"Sheng Bao" Research On Li Jinhui's Music History

Shenpao founded by a British businessman,Ernest Major in Shanghai,1872 and having stopped its publication since 1949 had lasted for 77 years in total.As a newspaper with the longest issue dates and the largest social influence in modern China,Shenpao can be said to be a “treasury of historical materials” and an“encyclopedia” of our modern history.There was also a large amount of performance information of music and movie published in Shenpao,and the special columns for free speech had been opened up to satisfy the needs of entertainment and expressions in people's life,as it was rich in the historical materials of music as well.Various kinds of news,comments,policy papers,music score,pictures about music,and quantities of performance ads every day had comprehensively presented the features of musical activities in Shanghai at that time.The musical creation by Li Jinhui was taking children's musicals,home love songs and patriotic songs as the principal things,as most of the themes of his children's musicals reflected the life of children,used the fairy tales or myths loved by children to make the flowers and plants,insects and beasts personated,make the nature become life-oriented as the true portrayal of the real life.The inflection point of the development of children's musicals by Li Jinhui was during the Frugality Movement in Shanghai,while the Frugality & Savings Society engaged Li Jinhui to guide the musical and lead the rehearsal for performance.Thanks to being well-funded,Li Jinhui's requirements to performance had become more and more strict,and then the reflection from the masses had become better and better,as his position in the field of children's musical had been fixed.Exploration and practices for Li Jinhui's creation of modern pop songs were of pioneering significance to the folk music in urban area.There were a large quantity and miscellaneous categories of pop songs created by Li Jinhui,as the creating date of the first pop song Drizzle has been controversial,but it can be deduced as the date before November 12,1926 from the earliest report about Drizzle in Shenpao.The music compositions by Li Jinhui not only have solemn,righteous ones such as March of the Volunteers,Brave & Healthy Youth,Souvenir For Mr.Sun Yat-sen,but also the ones full of sympathy and pity of humanity such as Poor Chiu-hsiang,Song of Winter Clothing.There are certainly more “home love songs” or “popular songs”called as “decadent music” and denounced by most people.The patriotic songs created by Li Jinhui are really rich in both musical forms and themes.We have to admit that the patriotic songs created by him have had great influence on some musicians and even the whole generation.“Pop song” is a musical form,and “patriotic song” is a creative theme,as the former belongs to the form category,and the latter belongs to the content category.Both are not inconsistent.Li Jinhui had just illustrated his patriotism with the musical form of “pop song”,and two expression forms of both “calling for patriotism directly” and “dedicate and lyrical patriotism starting from the life”.