(b Shanghai, 14 Sept 1921). Chinese dizi player. Lu Chunling worked initially as a trishaw driver in pre-liberation Shanghai. However, he was a keen amateur musician, becoming familiar with the Jiangnan sizhu folk ensemble repertory as a young man. In 1952, as part of the wave of nationalization following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949), Lu accepted a post as dizi soloist with the Shanghai National Instruments Orchestra (Shanghai minzu yuetuan).
From 1971 to 1976, Lu held a similar post at the Shanghai Opera Company (Shanghai gejuyuan). He joined the staff of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1957, receiving promotion to Associate Professor in 1978. Lu has made numerous recordings (he is recipient of Communist China’s first gold disc) and has taken part in many governmental cultural missions, performing in countries worldwide as well as throughout China. His personal performance style, disseminated through recordings, broadcasts and recitals and by his numerous pupils, has become representative of the Jiangnan dizi tradition in general.
Although he actively encouraged the study of traditional repertory, such as Jiangnan sizhu and folk pieces like Zhegu fei (‘Partridges Flying’) Lu Chunling has also contributed to the creation of a new repertory for his instrument. From 1957, Lu composed a succession of works celebrating the new social order and experimenting with new performance techniques. The first of the compositions, Jinxi (‘Today and Yesterday’), is a typical example: a ternary structure with bright outer sections containing a tragic central segment characterized by slides and acciaccaturas.
Jinxi: dizi duzouqu xuan [Today and yesterday: a selection of dizi solos] (Shanghai, 1960)
Lu Chunling dizi qu ji [Collected dizi pieces of Lu Chunling] (Beijing, 1982)
F.C. Lau: Music and Musicians of the Traditional Chinese Dizi in the People’s Republic of China (DMA diss., U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991), 54–7, 237–40
Zhongguo yinyue cidian xubian [Dictionary of Chinese music, supplementary vol.] (Beijing, 1992), 121–2
Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, ed.: Zhongguo zhudi mingqu huicui [Special selection of famous pieces for Chinese bamboo flute] (Shanghai, 1994), 44–70, 501–3
J.P.J. Stock: Chinese Flute Solos (London, 1994), 8–9, 16–19
Chine: musique classique, Ocora C 559039 (1988)
Special Collection of Contemporary Chinese Musicians, Wind Records CB-07 (1996)
Xi bao/Glad Tidings, with Shanghai minzu yuetuan, cond. Xia Feiyun, Hugo HRP 7148–2 (1996)
JONATHAN P.J. STOCK