Some people say that the erhu has only two strings that depend on each other, so the sound is sad and moving. When listening to the Erhu song "Moon Reflected on Two Springs", I feel extremely sad. Beyond the sadness is infinite loneliness, calmness, and unwillingness. Just like the title of the song, the bright moon is reflected on the lake, which is extremely calm. Only when the wind blows, the lake surface ripples. , crumpling the moonlight. This desolate and moving piece with repeated ups and downs, which can make people burst into tears after hearing the first note, carries the suffering and vicissitudes of the life of the blind musical genius A Bing.
The sad first half of life
The greatest sorrow in the world is that one is born without a complete family. A Bing was born in a Taoist temple in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. His original name was Hua Yanjun. His father was Hua Qinghe, the Taoist priest in charge of the Taoist temple. However, due to his mother's low status, Hua Qinghe could not recognize the child, so his mother had to take him to make a living elsewhere and live a homeless life.
When A Bing was four years old, his mother had no choice but to end her own life, ending a life full of suffering and discrimination from the world. When he was eight years old, he was sent to live with his biological father. Hua Qinghe did not recognize the child after eight years of separation and only taught him to call him Master. And A Bing also thought that Master was just Master. He became a Taoist priest at a Taoist temple and attended private school for three years. He then learned erhu, pipa, flute, drum and other musical instruments from his father who was good at Taoist music.
Little A Bing inherited his father’s musical genes and showed musical talent since he was a child. The process of learning a musical instrument was always arduous. His father had high demands on him and made him undergo rigorous training every day. For example, he had to stand at the wind outlet to practice playing the flute, and he also hung a weight on the end of the flute to enhance his wrist strength. When I was learning Erhu, I often got bloody marks on my hands and developed thick calluses. His subsequent excellence in playing was inseparable from his hard practice at that time. At the age of seventeen, he was able to participate in Taoist music performances and was deeply loved by the audience.
At the age of twenty-one, before his death, Hua Qinghe told A Bing his true life experience in front of the hospital bed, and allowed him to inherit the position of Taoist priest of the Taoist temple, and he was in charge of it together with his cousin *** Taoist temple. When A Bing learned the truth, he was shocked and filled with sadness. He was actually an illegitimate child, and the master who taught him carefully and respected him for many years was actually his father who had abandoned him for many years.
A Bing, a young man without parental discipline and full of sadness, became numb inside and became cynical. He sat in the position of a Taoist priest, but he smoked opium, wandered in the flower streets and willow alleys, indulged in gambling, ignored the property left by his father, and lived a dissolute life all day long.
An absurd life will bring absurd results. Because of his unclean self-love and addiction to prostitution, A Bing contracted syphilis, which invaded his organs and caused him to become blind. And he had been squandering the Taoist temple's property, and the property fell into his hands. After losing control of the Taoist temple, A Bing lives on the streets.
Street performer
A Bing is blind and penniless, but fortunately he still has a unique skill and the music he loves. He no longer degenerates and chooses to make a living as a street performer. He never begged. He wore a tattered but clean gown, blind sunglasses, and a hat. He held an erhu, with a flute on the left and an allegro on the right. The sound of music and rap echoed in the streets of Wuxi. Make a living doing this. A folk artist who called himself "Blind A Bing" was born.
The life of a street performer is not so smooth either. A Bing apparently robbed the beggars of their jobs and was often bullied by the beggars. Fortunately, Wuxi detective chief Xue Furui was willing to stand up for A Bing, so he was safe and sound.
A Bing sometimes performs as a entertainer on the boat. The boatmen sympathize with him and never charge him for a ticket. Abing's music echoed on the moonlit boat, adding vitality to the boring and long journeys. Passengers on the ship were often immersed in Abing's playing, so fascinated that they missed their stop. In 1929, A Bing married the widow Dong Caidi. After having a family, A Bing worked hard to survive as a performer. Many moving music were composed during his career as a performer.
Soon after, the Anti-Japanese War broke out and Wuxi was occupied by the Japs. A Bing followed his wife and brother-in-law to the countryside to seek refuge for a while. After returning to Wuxi, A Bing sang in a place far away from the city center. When going into the city at night and returning home, I would rather take the long way into the city at night with the remaining vision of my blind eyes than take a shortcut and meet the Japanese who always ask him to play two pieces of music. He is a person who is poor but ambitious.
A Bing survived in the cracks, but his health was deteriorating and he also contracted lung disease, which prevented him from performing on the streets and earning a little money by repairing pianos at home. Fortunately, God did not let him spend his whole life like this.
Referred to as the "Chinese version of Beethoven"
When A Bing has nothing to do at home, he teaches neighbor children to play musical instruments. Li Songshou, a professor at Nanjing Normal University, was a neighbor of A Bing when he was a child. He has been interested in the erhu since he was a child and was often tutored by A Bing. When Li Songshou grew up, he was admitted to the Department of Folk Music. One of his teachers was Professor Yang Yinliu from the Central Conservatory of Music.
One day, Li Songshou casually played an erhu piece outside the piano room, which caught Yang Yinliu's attention. He thought it was excellent folk music. The teacher asked Li Songshou what song it was, and Li Songshou said it was taught by a folk artist. Yang Yinliu proposed to visit this folk artist and record the song he played, so the two made an appointment to visit him in Wuxi. This piece of music later became "The Moon Reflected in Two Springs".
At that time, A Bing had not practiced piano for several years. After hearing the purpose of his visit, he practiced repeatedly for several days and carefully recorded the "Er Quan Ying Yue" and several other songs that we hear now. Erhu music, pipa music. According to Li Songshou's recollection, the recording of "Er Quan Ying Yue" was not A Bing's best. It was cold at that time and his hands were stiff. In addition, A Bing was in poor health and his hands were not strong enough, so his playing was not as good as before.
On September 25, 1950, A Bing performed on stage for the first and last time in his life. It was at a small theatrical performance in Wuxi. He supported his sick body on the stage and played his favorite song. The erhu song "Er Fountain Reflects the Moon" has been played countless times, and everyone in the audience became emotional after listening to it. On December 4, 1950, A Bing died at home. His life was fixed at the age of 57, and his unique skills were buried in the loess with him. When he passed away, his wife happened to go back to the countryside, and there was no one around her. She was born alone and died alone.
Abing’s unique skill is not only his ability to play the erhu and pipa to perfection, but also his erhu ability. It can imitate various sounds and tell stories and current events while playing, perfectly matching the music. Language and music match each other, and both can be done perfectly. It was very popular in Wuxi at that time. In 1959, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the piece "Er Quan Ying Yue" to international friends as a representative of my country's traditional folk music. This erhu piece has since been widely circulated internationally. Abing is called "China's Beethoven", and "The Moon Reflects on Two Springs" is called China's "Destiny".
A Bing is indeed similar to Beethoven. He is talented and endures many hardships, but does not succumb to them. One is blind in both eyes and the other is deaf in both ears. As a musician, both have their own sensory deficits, which is inevitably a kind of misfortune. But it was their misfortune that made them create gripping works in the midst of difficulties that are worthy of being passed down through the ages. He is an amazing artist. We can only listen to the ups and downs of this great artist's life filled with love and longing in each song.