Xinhua News Agency, Lanzhou, February 17 -
Topic: playing the guitar music of ancient and modern - Macheng Hu Dunhuang murals musical instrument recovery story
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Yujie
The room numbers are Dunhuang, Rome, Byzantium. There are Sheng, Ruan, and 箜篌 in the showroom, and copies of Dunhuang murals are hung on the walls.
Walking into the cultural and creative workshop of the Silk Road in Gansu is like embarking on a journey through the ancient Silk Road.
Ma Chenghu, 35, is the general manager of Wenchuang Workshop.
He studied in the UK, where he felt the charm of the cultural and creative industry.
As soon as he took office in 2018, he received a "traveling" task-restoring musical instruments in Dunhuang murals.
The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, built since 366 AD, are known as the encyclopedia of ancient society.
According to expert statistics, there are more than 6000 musical instruments in the Dunhuang murals.
The rebounding pipa dancer Lotte is the "Dunhuang look" in many people's minds.
"To make the musical instruments in the murals'live', it requires both experts who have devoted themselves to research, but also a good craftsman who can make musical instruments. We need to be a'bridge' to transform the results." Ma Chenghu said.
The Ma Chenghu team had in-depth communication with Zheng Ruzhong, a research librarian of the Dunhuang Academy who focuses on the study of Dunhuang music and dance.
Since the 1980s, Zheng Ruzhong has been trying to restore musical instruments.
"Now that Teacher Zheng is very old, our restoration of musical instruments is not only to inherit Teacher Zheng's academic dream, but also a kind of rescue protection." Ma Chenghu said.
How difficult is it to restore the ancient musical instruments in the murals!
Yangzhou, Jiangsu, Lankao, Henan, Raoyang, Hebei... the famous musical instrument production bases all over the country have left the footsteps of these young people.
Lack of precedents, inability to mass produce, and difficulty in both sound and shape, the piano masters repeatedly rejected it.
The most difficult instrument to recover is Lace Ruan.
This lost instrument recorded in Cave 220 of Mogao Grottoes has a seven-petal arc on the edge of the resonance box, like a blooming flower.
After several inquiries, they found Tian Bugao, a zither development expert in Yangzhou.
What they didn't expect was that Tian Bugao took out a few yellowed letterheads.
It turned out that Zheng Ruzhong communicated with him more than 30 years ago, hoping that he would make the musical instruments in the murals into real objects.
Due to the shortage of funds and other reasons, although the rebuilt musical instrument was similar in appearance, it could not be played.
Over the past 30 years, Tian Bugao was very moved to see the continuous efforts of generations to restore the musical instruments in the Dunhuang murals, and he did not hesitate to take on the "porcelain work" that no one else would take.
He almost stopped normal work in the factory, mobilized the most experienced piano masters, searched for the most suitable wood materials, and repeated trial production.
"It is very laborious and laborious to make lace Ruan. The arc-shaped resonance box cannot be used with a robot car, only a little hand-planed." Ma Chenghu said.
On a heavy rainy day in August 2018, a cart carrying restored musical instruments came to Dunhuang Art Museum.
The boxes were opened one by one, and the musical instruments in the murals appeared one after another, including the most difficult musical instrument-Lace Ruan.
"Too shocking! There are 2 sets of 97 kinds of 245 musical instruments in 4 categories of plucking, blowing, percussion, and stringing. They are almost exactly the same as those in the mural, and the sound is very good." Ma Chenghu said.
Zheng Ruzhong, who has inflexible legs and feet, kept saying "thank you" every time he watched and auditioned from morning to night.
The art workers of the Dunhuang Academy have painted fresco images on the musical instruments to add "Dunhuang charm" to the musical instruments.
In September 2018, at the 3rd Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo, the "Dunhuang Mural and Ancient Musical Instrument Restoration Exhibition" surprised the audience as soon as it appeared.
Qin, zheng, se, pipa, 箜篌, 筚篥... When the musical instruments appearing in these poems, books and murals reappeared, the audience was amazed.
In January 2019, these musical instruments played at the Vienna Chinese New Year Concert.
The grandeur and beauty of the Silk Road are shown to foreign friends in the form of music.
Looking back at the restoration experience of Dunhuang murals and ancient musical instruments, Ma Chenghu said that the work done by the team is more like "translation"-telling the ancient Dunhuang to the people today and the heavy Dunhuang to the public.
“We use market-oriented means to transform the academic achievements of researchers into cultural products that the public love to hear. While telling the story of Dunhuang, we also promote exhibitions, performing arts and other commercial activities.” He said.
Nowadays, projects such as the restoration of "sacred beasts" in the Dunhuang murals are being incubated in the cultural and creative workshop.
Ma Chenghu said that the young people who have returned to study abroad have unique advantages in promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese excellent traditional culture.
“We have been immersed in Chinese culture since we were young, and we have expanded our horizons and increased our skills abroad. In the process of creative transformation, we use multiple perspectives and learn to'rebound the pipa' from the market perspective, so that everyone can better understand the splendid East Culture." he said.