Hequ Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
The shanqu belongs to the mountain-song genre; when it was formed is not yet determined, but the “errentai” formed on the basis of the shanqu is believed to have a history of about two hundred years. The local gazetteers record that in the Ming dynasty Hequ had “households with string and song, a new governance score, children, women and old men all singing”, which shows how far back the singing tradition goes.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Hequ lies in the north-west of Shanxi, bordered on the east by Pianguan and Wuzhai and on the south by Kelan and Baode, and facing Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia across the Yellow River to the west and north—a special area where “one cock crows over three provinces”. Because it lies in a bend of the Yellow River, Hequ has historically been cut off by poor communications, its land barren and its droughts and floods unpredictable, so the common people suffered greatly. The shanqu lyrics are profound in content and its tunes rich. In the structure of words and music they adopt the upper-and-lower line form, the upper line opening with an evocation and the lower line expressing feeling, so that often a single pair of lines reveals a profound emotional state or depicts a lifelike picture of life—such lines as “the mountain is here, the water is here, the stones are here, but you are not” and “hearing my brother sing up, I throw my hot body on the cold windowsill” are typical examples. The tunes of the shanqu use two-phrase forms of juxtaposition, response and contrast, containing a rich aesthetic meaning. They are also typical in reflecting the history of folk-song development and the conditions of folk social life.
The “Going Beyond the Western Pass” Folk Songs
Shanqu arising naturally from the life of going to Inner Mongolia as hired labour each spring and returning each winter, lamenting parting, separation, longing and hope.
Hequ Errentai
A local performance form formed on the basis of the shanqu and with a history of about two hundred years.
The Upper-and-Lower Line Form and the Juxtaposing, Responding Tunes
The word-and-music structure in which the upper line evokes and the lower line expresses feeling, and the two-phrase tunes of juxtaposition, response and contrast.
Masterpieces such as Three Days' Journey Done in Two
The pieces recorded in 1953 with excellent words and music, such as Three Days' Journey Done in Two, You Are Not Here Though Everyone Else Is and Cutting the Naked Oats.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
This special humanistic and geographical environment produced the way of life and production of “going beyond the western pass”, in which the local people went each spring and returned each winter to the Daqing mountains and the Hetao area of Inner Mongolia as short-term or long-term hired labourers. Out of this life of parting from wife and children year after year arose naturally the “going beyond the western pass” folk songs lamenting human parting, the sorrow of separation, longing and hope, called by the locals “shanqu”.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In the winter of 1953 the Institute of National Music of the Central Conservatory of Music, now the Institute of Music Research of the Chinese National Academy of Arts, came to the locality to collect folk songs for the first time, recording in only three months more than one thousand five hundred sets of lyrics and more than one hundred and fifty tunes, among which such pieces as Three Days' Journey Done in Two, You Are Not Here Though Everyone Else Is, Cutting the Naked Oats, Mentioning That My Brother Is Going Beyond the Western Pass, My True Soul Follows About You, and My Brother in the East and My Sister in the West with the Milky Way Rising Between are all masterpieces of both words and music handed down to later ages. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Xin Lisheng, male, Han, born 1938, a native of Hequ, Shanxi. From 1960 to 1962 he worked in the Hequ county errentai troupe, and from 1987 to 2000 in the Hequ county workers' spare-time troupe. From 1962 to the present he has trained more than two hundred new performers of Hequ errentai and Hequ folk song. He is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, Hequ folk songs. His voice is powerful and his timbre pure, his performance skilful, and he has taken part in artistic performances on television in Beijing, Shanxi, Guangzhou and Hong Kong and won more than a hundred awards of various kinds. Lü Guiying, female, Han, born 1941, a native of Hequ, Shanxi, now a retired member of the Hequ county cultural centre. Her representative works include Ten Pairs of Flowers and Five Maidens Watch the Lanterns. She is a representative bearer of the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, Hequ folk songs. Her timbre is sweet and her singing art deep; in 1957 she went to Beijing to perform and won a major prize and was received by Premier Zhou Enlai.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xin Lisheng 02-0227
- Lvguiying 02-0228
- Han Yunde 03-0804
- Wang Yongmao
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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