Historic recording of Abing 阿炳 performing "Han Chun Feng Qu"《寒春风曲》 in 1950

Historic recording of the blind Chinese musician Hua Yanjun (华彦钧; b. August 18, 1893-d. December 4, 1950), better known by his nickname Abing (阿炳), performing his "Han Chun Feng Qu"《寒春风曲》(Cold Spring Wind Piece), for solo erhu (二胡), a Chinese fiddle with two strings. Recorded using a wire recorder by Cao Anhe (曹安和, 1905-2004) and Yang Yinliu (杨荫浏, 1899-1984) in Abing's native city of Wuxi, beginning at 7:30 p.m. on September 2, 1950. In late August 1950 Cao and Yang, both natives of Wuxi who were professors at the Central Conservatory of Music, had expressed interest in recording Abing, whose playing they regarded highly, but who had at that point not been playing music for more than two years. The erhu used in the recording was provided by Yang's student, the Wuxi guqin player Zhu Shikuang (祝世匡, 1914-2004), due to the poor condition of Abing's own instrument, the snakeskin of which had been punctured by the handle of a rickshaw and the bow hair of which had been bitten through by rodents. After practicing for three days, Abing found that he was ready for the recording session. In this session Abing recorded three erhu solos, the other two being "The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring" (Er Quan Ying Yue, 二泉映月) and "Listen to the Pines" (Ting Song, 听松); and three solos for the pipa: "Great Waves Washing the Sand" (Da Lang Tao Sha, 大浪淘沙), "Dragon Boat" (Long Chuan, 龙船), and "Zhaojun Goes to the Frontier" (Zhaojun Chu Sai, 昭君出塞). Of these, "The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring" and "Great Waves Washing the Sand" are regarded as enduring classics of China's musical repertoire. After recording these pieces, Abing shared with Cao and Yang his wish to record for them his favorite piece, "Three Variations of 'Plum Blossoms'" (Mei Hua San Nong, 梅花三弄; probably another name for the Jiangnan sizhu piece that is better known as "San Liu"), and told them that he could also record a further 300 pieces in his repertoire, but unfortunately Yang had not brought enough spools of wire to record more than the six selections recorded that day. In September 1950 the Central Conservatory of Music planned to hire Abing as an instructor, but this project never came to reality because of a lack of funds to cover his medical expenses. On September 25, 1950 Abing gave his first and only official public performance, sponsored by the Wuxi Fine Arts Association (无锡雅艺协会), at the organization's inaugural meeting in Wuxi. Just three months later, on December 4, 1950 (and before any further recordings of his playing could be made), Abing died at the age of 57. "Er Quan Ying Yue"《二泉映月》(The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring), a 1979 Chinese dramatic film about the life of Abing:    • 《二泉映月》/ Moonlight on Second Spring 瞎子阿炳苦难的...   More information: https://www.thn21.com/teach/55702.html