八十奋斗战犹酣——吕远音乐会随想

An 80-Year-Old Artist Who Has Been Working Ceaselessly: Some Reflections on the Concert of Music by Lu Yuan

吕远和我是同时代人，比我年长，是我的老朋友，我还在默默无闻的青年时期，他已经是成名的作曲家了。近一个多月在《中国艺术报》、《中国文化报》、《北京晚报》、《音乐周报》上连续看到将召开他的音乐会的报道，并且是由全国总工会等重要单位主办，在人民大会堂演出，我由衷地为这位年届八十并取得辉煌成就的作曲家、老朋友感到高兴。但一直没人和我联系，也没有接到参加音乐会的邀请，终于4月29日11点半接到吕远的电话，邀我下午一点半在人民大会堂西门见面。

Lu Yuan and I were contemporaries in youth. A little older than me, and an old friend of mine, he had already been a renowned composer when I was still an unknown young man. Recently, for over a month, I have read news on major newspapers about his forthcoming concert to be held at the Great Hall of the People. I certainly feel glad from the very bottom of my heart at such great achievements that my old friend, the 80-year-old accomplished composer Lu Yuan has made so far. The concert, entitled ″Our Life Is Full of Sunshine: The Concert of Works by the 80-Year-Old Lu Yuan″, features Lu Yuan's works over a period of 55 years from 1954 to 2008, many of which are so famous songs that they have been enjoying great popularity in China over these years. Being a diligent composer, he has created, apart from the works performed at the concert, many great works in forms of operas, musical and dance dramas, sound track music for films and TV dramas, and symphonies. Lu Yuan's music is characterized by its distinctive style of vivid, ethnic melody, which forms a perfect combination of ethnic nature and modern life of social reality. ″ The Bright Moon on August 15 in Lunar Calendar″ is just one of such examples. He has shown in his works his love for his motherland. He was born in the old China, and experienced the Liberation War and witnessed the founding of the new republic. Out of his own experiences in the great changes in the country, he composed such passionate songs as ″ Song of Constructers″, ″Where Does the Street Vendor Come From″, and ″Song of Kelamayi″, all of which pay a tribute to the construction of a new nation. With his profound understandings of the new society and all the difficult historical times, he cherishes more the new life after the beginning of reforms and opening up to the outside world, and hence he uttered his eulogies in his songs such as ″Our Life Is Full of Sunshine″, ″Our Tomorrow Will Be Sweeter Than Honey″, ″Song of Peony″ and ″The Spring Water Is Tinkling″. Lu Yuan's works were deeply based on real life. In his music career while working in the Art Troupe of the Ministry of Construction and later on in the Navy Political Department Art Troupe, he had been keen on going deep into social reality. Many of his outstanding works actually originated from his personal experience in real life. He has been doing so even after the beginning of the reform and opening drive, regardless of his old age. When I was working with the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body, I often paid inspection visits to some cities and large-scale enterprises, and I frequently heard that Lu Yuan had been there and had composed suites of songs for such important construction projects as the Three Gorges Dam and Dayawan Nuclear Power Plant. This is the very reason why his works are so lively, vivid and full of vitality. Lu Yuan is a versatile artist. In the second half of the concert I heard two Japanese songs which he translated from Japanese into Chinese, making them popular in China. This reminds me of my previous visit to Japan in 2002 with a Chinese musicians' delegation. Although we had an official interpreter, it was Lu Yuan who made the oral interpretation at the seminar on Dan Ikuma's operas and during my speech as head of the delegation. His translation was excellent, with such vivid language that won appraisal from our Japanese friends. He has excellent knowledge of Japanese language, and he is also versed in Chinese language. He had published his collections of poems and essays in his early years with considerably high artistic level. Of all the songs in this concert, 12 have lyrics written by himself. He is also a good violinist. He had once played my violin solo piece ″Yanko Dance″ that I composed in 1950. And I had no idea of that at all until he told me this during a conference of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles some years ago.