Chinese Musician—Xian XinghaiXian Xinghai (June 13, 1905 – October 30, 1945) was a Chinese composer. Although he composed in all the major musical forms (two symphonies, a violin concerto, four large scale choral works, nearly 300 songs and an opera), he is best known for his Yellow River Cantata upon which the Yellow River Concerto for piano and orchestra is based.Early life and educationBorn in Macau with ancestry from Panyu(番禺) into a poor sailor family, Xian Xinghai started learning the clarinet(竖笛) in 1918 at the YMCA charity school attached to the Lingnan University in Guangzhou. In 1926 he joined the National Music Institute at Peking University to study music and in 1928 he entered Shanghai National Music Conservatory to study violi n and piano. The same year he published his well-known essay The Universal Music. In 1929 he went to Paris under government sponsorship and two years later he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory to study composition with both Vincent D'Indy and Paul Dukas. During this period he composed Wind, Song of a Wanderer, Violin Sonata in D Minor, and other works.Musical careerXian returned to China in 1935. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), he wrote vocal works that encouraged the people to fight the Japanese invaders, including Saving the Nation, Non-Resistance the Only Fear, Song of Guerrillas, The Roads Are Opened by Us, The Vas t Siberia, C hildren of the Motherland, Go to the Homefront of the Enemy, and On the Taihang Mountains, among others. In 1938 he became dean of the Music Department at Lu Xun Institute of Arts in Yan'an. It is at this time that he composed the famous Yellow River Cantata and the Production Cantata.In 1940 Xian went to the Soviet Union( 苏 联 ) to compose the score of the documentary film Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army. Before departure Mao Zedong invited him to dinner. In 1941 the German invasion of the Soviet Union disrupted his work and he attempted to return to China by way of Xinjiang but the local anti-communist warlord, Sheng Shicai, blocked the way and he got stranded in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan. It was here that he comp osed the symphonies Liberation of the Nation and Sacred War, and the suites Red All Over the River and Chinese Rhapsody for winds and strings. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis due to overwork and malnutrition. After the war, Xinghai went back to Moscow for medical treatment but could not be completely cured and died in O ctober, 1945 in a hospital nearby the Moscow Kremlin at the age of 40.
