The Cowherd’s Flute

Composer: HE Luting
  • Mutong duandi (The Cowherd’s Flute) is a piece for piano which He Luting composed in 1934.1
  • This composition won He the first prize in a 1934 competition, “Invitation for Chinese Style Piano Compositions,” which was sponsored by the Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin. (Tcherepnin, who was married to Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming, wanted to support Chinese musicians writing in a national style.)2
    • He also won second prize in the same competition with his composition Lullaby.
  • The title can also be translated “Buffalo Boy’s Bamboo Flute.” It portrays a young boy tending his herd of buffalo, riding one, playing a flute. He Luting grew up on a farm in Hunan and would have been familiar with this pastoral scene.3

Sources

  1. Frank Kouwenhoven, “He Luting,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 7, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000049472.
  2. Liner notes to He: Buffalo Boy’s Bamboo Flute, Shanghai Orchestra, Cao, Peng; Wang, Yong-ji, Naxos 82082, CD, 2001.
  3. Ibid.

Cut IDs

45604