences. A sense of mystery permeates in In the Deep of the Night. The acoustic interest of the drum solo passage and the racy section in which the jinghu vies with the drum would be the new love of all hi-fi aficionados! Add to this the soaring, expansive notes of The Great Wall Capriccio, the variegated emotional nuances of Hua Mulan and the sustained romanticism of The Butterfly Lovers, and you will understand why these works are "evergreen".

The Jinghu, Jing-erhu and Gaohu

These three belong to the bowed-string family of the Chinese fiddle called erhu. They share the characteristic features of having only two strings and are tuned to a fifth. The first jinghu appeared around 1790 in the Qing Dynasty, mainly functioning as an accompanying instrument for Peking Opera and Han Opera. Its round-shaped resonator and the body are both made of bamboo. The jing-erhu and the gaohu are both developed from the erhu. Except that they are smaller in size, they share the same characteristic features as the parent instrument. The resonator and body of the jing-erhu are made of wood. The resonator is either hexagon or octagon in shape. It was first created by a musician in Peking Opera called Wang Shaoqing (1899-1957) in the 1920s. The gaohu has a pitch that is higher than the erhu by four to five octaves. It has a bright and clarion timbre. The resonator is mostly in the round shape, but sometimes it can also be oblong or in the shape of a flattened octagon. It was created by a Cantonese music artist, Lu Wencheng, in the 1930s when he replaced the silken strings with metal strings and used it as an accompanying instrument for Cantonese music, Cantonese Opera and operatic arias. In performing, the player needs to hold the resonator between the knees to control the volume and timbre. The thickness and fabric of the padding material between the instrument and the knees therefore can have a direct bearing on the timbre.

For music created by Man, it has been a long process of moving from the simple to the complex. The symphonization movements and the ever-growing size of the orchestra stand testimony to this effect. This is not only the result of Man's growing urge to satisfy his aural experience, but also because the complexity of music and the orchestra allows for more dynamic changes that give better expression of the internal as well as external world of the Modern man, while satisfying their ever-rising expectation of acoustic sounds and music.

The programme of this concert perhaps provides an answer to these expectations. It allows a modern, full-scale Chinese orchestra to give full play to its dynamic capabilities and maintain a balance between acoustic range and musicality. The agrarian origin of Song of the Fishermen of the East Sea finds contemporary relevance, when battles on the high seas remind us of battles in life in the modern city. Similarly, there is eternal truth in mankind's yearning for peace, as depicted in Terra Cotta Warriors Fantasia. Fortunately, one finds solace in the picturesque tranquility of Moonlight over Spring River, or in the affirmation of love in fairytales like The Seventh Fairy Maiden Fantasia.
Be ready to tackle life's issues on an evening like this – music, or Chinese music, has more dimensions than what you assume it to have.

The three ensembles of the evening were among the Top Ten Favourites in Chinese Ensemble Music of the worldwide poll. They explore the expressive capabilities of a modern Chinese orchestra from different angles.

Song of the Fishermen of the East Sea is in four sections. It incorporates the ethnic colours of the gong-and-drum music of eastern Zhejiang with unique percussion instruments such as the conch and the dafeng drum to create a tone poem of glorious colour and animated scenes. The perennial favourite, Moonlight over Spring River, is like a Chinese scroll painting, with the lyrical introduction unfolding onto ten scenes of great beauty.

Many listeners have been moved by the epic appeal and symphonic texture of Terra Cotta Warriors Fantasia, including the western audience at the HKCO's concert at the Goldenersaal in Vienna. The Seventh Fairy Maiden Fantasia, another winner in the worldwide poll, is a successful rearrangement, giving the erhu and the gehu new expressiveness within the framework of a double concerto.

# Hi-fi aficionados are well familiar with Song of the Fishermen in the East Sea and Terra Cotta Warriors Fantasia because of their voluminous sound effects. But acoustic qualities aside, they are also people's favourites because of their emotionality. So, when you open your ears, remember to open your heart as well.

What is used to cover the resonators of the Chinese fiddle?

The clue lies in the nomenclature, right? If "erhu" means "fiddle with two strings", and "gaohu" means "fiddle with a higher register than the "erhu", then "banhu" should mean the resonator is covered with "ban", meaning "board", and "gehu", with "ge", meaning "skin". Are these answers by deduction correct?
(Look at the answer by turning the page upside down.)

Answer
The resonator of the Chinese fiddle family of huqin is mostly mounted with snake skin. But some are exceptions: the banhu, yehu and tuhu (an instrument of the Zhuang ethnic minority of China) are covered with boards of the Chinese parasol tree. And although the gehu and the bass gehu are mounted with snakeskin, the sheer size of the resonator of these bass instruments requires the skin of the python.

However, the variation in thickness of the skins yields different sound qualities. Snakeskin is also easily affected by the humidity in the air. Another point that deters the use of python skins is the preservation of endangered species. All these lead to the need to replace snakeskin with wooden boards. In a seminar on Chinese music conducted by the HKCO in March 2003, the Instrument Improvement Group of Xian Conservatory of Music gave a demonstration using a qinhu mounted with board instead of snakeskin, created by Chak Chi-wing, and the effect was found to be rather satisfactory.