Vocal Music

In the 20th century, school songs were the initial forms of modern Chinese songs, and at the same time they were the country's modern professional songs in embryo. Of course, the school songs in their early and middle periods were not professional music in the strict sense, as their tunes were specially selected from an existing corpus and were fitted to ci poems. But in their later period, beginning with Li Shutong's Spring Outing, tunes were composed to the school songs. In the late 1920s, Xiao Youmei, Zhao Yuanren and others were the first modern composers in the real sense of the word. Their works, such as Questioning and Teach Me How to Forget Him were the first art songs.

The Japanese invasion in the 1930s marked a great change in the style of Chinese songs, from the theme of enlightenment to that of resistance and saving the nation. Patriotic composers, represented by Nie Er and Xian Xinghai, produced a large number of songs in the latter vein, such as March of the Volunteers (which later was adopted as the Chinese national anthem), Broadsword Society March and Song of the Guerrillas. These works played a great role in instigating the masses of the people to resist the Japanese inva-ders and achieve national liberation.

Songs with a mass character were prominent and developed steadily through all the various historical stages from the founding of New China until 1966. Representative were Singing of the Motherland (music by Wang Shen), The People of the Whole World Share One Heart (music by Qu Xixian), We Are Marching Along the Wide Road (music by Li Quefu), Socialism Is Good (music by Li Huanzhi) and Proletarians of the World Unite ( music by Qu Xixian). With the advent of the new era, and changes in the conditions of the new generation and in esthetic tastes, the creation of mass songs went into an overall decline.

The wellsprings of popular songs can be traced back to composers of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Li Jinhui and Chen Gexin, the ideological quality of whose artistry was uneven. With the founding of New China, popular songs died out on the mainland, apart from a few lyrical ballads which managed survive. In the new era, under the influence of popular songs from Hong Kong and Taiwan, songwriters on the mainland too tried their hands at this genre. Through films, television and other mass media the works of Wang Ming, Wang Liping and Gu Jianfen reached wide audiences, and sparked off a craze for popular songs throughout the country. Thereupon, a group of talented young songwriters emerged, including Xu Peidong, Lei Lei and Cui Jian. Entering the 1990s, the subject matter and styles of popular music expanded, especially in the wake of the impact of European and North American popular music, when artistic vocabulary and methods of expression broke away from the styles of Hong Kong and Taiwan and eventually formed a particular style of its own. Generally speaking, the creation of Chinese popular vocal music has been necessarily short of excellent works and musical vigor.

In the field of artistic songs, Xiao Youmei and Zhao Yuanren were succeeded by such people as Huang Zi, Qing Zhu and He Luding. In the 1940s, the prominent creative musicians were Jiang Wenye and Tan Xiaolin. Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China, high-quality compositions such as The Herdsman's Song, Mayila and Wonderful Xinjiang were accompanied by works such as Bidding Adieu to My Lover Among the Sunflowers by Ding Shande, The Song of Karamay by Lu Yuan, The Rising Sun Never Sets on the Grassland by Meiliqige and Sheng Mao's Horse, Slow Down! Li Jiefu set four of Mao Zedong's poems to music Kunlun, Snow, Ode to the Plum Blossom and Reply to Li Shuyi. Zhao Kaisheng and Qu Xixian separately did the same with the latter poem. These versions of Mao's poems are still performed today. From the mid-1960s, the creation of art songs ceased completely, but with the passing of the 1970s songs such as Ode to Beijing, The Thousand-Year-Old Iron Tree Blooms, I Love Mount Wuzhi and the Wanquan River appeared. The new era proved to be a golden age for art songs, with broadening of subject matter, maturing of art and richly varied use of language and techniques. Luo Zhongrong was an outstanding composer of this generation, producing original and profound art songs such as Cross the River to Pick Hibiscus flower, Autumn Song, Partridge Sky and Dusk. Some of the New Wave composers too ventured into the world of art songs, and made fine contributions.

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