PINGTAN - XU LIXIAN
Monography on the art of traditional singing part 1
评弹 - 徐 丽 仙
唱腔艺术专辑（一）
China Record, 1984, HD-148
This is what seems to be the first tape of a series about traditional chinese singing.The style we can listen to here is the Pingtan also known as Suzhou Pingtan and typical of Southern China. It is said that it was created under the Song dynasty and it mixes different narrative musical traditions. There is a bit of acting, joking, talking provided by the musicians and singer. Xu Lixian on the cover has a tea mug in hand probably to remind us that tea houses are the places where you can listen to that style. But it is also broadcasted on radio and TV. String instruments dominate with the lutes pipa and sanxian. Pingtan is a lovely style with a sweet and relaxed way of singing as in other southern styles. There are 6 songs (titles in pinyin) : on side A ''xin mulan ci'', du shi niang shu zhuang'', ''xiao mama de fan nao'', side B ''dai yu zang hua'', ''wang kui fu gui ying'', ''luo han qian hui yi''.
Notes in Chinese included if you can read it.
Many thanks for the post, this tape is absolutely incredible! It's stated in the liner notes that Xu Lixian was a famous actor and musician born in 1928 and that she began studying art with her adoptive mother at the age of nine.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this information. So you can read Chinese !
DeleteI really like this kind of style which sounds essentially Chinese to my ears. I wish I could get more music from Xu Lixian...
Some of her recordings are available on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=徐丽仙
DeleteThis style is new to my ears too, I think I had seen it once on a video but never really on a full album/tape. And thankfully, you've expanded my horizons on Chinese music with this cassette. : )
Here's a tip; you can try to use an OCR (Optical character recognition) if you ever find yourself struggling with foreign-script scans or anything like that. I personally use Yandex, it isn't perfect but does the job really well for what it is. https://translate.yandex.com/ocr
Thanks very much for your time and good advice !
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