What are the highlights of "The Hundred Birds"? Why did it win the World Silver Medal?
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The famous Northern suona song "A Hundred Birds Praying to the Phoenix" was initially just a few incomplete fragments, with an irregular structure, long and chaotic, and the folk artists improvised a lot of chickens, ducks and geese, and even dogs barking and horses neighing, in addition to imitating the birds' songs, making the theme not distinctive.
The master of the suona, Ren Tongxiang, who introduced the piece to the world, participated in the National Folk Music Festival in 1953, when he played the traditional "Birds of Prey" with the sounds of birds, animals and people. When it came to the provincial selection, Ren Tongxiang accepted the suggestions of all parties, modified the musical phrases, removed the sounds that have nothing to do with the bird calls, added the swan, the yellow waxbill, the yellow finch, the bird calls of geese, increased the bird calls from a few to a dozen, formed the "Hundred Birds Toward the Phoenix" version 2.0, and with this version to participate in the National Folk Music Concert.
Master Ren Tongxiang performing
On the national stage, the song "A Hundred Birds Chanting for the Phoenix" came to the attention of Li Ling, a famous music critic, who told Ren Tongxiang to compress the original 15-minute piece, focusing his efforts on the creation of bird calls; and to emphasize the solo of the suona in the orchestra, blowing out the treble notes to highlight the layers.
Ren Tongxiang formed version 3.0 of "Birds of Prey" based on Li Ling's suggestions. In the same year, Ren Tongxiang took this version to the Fourth World Youth Gala Folk Music Competition held in Brest and won the silver medal. Two years later, he visited Myanmar with a Chinese cultural delegation and performed, and this "Hundred Birds Praying to the Phoenix" won the Myanmar National Gold Medal. From then on, this golden phoenix flew to the world.
By the 1970s, Ren Tongxiang and fellow suona player Chen Jiaqi collaborated to further develop the piece by adding an introductory section and using a cyclic breath-exchange technique in the solo suona phrases of the flashy section, which is to make a stepwise upward movement straight to the treble "2" in a continuous 32nd note double spit, and a cyclic breath-exchange, which is to make a stepwise upward movement straight to the treble "2 " for a cyclic air change, with extraordinary abandon and splendor. Finally, in 1975, Chen Jiaqi divided the 6 minutes 30 seconds long version 4.0 of "One Hundred Birds Towards the Phoenix" into eight sub-titles: "Tits Laughing, Spring Returns to the Earth, Warblers Singing and Swallow Dancing, Playing in the Forest, One Hundred Birds Towards the Phoenix, Joyful Singing and Dancing, Phoenix Spreading its Wings, and Wings Together in the Sky". After finishing, "The Hundred Birds Towards the Phoenix" has been widely circulated in China and is very popular among the audience.
The suona tune "A Hundred Birds Towards the Phoenix" is a compulsory piece in the teaching materials of major music colleges and universities, and is not like what is shown in the movie, in which the old performer passes on a single disciple and faces a lack of successors. Not only is there a version of this piece by Mr. Ren Tongxiang of Shandong, but there is also a version by Mr. Hao Yuqi of Henan, which has been adapted for the piano, so it can be said that a hundred flowers have blossomed.
Mr. Hao Yuqi playing the suona