Xian Xinghai:Yellow River Piano Concerto (黃河鋼琴協奏曲)

Xian Xinghai or Sinn Sing Hoi[1] (Chinese: 冼星海; pinyin: Xiǎn Xīnghǎi; Wade–Giles: Hsien Hsing-hai; 13 June 1905 – 30 October 1945) was a Chinese composer. He was among the first composers in his country to draw on western classical music and has influenced many later Chinese musicians.[2] Xian composed in all the major musical forms (two symphonies, a violin concerto, four large scale choral works, nearly 300 songs and an opera), and is best known for the Yellow River Cantata upon which the Yellow River Concerto for piano and orchestra is based.

 

Yellow River Piano Concerto(黃河鋼琴協奏曲)

 

Prelude: The Song of the Yellow River Boatmen (黄河船夫曲) [0:02]
Ode To the Yellow River (黄河頌) [3:30]
The Yellow River In Anger (黄河憤) [7:47]
Defend the Yellow River (保衛黄河) [14:40]

"Xian Xinghai wrote the Yellow River Cantata at Yan'an in 1939, allegedly in a cave in just six days, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). It is an eight-movement piece in which he used traditional folk-melodies and evoked the image of the Yellow River as a symbol of Chinese defiance against the Japanese invaders. During his stay in Russia, he edited and re-orchestrated the work, which was later modified by Li Huanzhi, Qu Wei, Yan Liangkun. This edition aimed at furthering the energy and momentum of the music, and in this light, the rearrangement of the Yellow River Piano Concerto thirty years later is merely a continuation of that same practice.

Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Xian Xinghai together with Nie Er (who wrote the Chinese national anthem, the March of the Volunteers) were regarded by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai as "the people's musicians" and were the most prestigious composers of the PRC. Yet, even the Yellow River Cantata was banned from performance during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976); the Central Philharmonic Orchestra was forbidden to perform any Western orchestral pieces and its professional musicians were left with nothing to do. Under such circumstances, the pianist Yin Chengzong loaded his piano onto a truck and drove it to Tiananmen Square to accompany revolutionary songs that were sung at the time. He caught the eye of Jiang Qing (better known in the West as Madame Mao), which resulted in the work The Legend of the Red Lantern to be accompanied by the piano. Under orders of Madame Mao, a collective of musicians from the Central Philharmonic Society including Yin Chengzong, Liu Zhuang, Chu Wanghua, Sheng Lihong, Shi Shucheng, and Xu Feixing rearranged the cantata into a four-movement piano concerto.

However, Madame Mao thought that the work could be improved, thence the standard performing edition (1970) was created, a piece more politically loaded and musically more conventional.

With the official end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the Yellow River Piano Concerto was banished from the Chinese concert stage, retaining a certain popularity outside China. Nevertheless by the late 1980s it was filtering back into the Chinese musical mainstream, usually in the form of new performing editions, new recordings, and live performances by Chinese and Western artists. Apart from changes in the orchestration, the main differences between the various editions have been what the editors have done with the anthems integrated in the finale."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_R...)

Yundi Li, Pianist
China NCPA Concert Hall Orchestra
Zuohuang Chen, Conductor

 

 

 

The Yellow River Piano Concerto (simplified Chinese: 黄河协奏曲; traditional Chinese: 黃河協奏曲; pinyin: Huáng Hé xiézòuqǔ) is a piano concerto arranged by a collaboration between Chinese composers, including Yin Chengzong and Chu Wanghua, and based on the Yellow River Cantata by composer Xian Xinghai. It is originally directed by Jiang Qing, wife of Chairman Mao, and Since its highly acclaimed premiere in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution, the Concerto has become popular in China and around the globe. It is noted for its revolutionary theme that integrates a classic post-romantic music structure with passion, beauty and power, along with highly skilled solo phases. This piano concerto manifests the very fighting spirit of Chinese people and the determination of a new-born nation towards liberation and prosperity. It's a hymn to a new China and her people in the context of a long, vividly struggling history of the Yellow River.

Conductor: Dedric Wong Deli 黄德励 指挥
Pianist: Victor ong 王俊霖

Based on the Yellow River Cantata by Xian Xinghai
Arranged by Yin Chengzong, Chu Wanghua,
Liu Zhuang, Sheng Lihong, Shi Shucheng, Feixing

取材于冼星海《黄河大合唱》
殷承宗、储望华、刘庄、
盛礼洪、石叔诚、斐星 改编

5 Aug. 2016 NAFA Lee Foundation Theatre, Singapore
2016年8月5日于新加坡南洋艺术学院李氏基金剧场