Piano Concerto “The Yellow River”

Composer: XIAN Xinghai
  • “The Yellow River” (or Huanghe) Concerto is adapted from Xian’s cantata of the same name, composed in 1939, with text by Guang Weiran.1
    • It is named for the Huanghe, or Yellow River, in China. The cantata is a patriotic work about the late 1930s war between Japan and China.
  • In 1969,2 Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) instructed a team of composers, including Yin Chengzong, to adapt Xian’s Yellow River into a piano concerto. This project was part of a broader effort to foster “revolutionary” art, or art that supported the ideals of the Chinese Communist party, during the Cultural Revolution.3
    • In addition to Yin Chengzong, the arranging team included Sheng Lihong, Chu Wanghua and Liu Zhuang.4
    • To prepare, Madame Mao instructed the arranging team to visit the Yellow River, go boating upon it, and interview local peasants regarding their experience of the war against Japan.5

[The concerto was to express ] “Chairman Mao’s concept of people’s war. To reflect this we broke with the western conventions that a concerto must consist of highly formalistic movements and decided to write four organically linked sections …

… Guided by Chairman Mao’s directive that we should make the past serve the present, make things foreign serve China, and evolve the new from the old, in the boatmen’s song we adapted the western cadenza technique to depict the tumultuous river and the boatmen’s victory over the rapids …

… We also made use of traditional techniques of such Chinese instruments as the zheng and the yangqin to enliven the melodies and bring out the youthful exuberance of the liberated area …

… Finally, at the suggestion of a soldier, we added melodies of The East is Red and The Internationale to evoke the splendid image of China’s working class and broad masses fighting for the liberation of all mankind on the side of the oppressed nations and peoples of the world.”

Yin Chengzong6
  • This work premiered in Beijing in 1970. Yin Chengzong appeared as piano soloist, with the Central Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, directed by Li Delun.7

Movements

  1. Yellow River Boatmen’s Song
  2. Ode to the Yellow River
  3. Wrath of the Yellow River
  4. Defend the Yellow River8

Sources

  1. Jonathan P.J. Stock, “Xian Xinghai,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 19, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000049320.
  2. Jonathan P.J. Stock, “Xian Xinghai,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 19, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000049320.
  3. Jindong Cai, Sheila Melvin, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (Ukraine: Algora Publishing, 2004), 263.
  4. “Yellow River: Piano Concerto,” Schott Music, accessed May 19, 2022, https://en.schott-music.com/shop/yellow-river-no265718.html.
  5. Cai, Melvin, Rhapsody in Red, 263.
  6. Yin Cheng-chung, “How the piano concerto “Yellow River” was composed,” Chinese Literature 11 (1974), 101-2.
  7. “Yellow River: Piano Concerto,” Schott Music, accessed May 19, 2022, https://en.schott-music.com/shop/yellow-river-no265718.html.
  8. “Yellow River: Piano Concerto,” Schott Music, accessed May 19, 2022, https://en.schott-music.com/shop/yellow-river-no265718.html.

Cut IDs

45602