(Continues from Chinese Music Classics of 20th Century – III/VI: Choir & Opera)

A Night at West Lake | by {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/3371420687/}Stuck in Customs{/link}

Organizers

“Chinese Culture Promotion Association”, a non-governmental organization, had been set up for merely three years before this selection by a group of government and business people from southeastern provinces.

Despite its non-governmental organization title, the Council is no lack of party and government officials. For example, the President Ye Xuanping is the former governor of Guangdong Province, and the incumbent vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, the Secretary-General Xiao Yang is current governor of Sichuan Province.

Thanks to “reform and opening up”, the southeastern provinces of China have become the richest regions. The level of interest in arts activities has also risen accordingly. The Association aims to promote artistic and cultural activities. It plays an important role in an era when cultural activities in mainland China were switching from leading by the government to the hand of civil society .

Selection Process

In 1992, musicians from the mainland such as Wang Liping (the author of theme song for “Dream of the Red Chamber”, the TV series) and others formed the preparatory committee. They compiled a list of more than 400 works, which contains works by famous 20th century Chinese composers (no more than three each).

Then they asked music industry leader Wu Zuqiang to organize a selection committee panel. These musicians were invited: the mainland’s Wang Liping, Wang Yuhe Yuan Jingfang, Zheng Xiaoying, Yan Liang-Kun, Sang Tong, Zhu Jian-er, Chen Ling Qun; Taiwan’s Hsu Chang-hui, Ma Shui-long, Wu Ji-Zha; Hong Kong’s Chan Wing-wah, Fei Ming-yi; overseas: Chou Wen-chung, Leung Mingyue .. and others. (Taiwan, Hsu, Ma, were not present to vote, they asked Wu to represent them.)

That November, the selection panel met in Chongqing in order to review the work and run the selection ballot. Originally a round “100” selections was planned, but because of discrete electoral votes, plus other considerations, the panel finally made an announcement on November 16 that a total of 124 tracks in 9 sections will be selected.

It’s another problem to decide the selection committees. No veteran musicians (eg, He Luting) was on the list, on which are mostly current generations such as Wu Zuqiang or younger. Low ages might have been criticized as low authority, but the previous generation should naturally be assessed by later generations, who have a wider field of vision and are more able to accommodate different genres of music.

After all, for most works on the list, however, their authors are still in good health. The list will inevitably become a divided pie, as we can see the final list is allocated by age, region, political factors, etc..

Hong Kong music critic Zhou Fanfu said that it is already unreasonable for the composers to assess their own works. It is really absurd to have unrepresentative instrument performers to have the power of selecting the classic. For example, the qualifications of vocalist Fei Mingyi, pianist Wu Ji-Zha are suspicious. How many of these works had they ever heard?

(… to be continued …)

Instrumental Solo

Fisherman at Sunset | by {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/leafvert/2030803693/}lucy{/link}

In previous sections, we have covered Songs, Choir and Operas. You probably had difficulty in enjoying them since they are all vocal music in Chinese language. Since today, the other sections are going to be mainly instrumental music. Hopefully it will be easier for you to enjoy them.

Please stay tuned and other parts will be posted soon!

[Chinese Keyword]
二十世纪华人音乐经典