Chaohu Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
Chaohu city lies in central Anhui, lapped by the river and ringed by the lake; within its borders is the “Hexian ape-man” site of three to four hundred thousand years ago, proving that this was once one of the birthplaces of Chinese culture. Along with the ancient history of Chaohu, Chaohu folk songs have gone through a process of evolution from simple to complex and from single to varied, and have been sung down to the present. After 1949 they were disseminated more widely. In March 1955 the Chaohu folk song Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers was sung by the peasant singers Hu Jiying and Liu Hongying in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai in Beijing, where they were warmly received by Mao Zedong and the first-generation leaders of the Party and the state.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The people of Chaohu love to sing and to compose folk songs. The creative method of “sighting the wind and willowing”, that is, improvising, enables the clever singer to sing whatever he sees, wherever he goes and whatever work he does. Chaohu folk songs have the three great categories of work chantey, mountain song and short tune, complete in kind and rich in content. Of them one hundred and eleven have been included in the Anhui volume of the Compendium of Chinese Folk Songs, twenty in One Hundred Anhui Folk Songs, more than thirty in middle-school textbooks and in the teaching materials of the Shanghai and Central conservatories of music, and more than twenty recorded by the Shanghai record company and issued at home and abroad and presented to UNESCO for preservation. Representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs include Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers, Shouting the Rice-Transplanting Song, Sister Liu and Frightening the Eagle. The composing and singing of Chaohu folk songs have gone on without interruption and won many prizes in performances in the province and the country, giving them an important place among Anhui folk songs. Chaohu folk songs are an art form loved by the people of Chaohu, and carrying on and promoting them has important practical significance for enriching the people's cultural life.
Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs, sung in 1955 in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai.
Shouting the Rice-Transplanting Song
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
Sister Liu
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
Frightening the Eagle
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
The Three Great Categories of Work Chantey, Mountain Song and Short Tune
The generic classification of Chaohu folk songs, complete in kind and rich in content.
Improvising by “Sighting the Wind and Willowing”
The creative method of singing whatever one sees and wherever one goes.
Pieces Included in the Anhui Volume of the Compendium of Chinese Folk Songs
The one hundred and eleven Chaohu folk songs included in the Anhui volume of the Compendium of Chinese Folk Songs.
Singing of Chaohu Rice-Transplanting Songs and Lake Fishing Songs
The occasions of folk-song singing in the production and life of rice transplanting and fishing in the polder districts along the lake.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Chaohu folk songs circulate mainly in Chaohu city of Anhui and the surrounding Wuwei, Lujiang and Hanshan districts and may be divided by genre into the three great categories of work chantey, mountain song and short tune; the rice-transplanting songs and fishing songs of the polder districts along the lake and the mountain songs of the hill country each have their own character, forming a circle of folk-song singing centred on the lake.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Over the years the relevant departments have collected and sorted more than a thousand native folk songs, of which more than five hundred have been included in various song collections. To study the history of Chaohu folk songs is to trace the vestiges of Chaohu's historical changes, with far-reaching historical significance; to study their subjects and formal features can to some extent advance the study of the history of Anhui folk song and of Chinese folk music. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Li Jialian, female, Han, born December 1954, a native of Chaohu city, Anhui. Thereafter she studied while learning to sing folk songs. According to the character of her voice she absorbed and drew on the singing methods of xiqu, her timbre becoming richer and forming her own distinctive singing style. In addition she sings Chaohu folk songs in dialect, with clear articulation and a rich rustic flavour. The Chaohu folk songs she sings have a high and broad vocal range and a pure, round, clear and sweet timbre. She is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, Chaohu folk songs. In childhood she learned the Chaohu rice-transplanting song from Zou Zhulian, the second-generation bearer of Chaohu folk song. She has trained and instructed more than a thousand students.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Jialian 05-2037
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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