Overview
Introduction
BLISSFUL NIGHT FOR STRING ORCHESTRA
The Chinese composer LIU Tianhua was born in 1895 in Jiangyin, Suzhou. After leaning both traditional Chinese and Western music during his youth, in 1922, he was hired as a music professor at the Peking University. In Beijing, he worked hard to reform traditional Chinese music in order to create a new national style, as he claimed, "It is necessary to introduce Western music to help to reform Chinese music. I will learn from Western music, incorporate polyphony, and use Western instruments, to pursue progress in composition." In 1927, he organized the Society of Reformation of National Music, taking part actively in modernizing traditional instruments, editing scores, and composing new music.
LIU Tianhua is known nowadays primarily for what he has contributed to the instrument erhu. He not only wrote several influential solo pieces, but also helped to redesign the instrument, and to develop pedagogy methods for it. The erhu piece Blissful Night, originally titled Little Song for New Year's Night , was based on an improvisation he made in the new year's night of 1928. This happy yet lyrical little piece became his most popular work and was later transcribed for the orchestra by the conductor HUANG Yijun.
