Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo Music)

01 · Historical Records

During the Jialong reign period of the Ming, theatre musicians headed by Wei Liangfu created the shuimo style of Kunqu at Nanmatou in Taicang; at that time Zhang Yetang and others formed a full-scale silk-and-bamboo band which performed from gongche notation. By the end of the Wanli reign of the Ming, a new genre, the xiansuo, took shape in central Wu (the Suzhou region) and became the predecessor of Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo music. In the 1920s the well-known sizhu artist Wang Xunzhi founded the early Hangzhou Jiangnan sizhu organization, the Hangzhou National Music Society, at the Ling Society on the eastern foot of Gushan Hill by West Lake in Hangzhou, where traditional pieces were performed; the pieces the Society sorted and arranged soon reached Shanghai and other places, and had a considerable influence in the musical world. In the 1960s and 1970s, affected by the times, most traditional Jiangnan sizhu troupes disbanded of their own accord.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo music is the collective name for sizhu music popular in southern Jiangsu, western Zhejiang and the Shanghai region; it is named after the sizhu instruments its bands chiefly use, such as the erhu, yangqin, pipa, sanxian, qinqin, flute and xiao. In its later period sizhu music was played mainly by Kunqu troupes and by tangming drummers doubling on sizhu instruments, and in the course of long development it gradually gave rise to bands devoted to full-time sizhu playing. After that, Wang Xunzhi and the sizhu elder Cheng Wujia founded the Huaguang Music Society in Shanghai, opening a good period of exchange between the sizhu circles of Shanghai and Hangzhou; sizhu music was thereby developed further. Jiangnan sizhu melodies are beautiful and plain, fresh and pleasing to the ear, light and clear, ornate and elegant; its techniques are rich and varied and its changes are endless, insisting that “you make it complex, I keep it simple; you go high, I go low; ornamented variation, interlocking phrases that give way to one another, and free improvisation”, revealing an artistic style of “small, fine, light and elegant”. Jiangnan sizhu has a rich repertory; its traditional pieces are mainly Zhong Hua Liu Ban, San Liu, Xing Jie, Si He, Yun Qing and others.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Hangzhou Jiangnan sizhu began at the Ling Society on the eastern foot of Gushan Hill by West Lake; in the 1920s the sizhu artist Wang Xunzhi founded the Hangzhou National Music Society there, and the pieces sorted and arranged there soon reached Shanghai; later he founded the Huaguang Music Society in Shanghai together with Cheng Wujia, opening the exchange between the sizhu circles of Shanghai and Hangzhou. Zhejiang sizhu fuses the local flavour of Nanhui, Shanghai, with the folk music of Zhejiang; its timbre is ornate and mellow, sweet and flowing, forming a school of style rich in the local character of the Jiangnan water country.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo Music) · Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo Music).

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo music is an outstanding representative of the musical culture of the Jiangnan water country; its playing techniques and musical style are reserved and implicit, and embody a profound cultural content valuing humility and harmony; in the history of national music, in theatre and in folklore it has deep practical and theoretical research value. Today the old sizhu artists have died one after another, while very few traditional pieces are transmitted with their notation, so Jiangnan sizhu faces an ever deepening transmission crisis and a doubtful future, and urgently needs protection. Shen Fengquan (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Han, born in January 1934, a native of Shanghai city. A national first-class performer. He worked successively as an erhu player and as an erhu teacher at the Zhejiang Folk Song and Dance Ensemble and at the Zhejiang Art School. He merged the local flavour of the Shanghai Nanhui Jiangnan sizhu music inherited from his ancestors with the regional music of Zhejiang folk music, and elevated it by means of the modern erhu, giving it an ornate, mellow and sweet timbre rich in the local character of Jiangnan. In 1983 he went to Hong Kong with the Jiangnan sizhu ensemble of Hangzhou, China, to perform and to give lectures, and afterwards toured Beijing, Tianjin and other places with performances and lectures. In 1986 he held a summer course in Jiangnan sizhu and erhu. In 1992 he organised a half-year Jiangnan sizhu and erhu refresher course whose students came from the music colleges and arts troupes of Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Xi'an, Harbin and other places. Representative inheritor of Jiangnan sizhu in the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. In 1963 he won third prize in the first national erhu solo competition at “Spring in Shanghai” for playing Man San Liu.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Lu Chunling 02-0280
• Zhou Hao 02-0281
• Zhou Hui 03-0841
• Shen Fengquan 03-0842

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo Music) (Hangzhou, Zhejiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Shen Fengquan · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗