Liu Tianhua

Liu Tianhua

Liu Tianhua ( Chinese劉天華 / 刘天华; born February 4, 1895 in Chengjiang, Jiangyin , Jiangsu Province ; † June 8, 1932 in Beijing ) was a Chinese music teacher, musician , and one of the first to use Western composition techniques in traditionally improvised Chinese Applied music .

biography

Having grown up in a modern-minded family, Liu Tianhua came into contact with music in middle school and soon mastered some western wind instruments . After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 , he worked as a musician in an opera troupe and also learned to play the piano .

While working as a music teacher at a middle school in Changzhou , he got to know the folk music of Jiangnan and made it the new focus of his musical interest. With selected traditional masters he learned Erhu and Pipa , as well as the Qin in Henan . He began to collect traditional music and began to compose his own cough pieces.

In 1922, Liu Tianhua went to Beijing and taught at the newly established Music Institute ( Beijing Daxue Yinyue Chuanxi Suo ; Beijing University Institute for Music Tradition and Practice ). In addition to teaching Western and Chinese music, he continued to collect folk music and wrote pieces for traditional instruments that incorporated the structures of Western music.

At 37, he died of a likely misdiagnosed disease.

literature

• Qin Qiming: "Liu Tianhua Nianpu", in: Yiyuan , 1987, no. 3, pp. 30-37.
• Wong, Isabel KF "From Reaction th Synthesis: Chinese Musicology in the Twentieth Century", in: Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology (Nettl, Bruno; Bohlman, Philip Vilas ( Philip V. Bohlman ), eds .) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 37-55. 42f.
• Yuan Jinfang: "Shilun Liu Tianhua de Yishusixiang he Chengjiu (" (-) Liu Tianhua Xiansheng de Shengping ")", in: Minzu yinyue lunwenji ( Yinyue Lilun Wencong Di'er Ji ), Zhongguo Yinyyue Jiaqiehui Tianjin Jingha Chang, 1982, July, p. 23f.

Web links

• Liu Tanhua at Radio China International

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Isabel KF Wong, From Reaction to Synthesis: Chinese Musicology in the Twentieth Century in Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology, eds .: Bruno Nettl, Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 42

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Liu is the family name here, Tianhua is the first name.