Inheritance And Innovation Of Erhu Works

Erhu is one of the most important Chinese musical instruments and nowadays itis still popular in people’s life though the culture is increasingly diversified. Erhucan be dated from Hae-geum in Tang Dynasty which was a ancient nationalminority’s string instrument in northern region and then it was gradually handeddown. The book Yue Shu written by Chen Yang in Song Dynasty wrote somethingabout Hae-geum. Kombu, which was recorded in Yuan Dynasty’s historical recordswas also similar to today’s Huqin. When fusing with ethnic instruments, Huqindeveloped into kinds of forms like Erhu, Jinghu, Pan-Hu and Kao-hu to satisfypeople’s demand for different music style. As to different culture backgrounds andliving environment,different instruments represents different society value though ininstruments like Huqin. For instance, Jinghu is in prominent position as it is China’squintessence, Peking opera’s main instrument. While Erhu is mainly popular intowns and countries, and it is often used by actors who are vagrants and beggars,which make erhu always in obbligato and develop slowly before20th century.After20th century, with the growth of nationalistic pride of Chinese, westernculture,western culture, especially the push of the May4th Movement impelled alarge number of the intelligentsia reconsidered and faced up to Chinese traditionalculture. Thus the introspection and reform movement to Chinese traditional culturewere gradually formed. Among which was reform on music, including the emergingof school songs and Society for the Promotion ofNational Music.These were all thesolid foundation for Erhu’s transformation and development. Erhu has a history ofhundreds of years, however, its rapid development emerged in20th century and thiseven exceeded the progress in the former hundreds of years. Erhu’s fortune haschanged thoroughly in20th century. Through the retrospection of the almost100-yeardevelopment of Erhu in20th century, much potential of the development of Chinesemusic would be realized. Lots of music workers are needed to create and bring aboutmusic, and during the process they not only need to absorb folk music deeply, but alsoextract the good parts of western culture.The development of technology of Erhu isinstruments themselves’ progress in human being’s development，which entertainsbecoming embryonic form, falling into a pattern gradually and finally tending toperfection. With the time flying, while the Erhu music retains the already art essence,development and reformation is also underway. Publishing of large new works, improving of performance skill, combing of traditional and modern creative technique,and blending of eastern and western music all push Erhu music’s development to gointo a new stage, which has formed the trend of diversification.This paper tries to make a detailed analysis of the development on the excellentcomposers, performers, and the developing progress of Erhu in the almost100years in20th century in chronological order.