From October 15th to 25th, the 14th China Golden Bell Award, sponsored by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China National Association, and hosted by the Chengdu People, was held in Chengdu. The organizing committee specially invited composer Wang Jianmin to compose "Erhu Rhapsody No. 6", which was the designated repertoire for the finalists and symphony orchestras in the finals of the erhu competition.
Zhang Haiyue, the first prize winner of the 14th Golden Bell Award Erhu Competition, performed Wang Jianmin's "Sixth Erhu Rhapsody".
Wang Jianmin's "Erhu Rhapsody" series of works, which have become the performance repertoire of China's ** Golden Bell Award for many times, is not only a must-learn, must-practice and must-perform repertoire for contemporary erhu players and erhu Xi learners, but also promotes the development and improvement of the erhu instrument with its difficult performance technology and unique artistic value. In addition, his other erhu works and a number of guzheng songs are also praised as excellent works in the industry, which are deeply loved by performers and the public, and have attracted the attention of a large number of theoretical researchers, which has triggered a unique "Wang Jianmin phenomenon" in the folk music industry.
Picturesque "Rhapsody".
Since 2003, when the Organizing Committee of the 3rd China ** Golden Bell Award commissioned Wang Jianmin to compose "The Third Erhu Rhapsody" for the Erhu Competition, the "Erhu Rhapsody" series has been an indispensable work of the Golden Bell Award Erhu Competition: "One Madness" and "Two Madness" have been repeatedly set as self-selected repertoire by contestantsComposed in 2009, he was commissioned by the Chinese Taipei Chinese Orchestra to compose "The Fourth Erhu Rhapsody", which was selected by the Chinese Music Association as the designated repertoire for the new works of the 7th China ** Golden Bell Award Erhu FinalsIn 2019, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Music Association commissioned Wang Jianmin to compose "The Fifth Erhu Rhapsody - Hymn", which was used as the designated repertoire for the 12th China ** Golden Bell Award Erhu FinalsIn 2023, the 14th China ** Golden Bell Awards ushered in the "Six Madness" as promised.
The birth and development of Wang Jianmin's "Erhu Rhapsody" series is inseparable from erhu virtuoso Deng Jiandong. The two began to collaborate in the late 80s of the last century, and have been an important topic of creation, performance, and academic research in the erhu world for more than 30 years.
In November 1985, after Deng Jiandong won the first prize of the first China Beijing Erhu Invitational Competition, he was admitted to Nanjing University of the Arts to study Xi. In 1988, when he was about to graduate from university, he wanted to seek a breakthrough and innovative new erhu work to perform at his graduation party. Wang Jianmin's wife was Deng Jiandong's ear training teacher when he was Xi in Nanyi, and he came up with the idea of inviting Wang Jianmin to write a work for himself. Prior to this, Wang Jianmin's creative field had always been Western music, and he had never set foot in the creation of folk music, let alone written erhu works. After the invitation was issued, Deng Jiandong was unsure whether Wang Jianmin would accede to his request. After a few months, Deng Jiandong got the first draft of "The First Erhu Rhapsody" written for him by Wang Jianmin. The first feeling when he saw the score, Deng Jiandong seemed to have opened a "book of heaven" - it was marked with different notations and countless variations ......Wang Jianmin, who has just returned from his advanced studies at Shanghai ** College, has creatively adopted a series of unprecedented new languages, new structures, and new techniques for erhu creation.
After two or three months of practice, Deng Jiandong cracked the passwords in Wang Jianmin's "Book Xi from Heaven" one by one according to his own understanding. When he first pulled it to Wang Jianmin, the other party only said one sentence: "Okay, that's it." Although there were minor adjustments after that, there was no situation where everyone imagined that the two of them had a hard time running in for this difficult work. Later, Deng Jiandong learned that the reason why Wang Jianmin dared to inject so many difficult new techniques and new vocabulary into the work "One Madness" was because he had a detailed understanding of him from his wife early on, and he believed that Deng Jiandong's performance skills were enough to be competent for "One Madness".
In June 1988, Deng Jiandong premiered "One Madness" with great success and quickly spread widely in the erhu world. However, after the test of time and the continuous expansion of erhu playing skills, "Yi Ma" has now become an indispensable erhu repertoire in various folk music performances and competitions, and there are many performers who have challenged this work in the amateur field and completed it brilliantly. Wang Jianmin and Deng Jiandong became close friends because of "madness". Wang Jianmin wrote the first in 1998, 2003 and 2009 respectively.
The second, third, and fourth erhu rhapsodies, of which "two madness" and "three madness" were all premiered by Deng Jiandong. In Deng Jiandong's understanding, each of Wang Jianmin's "rhapsodies" will select a national and regional material to refine the theme, and what the performer has to do is to convey the picture depicted by the composer in the theme to the audience in **language.
The regional characteristics presented in Wang Jianmin's "Rhapsody" series of works come from his years of accumulation. He is Xi of carefully observing and experiencing, storing his own seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking about people, things, and scenes in his memory bank, and then refining them into his own ** vocabulary to create on the score. "One Madness" contains the rich folk customs of Yunnan and its folk customs, "Two Crazy" shows the style of Xiangxi through the Flower Drum Opera Tune, "Three Crazy" depicts the vast beauty of the Tianshan Mountains with a melody pattern rich in Xinjiang rhyme, "Four Crazy" integrates the northwest customs such as Xintianyou and Boatman's tune, "Five Crazy" takes Inner Mongolia ** as the material, and "Six Crazy" shows strong ** song and dance characteristics. The national and folk ** personality is obvious, and the "Erhu Rhapsody" series of works does not apply any ready-made folk songs or folk **, all of which are mixed and "varied" by Wang Jianmin. He uses the ** material with a strong style of "large region", which not only has the characteristics of a party with bright colors, but also breaks through the confinement of the administrative region, and is more accommodating. In the past 30 years, under Wang Jianmin's pen, a colorful "rhapsody" ** map has gradually been outlined;In the future, there are still infinite possibilities for expansion ...... this territory
Modernize the traditional erhu.
*Scholar Qiao Jianzhong once commented that Wang Jianmin's "Erhu Rhapsody.""The series has pushed erhu art to a new peak of modernization and symphony. Many erhu performers also believe that Wang Jianmin's creation objectively promoted the development of erhu instruments.
The newly born "Six Madness" continues the "Erhu Rhapsody" series with very high technical difficulty, one of which spans the octave of the bow, which requires the performer to quickly change the bow, and some local composers have also written the bow method of the continuous bow, which is a great challenge for the performer. Even the players who have passed five levels and cut six will break into the semi-finals and finals of the 14th China ** Golden Bell Award Erhu Competition, they have also invested a lot of time and effort to break through this continuous bow. Many players admit that they can only Xi step by step from the split bow, and some people have not even been able to fully present this difficult bow method in the arena.
The split bow is like a handful of beans crackling and scattered on the ground, and it is a granular feeling;The bow is like a ladle of water poured on the ground, and it is a feeling of being done in one go. Wang Jianmin described the split bow and the connecting bow of the erhu in his eyes. As a composer, his knowledge and in-depth exploration of the erhu instrument is no less than that of many skilled erhu players. Many people even believe that he is also a good erhu player, so that he can write many works that are suitable for erhu and can further develop erhu playing techniques. In fact, Wang Jianmin first learned Xi instruments such as trombone and cello, and then learned Xi piano after learning Xi composition, both of which are Western instruments, but this did not create an obstacle between him and the erhu. Before writing "Yi Mad", he conducted an in-depth and thorough study of the erhu. First of all, he read through the relevant literature of erhu, from the works of erhu masters such as Liu Tianhua and Hua Yanjun (A Bing) to the erhu songs accumulated after the founding of New China. As for the specific technique, in his opinion, ** is the same, the instrument is also the same, the cello is a stringed instrument, and the erhu is also a stringed instrument, and the performance of the two has similarities. Through observing the performers and communicating with them frequently, Wang Jianmin's mind is full of the inside and outside, movement and stillness of the erhu. Since the opening of the Erhu Competition of the Golden Bell Award in China, he has served as a judge in every session, and the emergence and growth of erhu rookies have given him an intuitive understanding of the discipline setting, teaching development, and technological progress of erhu.
The erhu is a melodic instrument with strong singing ability, and for such an instrument, Wang Jianmin believes that the first thing to do is to ensure that the melody is good, which is also the consistent bottom line of his creation. In his opinion, melody has two functions: one is the catharsis and expression of emotions, expressing various emotional scenes, which just highlights the timbre of the erhu, which is like singing and crying;The second is the modeling function, which can depict figurative images, such as "Vltava River" in the Czech composer Deutsz Smetana's symphonic poem suite "My Motherland", * the melody makes the listener feel as if the river is really flowing in front of them. Each "Erhu Rhapsody" has a strong sense of imagery, which is inseparable from his emphasis on the modeling function of the melody.
For a long time in the past, people had a misunderstanding about folk music and national musical instruments, thinking that they were "old-fashioned", and even once there was a saying that "folk music is backward". Wang Jianmin, who once served as the head of the Department of Folk Music of Shanghai ** University, has always hoped to promote the development of folk musical instruments and folk music disciplines through his works, which is also the biggest motivation for him to devote himself to expanding his instrumental performance skills since he set foot in the creation of folk music from the beginning of "Yimad". He uses the form of "rhapsody", which is important because of the variety of forms. "Rhapsody is generally multi-segmented, which has a certain similarity with the multi-segment and multi-song cards of Chinese folk music, and rhapsody can show a certain 'epic' characteristics that most traditional folk music does not have, which is also my specific idea for improving the expressiveness of folk ** and showing the atmosphere of Chinese culture. From the final stage of the 12th China ** Golden Bell Award Erhu Competition, the contestants played the "Five Madness" with the accompaniment of the symphony orchestraTo the 14th China ** Golden Bell Awards, for the "Six Madness" with "stomping" and bow pole and other detailed movements with modern performance art, to show the characteristics of Tibetan dance and depict the Tibetan people's enthusiastic and unrestrained, dynamic and bright image, Wang Jianmin's purpose is the same: to create a powerful, modern style of distinctive momentum and aura for erhu performance, so that people realize that erhu is not a "soil" instrument, it can exert great energy.
Use time to precipitate the best**.
In addition to the six "Erhu Rhapsodies", he also composed erhu works such as "Tianshan Style", "Gusu Yin", "Fantasy Narrative", "Second Erhu Concerto - Taihu Lake Style", as well as "Fantasia", "Sauvignon Blanc", "Drama Rhyme", "Caprice of the Western Regions", "Lotus Ballad", "Hunan Dance", "Fengqiao Night Park", "Chan Song", "Autumn Wind Speech", "Bloom", "Sunshine and Earth" and other guzheng works.
Like exploring the creation of erhu, Wang Jianmin not only retains the charm and style of the traditional guzheng in the creation of guzheng works, but also uses modern composition techniques to make breakthroughs. His guzheng works are often based on classical themes, such as "Sauvignon Blanc", which expresses the poetry of the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi through the guzheng, and the material is "Spring River Flower and Moon Night" of "Xunyang Pipa", using modern composition techniques to create a strong sense of modernity. The creative idea of "Fantasia" is similar to that of "Erhu Rhapsody", which uses folk songs from southwest China as the material to explore the modernization of ethnic and folk songs.
Wang Jianmin is a neat and neat person, and he doesn't like to talk much. "The communication between me and Mr. Wang is all in **, and **presentation is the language of our communication. Deng Jiandong said. In Wang Jianmin's view, Deng Jiandong's performance has the strengths of both north and south, whether it is the unrestrained and free "rhapsody", or the delicate and tender Jiangnan erhu song, his interpretation can well reflect his original intention of creation. In the friendship between the two for more than 30 years, there is confidant, trust, and sympathy. In 2020, the Wuxi Chinese Orchestra was established and commissioned Wang Jianmin to compose "Second Erhu Concerto - Taihu Lake Style", which was premiered by Deng Jiandong. This concerto uses a lot of local elements and language in Wuxi, and delicately shows the "long Jiangnan rhyme, strong Taihu Lake feeling" (Deng Jiandong). During the rehearsal process, fellow Wuxi villagers will use the Wuxi dialect to communicate their understanding of the work, and some feelings that have been immersed in the familiar scenes of their hometown since childhood arise spontaneously, and turn into a unique ** language presented in the work.
*Critic Wang Anchao once wrote an article commenting that there are more than 20 erhu and guzheng works created by Wang Jianmin, which does not seem to be much in terms of quantity, but each piece can be described as a fine product and is loved by a large number of performers, and each work will have theoretical research to follow up.
Rather than becoming a "phenomenal" figure that has attracted much attention, Wang Jianmin pays more attention to what he can "write" every day, and what new trends in modern composition technology have been. He believes that contemporary creation is inseparable from the issues of "innovation" and "roots", and the real ** of creation is still tradition**, folk nourishment, and we must have a sense of awe. As an academic creator, the method, technique, and even form of composition are all crucial, which is why he asks himself and his students to pay close attention to the current development of avant-garde composing techniques.
As he grew older, Wang Jianmin has changed his Xi of staying up late to create in recent years, and has spent more time creating during the day. He planned his life with self-discipline and insisted on exercising every day to ensure the energy of his creation, arranging a fixed time for creation, so as to eliminate distractions. Every time he accepts a commission for a new work, the first question he considers is "whether there is enough time", whether he can "shuttle" back and forth in the thick material library and extract precious inspiration to integrate into the music. Every time he creates, he has to go through a long period of precipitation in his heart, just like cooking a big dish, only by simmering it slowly over low heat can he cook the taste he wants. From the "Four Madness" to the "Five Madness", it has gone through ten years, and after this year's "Six Madness" came out, everyone is looking forward to when the "Seven Madness" will be born. In this regard, Wang Jianmin's answer is "I can't say", some things have been brewed for enough time, and they will naturally come out, and the biggest challenge during this period may be how to surpass their previous self. "What a composer has to do is to grasp his own rhythm, to use the best technique he can master, to write what he wants to write the most. Wang Jianmin said.
Chen Wei Wei Wen.