Ta Kung Pao June 10, 1967
Shachiapang:
China's First Revolutionary Symphony
Peking, June 6 (Hsinhua) — China has produced its first revolutionary symphony, "Shachiapang', which breathes the life and struggles of the worker, peasant and soldier masses. It makes an immediate impact on the audience which is sustained throughout. At the end, the listeners feel that they must go into action and that the people will triumph everywhere.
It is not intended, like western symphonies, to provide 'escape' from life or indulge private emotions or be an exercise in pure music'. It projects the hopes and struggle of the revolutionary masses through the musical form the Chinese people are most familiar with-Peking opera. There is recitative and acting in that style, plus all the arias from the Peking opera of the same name. In singing and melodies, the Chinese national flavour is retained, backed by accompaniment of Chinese instruments. Full-bodied development of harmony is provided through western orchestration and instruments.
'Shachiapang', composed by members of the Central Philharmonic Society, is based on the contemporary revolutionary Peking opera of the same name which presents, in dramatic form, Chairman Mao's concept of people's war. The story shows the triumph of armed revolution over armed counter-revolution in China's war of resistance to Japanese aggres- sion.
The creation of the symphony which intro- duces to the symphonic stage the heroic images of the revolutionary army and people nurtured by Mao Tse-tung's thinking testifies to what
Chairman Mao said in his famous 'Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art': "Today, anything that is truly of the masses must necessarily be led by the proletariat. Whatever is under the leadership of the bour- geoisie cannot possibly be of the masses' and We should take over the rich legacy and the good traditions in literature and art that have been handed down from past ages in China and foreign countries, but the aim must still be to serve the masses of the people'.
Response to the Era's
Demand
The society responded to the demand of the era-to create a symphony of the proletariat. The creation of the new symphony brought into sharpest focus the struggle that had been going on since the establishment of the society in 1956 over what road to follow in this field of music. The society was in the hands of Chou Yang and his counter-revolutionary re- visionist clique. They insisted on restricting the society's activity to the presentation of 18th and 19th century works from the west, saying that these represented the ultimate peak of achievement in the field and 'transcended classes',
From 1959 onwards, acting in coordination with the anti-China, anti-communist clamours, the revisionists openly used music for their own political ends. They presented Beetho ven's symphony No. 9 as an excuse to dis- seminate the ideas of class conciliation at a time when serious struggle against revisionism was taking place in the international arena. Re- ligious music, reactionary works by fascist
German 'authorities' who were in Hitler's pay, everything of this sort was acceptable to titem, and they insisted on the presentation of such items.
Revisionists Resist
Audiences protested, but the revisionists dis- missed their objections out of hand. They countered: 'How can the peasants understand
such music. It will take another twenty years
of elevation for them to reach this level'. While
trying to provide a haven for bourgeois music, they also clearly intended to corrupt the gen- eral population.
The top party person in authority taking the capitalist road backed them up. He said this was applying the policy 'let a hundred flowers blossom'. It is alright for diverse kinds of music to co-exist', he said.
They resisted Chairman Mao's criticism of the fact that 'many communists are enthusiastic about promoting feudal and capitalist art, but not socialist art. Chou Yang and his revision ist clique insisted that it was also 'revolution- ary' to perform such western music.
Chairman Mao Warns
In June 1964, Chairman Mao gave this warning to the Literary and Art Associations: 'Unless they remould themselves in real earn- est, at some future date they are bound to be come groups like the Hungarian Petofi Club'. In that same year, the first fruits of the re- volution in Peking opera and ballet, bastions of feudal and bourgeois culture, were harvest- ed. This encouraged revolutionary artists in the Philharmonic Society who wanted to make a revolution against the foreign and the dead in their field.
Ching, the steadfast standard bearer of revolu- On January 27, 1965, comrade Chiang
tion in literature and art, came to the society and called for the revolutionary transformation of the symphony. She listened to all the instru ments and then told the musicians 'you have very good weapons. They will surely be able to serve the people and the revolution'. The music of capitalism was doomed, she said. She urged the society not to follow it blindly to the grave. We must make our own road', she declared, and suggested that the Chinese symphony should base itself on Peking opera because it had rich content and its idiom was familiar to the Chinese masses. The symphony should be a weapon, as Chairman Mao said, to 'awaken the masses, fire them with enthu- siasm and impel them to unite and struggle to transform their environment'. It should be a soldier masses would welcome in their revolu revolutionary art that the worker, peasant and
tionary struggle.
Battle Lines Drawn
The battlelines were drawn, with the revo- lutionary members of the society supported by comrade Chiang Ching ranged against the counter-revolutionary revisionist clique in power. The revisionists, with the No. I party person in autohrity taking the capitalist road as their behind-the-scenes boss, used every trick in the bag to confuse the masses in the society and sabotage the creation of a revolu- tionary symphony.
The team received all-out support from re- volutionaries in the society who helped them with research and experimentation.
Firmly following Chairman Mao's directive to use the foreign to serve the Chinese and to weed through the old to create the new, the musicians concentrated on making the sym- phony serve proletarian politics. But Chou Yang rejected the class nature of a new, revo- lutionary music. He tried to divert this correct orientation, substituting his formula 'new
foreign and national.' things will emerge from the combination of
New Form and New Content
The revolutionaries persisted in their efforts to create a symphony with clear, open prole- tarian content. When the composition was ready, the revisionists used another trick.
They devised a heavy schedule of concerts that allowed no time for rehearsal of the new
work. When rehearsals finally did begin, they called in the tenor who was to sing the part of the hero and reminded him that his voice had been trained in the western style, which is quite different from Peking opera voice training. Pretending solicitude they said: This change in all likelihood will ruin your voice. You'd better think about this.' The singer retorted: 'I'm determined to sing the part. Revolutionary martyrs did not hesitate to give their lives to carry the revolution for- ward. I'm willing to risk my voice!'
It became clear to the artists in the course of the struggle that the aesthetic and artistic arguments raised against the new symphony were, in the final analysis, political opposition by those determined to keep a bourgeois art form intact. The opposition came from people
Aatly against a proletarian revolution and ser- vice to the worker, peasant and soldier masses.
Broad Road Ahead
Composition of the new symphony ‘Sha- chiapang' broke not only the political stranglehold of the revisionists but the dead weight of awe of the traditional and sterile forms of the bourgeois symphony. The new form is appropriate to the new content and presentation of proletarian heroes.
As Chairman Mao has said: 'the bourgeoi- sie always shuts out proletarian literature and art, however great their artistic merit.'
Worker, peasant and soldier audiences wel- come the new symphony 'Shachiapang'. Com- rade Chiang Ching has said: "This symphony is forceful. There is broad road before us. We will follow it without faltering'.
Foreign friend's visiting China, on hearing it, have said: "The direction of literature and art pointed out by Chairman Mao is the direc tion for the world's revolutionary literature and art'.
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