Qinghai Pingxian
01 · Historical Records
Most of these works draw on historical stories, folk legends, Tang poems and Song ci, Yuan and Ming zaju, Ming and Qing chuanqi, and classic works of classical fiction, such as The White Ape Steals the Peaches, which derives from Sun Tzu's Art of War, Confucius Pays Respects to His Teacher, which derives from the Dunhuang bianwen, The Secret Construction of the Royal Palace, which draws on the Story of the Tang, and Flooding Jinshan Hill, which draws from The White Snake, and so on.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Qinghai Pingxian, also called 'Xining fuzi', is widely transmitted in the Haidong area centred on Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, and has a history of more than 200 years to the present. Its performing style is intimate and unadorned. Many of its tunes, when sung, carry a 'la qiao zi', that is, the 'bang qiang' chorus singing commonly so called, so that the audience can join naturally in the performance through the bang qiang, producing a special effect in the hall. Qinghai Pingxian is commonly accompanied by a small folk ensemble, with instruments including the sanxian, yangqin, banhu, yueqin, flute, erhu and so forth. The melody played is rich and highly varied, showing the course by which classical music has changed and transformed in the Qinghai region. Qinghai Pingxian has a large number of vocal styles and tunes and belongs to the linked chain of tune patterns; it has traditionally been known as 'eighteen miscellaneous vocal styles and twenty-four tunes'. It is formed on the basis of the changing tunes of the southern 'fuzi', absorbing tune patterns from northern and southern sanqu, from xiaoqu ancient and modern, and from other genres of quyi. The fuzi-type tunes are the principal tunes marking the character of the genre. Besides these, Qinghai Pingxian also has several other large classes of tunes, such as bei gong (back work), za qiang (miscellaneous vocal styles), xiao dian (small items) and xia bei gong (lower back work); it may indeed be called a musical treasury with rich reserves. The traditional repertoire of Qinghai Pingxian is varied and colourful. More than 200 items alone have been collected and recorded in various localities, their contents covering history, politics, culture, social customs, ethics and morality and many other fields. The texts of these tunes are neatly matched in couplet, strict in prosody and highly poetic in character; some items even sing famous lines of, or whole, classical poems, ci and fu directly.
Eighteen mixed tunes and twenty-four airs
Pingxian's arias form a linked-tune system popularly summed up as "eighteen mixed tunes and twenty-four airs", built on the southern fuzi strain.
The five tune families
The fuzi family defines the genre's character; beside it stand the beigong, zachang, xiaodian and xiabeigong families.
The laqiaozi refrain
Many airs carry the laqiaozi refrain, in which the audience joins in and is drawn naturally into the performance.
The pingxian ensemble
The genre is accompanied by a small ensemble of sanxian, yangqin, banhu, yueqin, flute and erhu, tracing the drift of classical music into Qinghai.
Representative pingxian items
Its items draw on history, legend, Tang poetry, Yuan drama and Ming-Qing fiction, from the White Ape Steals Peaches to the Flooding of Jinshan.
Liu Jun and his new pieces
The inheritor Liu Jun trained from fourteen and composed dozens of new items such as The Great Farewell and Ten More Li.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Qinghai Pingxian sings its stories in the local dialect; it is sung only, not spoken.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Qinghai Pingxian is an important carrier of the history and culture of the Haidong area, and has a certain reference value for research in folklore, ethnology and on quyi genres. At present, Qinghai Pingxian lacks successors, has fallen into an endangered state, and urgently needs protection so that it can be handed down. Liu Jun (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1949, native of Xining, Qinghai Province. He has loved Qinghai local quyi since childhood. At the age of 14 he began to study Qinghai Pingxian with his uncle by marriage, Yi Jialong, and afterwards studied Qinghai Pingxian, xiao dian Pingxian and other Qinghai local quyi with Ma Zhaolu, as well as the accompaniment techniques for instruments such as the yangqin, banhu and erhu. His singing is mellow and delicate, full of flavour, sincere in feeling and round in timbre. He has composed several dozen quyi pieces, including The Great Farewell, Returning over Ten Li, Riding on Horse to Recommend Zhuge Liang and Summer Scenery. The quayi and musical works he has created have appeared successively in newspapers and journals such as Qinghai Culture and the Xining Evening News. Representative inheritor of the Qinghai Pingxian project in the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. In 2007 he was appointed a member of the Expert Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Qinghai Province by the Qinghai Provincial Department of Culture, and in 2012 he was awarded the honorary title of veteran artist with outstanding contribution by the Publicity Department of the Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Qinghai Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Liu Jun 03-1200
- Li Yongjun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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