Hsien Hsing-hai (1905-30 September 1945), French-trained composer. He combined music and leftist politics in such compositions as the National Symphony and War in a Noble Cause.
The son of a Cantonese boat worker, Hsien Hsing-hai was born in P'anyü, Kwangtung. His father died before Hsien was born, and in 1911 Hsien's mother emigrated with her son to ^Malaya. Hsien received his early education there; he studied at Chinese schools and for one year (1915-16) at a British school where he learned some English.
Hsien returned to Canton in 1918 and entered the middle school attached to Lingnan University. By working at various jobs he managed to support himself while studying in the music department at Lingnan, and he was graduated in 1924. He then taught at Lingnan until 1926, maintaining his part-time jobs. In 1926 he Went north to Peking University, where he specialized in violin and theory of composition. He held a part-time job in the library. In 1927 he enrolled in the new Shanghai Conservatory of Music, but w'as expelled on political grounds. At that time, he was associated with the Xan-kuo-she, led by T'ien Han (q.v.). In 1930, under the sponsorship of Sitson Ma (Ma Ssu-ts'ung), a Cantonese violinist who had then recently returned from study in France, Hsien Hsing-hai went to Paris. There, despite continuing financial difficulties, he continued his musical studies under such teachers as 'incent dTndy and Paul Dukas. .After returning to China in 1935, Hsien worked for two film companies and began to compose songs. Among his early efforts were "The Athletic Meet" and "Far-away Siberia," both with words by T'ien Han; "War Song," with words by Fu Shih; and "Midnight ]Music" and "Youth Advances," both composed while working for the Hsin-hua Film Company in 1936. During this period he also started work on his first symphonic composition.
After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, Hsien Hsing-hai joined a patriotic group that was touring China to boost morale and mobilize support for the war effort. In 1938 he went to Yenan, the Chinese Communist wartime capital, and became the director of the music department of the Lu Hsün Academy. In 1938 Hsien composed an opera, Chün-min chin-hsing ch'ti [army and people advance]. In 1939 he produced Huang-ho ta-ho-ch'ang [yellow river cantata] and Sheng-ch' an ta-ho-chang [production cantata]. The second composition was a combination of song, dance, and drama, and it drew heavily on Chinese folk sources. It was written as part of a major production campaign launched in the Communist-controlled areas of China in 1939.
In 1940 Hsien Hsing-hai left Yenan for Russia to continue his musical studies. There he completed his National Symphony, which he had begun in 1936. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 inspired Hsien's final work, a symphony which he called War in a Noble Cause. He died of tuberculosis at Moscow in 1945. Hsien Hsing-hai's second symphony was given its premiere at Peking in 1960 to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of his death. It was played by the student orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music, conducted by Huang Fei-li. Despite increasing tension between the Communist party leaders at Peking and Moscow, Hsien's symphony was lauded as an effective musical portrayal of the surge of Soviet national resistance in the face of the Nazi invasion. The work is a typical example of music written in accordance with the political requirements laid down in the Chinese Communist artistic manifesto proclaimed in 1942 at Yenan, and its performance at Peking in 1960 was hailed as an important musical event.
Hsien Hsing-hai was one of a small group of composers in the Western idiom to achieve some reputation in China before the Sino-Japanese war. His name was generally linked in China with that of Xieh Erh (q.v.), the two men being assigned to the category of "pioneers of proletarian music."
