Shandong Qinshu Balladry
01 · Historical Records
Shandong Qinshu Balladry is also called "chang yangqin" ("singing to the yangqin") or "Shandong yangqin"; it originated in the Heze area of southwestern Shandong and has a history of more than two hundred and fifty years to the present day. Building on the southern line, Shang Xiuling, founder of the Shang school, created the eastern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry in Jiaodong, while Deng Jiuru, founder of the Deng school, created the northern line in Jinan.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
As the birthplace of the southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry, Heze has always been an important area in which this fine folk art developed and circulated. The singing of the Ru school has a deep and resonant vocal line and precise, heartfelt diction, and its pieces mostly express indignation at the world. The music of the southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry preserves a large number of Ming- and Qing-period folk tune patterns; more than a hundred tune patterns already collected, including Fengyang Ge, Duoziban, Meihualuo, Hunjianglong, Kuhanjiang, Daotuichuan, Changlongwei, Mandihong and Dieduanqiao, are materials hard to come by for the study of music. Its vocal style is built up by linking tune patterns one after another; it generally opens with Shangduan Diao or Fengyang Ge and closes with Duoziban or Meihualuo, while in between, tune patterns whose mood suits the expression are chosen and combined freely, with no fixed formula. The southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry shows a high artistic standard in its vocal method and in the technique of instrumental playing, and it exerted an important influence on the development of qin opera. The southern line has a large repertoire: long-form works include The White Snake and The Yang Family Generals, while medium-form works include Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers).
The White Snake
The southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry has a large repertoire: long-form works include The White Snake and The Yang Family Generals, while medium-form works include Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers).
The Yang Family Generals
The southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry has a large repertoire: long-form works include The White Snake and The Yang Family Generals, while medium-form works include Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers).
Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge
The southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry has a large repertoire: long-form works include The White Snake and The Yang Family Generals, while medium-form works include Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers).
Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers)
The southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry has a large repertoire: long-form works include The White Snake and The Yang Family Generals, while medium-form works include Wang Dingbao Borrowing on Pledge and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (The Butterfly Lovers).
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Shandong Qinshu Balladry is divided into the southern, northern and eastern lines, of which the southern line of Heze is the earliest. Within the southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry, the most representative school was founded by Ru Xingli.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Shandong Qinshu Balladry · Shandong Qinshu Balladry.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In the course of taking shape, this qinshu art absorbed the language, customs and other features of the places where it circulated; to a certain extent it reflects the social life of the Shandong region during the Qing dynasty and therefore has fairly high research value for history and culture. At present the southern line of Shandong Qinshu Balladry has few successors and is in danger of dying out, so that its protection and transmission are urgently needed. Wang Zhengang (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han, born in December 1951, a native of Juancheng County, Shandong Province. He joined the Huazhuang Zhuizi Opera Troupe of Juancheng County in 1963, the quyi troupe of Juancheng County in 1971, and was transferred to the quyi troupe of the Heze region in 1976. His representative works include The Broken Bridge, Flooding Jinshan Temple, At the Foot of Mount Liang, Dalin Returns Home and Good Things Abound. He is a representative inheritor of Shandong Qinshu Balladry under the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. With a good vocal instrument and, by dint of hard study, he attained a high level both in singing qinshu and in instrumental accompaniment, and won prizes many times in national competitions. Over several decades in the profession, keeping up performance and training pupils, he has taught such outstanding southern-line qinshu performers as Bi Mei and Kong Lushun.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Xiangyun 02-0732
- Yao Zhongxian 02-0733
- Liu Shifu 04-1706
- Zhu Lihua 04-1707
- Wang Zhengang 05-2490
- He Shuling 05-2491
- Hu Huashan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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