(b Zhongshan, Guangdong, 1898; d Hong Kong, 1981). Chinese musician and composer. Along with musicians such as Qiu Hechou (Yau Hokchau) and He Dasha (Ho Daeso), Lü Wencheng was a prolific composer of the new style of instrumental music evolving in colonial Guangzhou (Canton), Hong Kong and Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s, influenced by Western jazz and the new film industry as well as traditional Cantonese styles. Brought up in Shanghai, Lü popularized the new Cantonese style with national tours and many recordings. In 1932 he moved to Hong Kong, where he continued to record prolifically.
Lü created a modified version of the erhu bowed fiddle called gaohu, using high positions and glissandos, which became a distinctive voice of the Cantonese ensemble. He was also a noted singer of Cantonese opera. Among his most popular instrumental pieces are Pinghu qiuyue (‘Autumn Moon over Lake Ping’) and Bubu gao (‘Stepping High’).
See also China, §IV, 4(i).
Huang Jinpei: Guangdong yinyue xinshang [Appreciation of Cantonese music] (Guangzhou, 1984)
S. Jones: Folk Music of China: Living Instrumental Traditions (Oxford, 1995, 2/1998 with CD), 344–63
Chinese Masterpieces for the Erhu, perf. Lui Man-sing and others, Lyrichord LLST7132 (c1960)
Lü Wencheng zuopin xuan [Selected works of Lü Wencheng], Zhongguo changpian she Guangdong fenshe SL-5 and SL-87 (1983)
Rain Dropping on the Banana Tree, Rounder CD 1125 (1996)
STEPHEN JONES