Basic features

Comfortable and natural rhythm

Cheerful melody

Thick harmony

Strong intensity

Fast speed

Tone: Musical timbre

Music language characteristics

The Little Sisters of the Grassland Heroes were written in 1972 by Wu Zuqiang, Wang Yanqiao and Liu Dehai. This pipa concerto is based on the heroic deeds of two Mongolian sisters, Long Mei and Yu Rong, who fought against a blizzard to protect their flocks. It shows the moving image of the new generation of the motherland who loves socialism, loves the collective, and has the courage to fight. The whole song is divided into five sections: ① Grazing on the grassland; ② Fighting against the snowstorm; ③ Going forward in the cold night; ④ The Party's care is in my heart; ⑤ Millions of red flowers are blooming everywhere. The theme of the music is fresh, lively, full of vitality, and has a strong color of Inner Mongolian folk music. Playing the pipa, a distinctive national musical instrument, brings to life the image of an innocent, lively and lovely little girl. In the second paragraph, the expression techniques and complex techniques commonly used when playing traditional martial arts on the pipa are fully used to vividly depict the scene of the little sisters fighting against nature. The fourth section is a cantabile and affectionate melody, played with a long four-finger wheel on the pipa, and at the same time, the concise tones played by picking the strings with the thumb are used as a background, which profoundly reveals the young protagonist's sincere feelings for the party. The music is in the form of a pipa concerto. On the one hand, it gives full play to the rich expressive power of the pipa, and at the same time, it uses the rich symphonic expressive means of the orchestra. The two are organically combined and complement each other. The music was first performed in 1974 and was performed twice in the United States in 1978 and 1979. It was praised by audiences at home and abroad.