Liu Baoquan

Liu Baoquan

Liu Baoquan

(1869-1942), male, formerly known as Liu Shunquan, was born in Shenxian County, Hebei Province. Jingyun Dagu actor, founder of Liu school Jingyun Dagu. His works include more than 20 passages such as "the Great West Chamber".

Personal experience

Youth

Liu Baoquan

After studying in a private school at the age of seven, I like to listen to opera and learn to sing opera. At the age of nine, his family was exiled to Hebei Province. His father Liu Neng made a living by weaving paper and making dark clothes. He often learned to sing from Wang Qinghe, an artist of wooden drum. Liu Baoquan was deeply influenced and fell in love with the wooden drum. In order to make a living, father and son are performing together. Father sings. He plays the three string accompaniment and gradually learns to sing himself. At the age of 15, he was taught by the famous song Wu (song Yukun) in Tianjin. He continued to learn to sing the wooden drum and to play the pipa from the famous Pipa player Lu Wenkui. After the death of song Wu, he couldn't sing when his voice was "daocang". He was accompanied by Hu Shi (Hu Jintang) and Huo Liangliang, the famous wooden drum musicians. He was artistically guided by Han Yongzhong, the stringer of song Wu. When he was 18 years old, he went to Beijing with Han Yongzhong to sing wooden drum (commonly known as "timid Dagu" by Beijingers) at temple fairs, hall fairs and musicians in Fuxie street of Wang Guang. Later, he learned opera from sun Yuqing, an old Peking Opera student of Beijing Sixi troupe, and took the stage name Yuefen. He once went with sun to Shanghai for an official performance. Due to a mistake on the stage, he abandoned Peking opera after returning to Tianjin, and formally worshipped Hu Shi and Huo Mingliang as teachers to sing wooden drum. When Liu Baoquan was 21 years old, he went to Beijing to perform again. Tan Xinpei, a master of Peking Opera, listened to his singing, praised him, and instructed him to go to his hometown and change his timid voice. Bearing in mind the instruction, he tried to figure out the charm and manner of famous Peking opera singers such as Tan Xinpei, sun Juxian and Gong Yunfu. He changed all the local sounds he used to sing big drums to Beijing tones, played with wooden boards, combined rap with singing, and strengthened his facial expression and posture.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty (around 1908), Hui Douyin, manager of Tianquan teahouse outside the north gate of Tianjin, invited Liu Baoquan to sing in Tianjin, with Han Yonglu as the string master. In order to cooperate with his singing, the stringer innovated the accompaniment instrument. Han Yonglu changed the middle Sanxian to the big Sanxian, and Huo Lianzhong changed the Sihu used in the movie tone to the biantong Sihu, so that the accompaniment and singing complement each other.

Middle age

In 1910, Liu Baoquan went to Tianjin again and performed in Sihai Shengping tea garden, gaining a high reputation. In 1915, Liu Baoquan founded the "baoquantang improved Acrobatic Troupe" to perform in Beijing and Tianjin. He replaced the single string brand music in the number of shows in the acrobatic garden and became the "save bottom" position. During this period, he also got acquainted with the literati Zhuang Yintang. With the help of Zhuang Yintang, he revised the Dagu lyrics such as Baidi City, catching Sanlang alive and Xu Mu scolding Cao, which enriched the singing repertoire. After years of careful study, he finally got rid of the scale of Jingyun Dagu on the basis of Hejian wooden board Dagu, which was sung in local dialect. At the same time, he also cut long pieces into short ones, integrating lyricism into narration, which gradually perfected the drum form of Jingyun Dagu. Since his first record, Baxi · baai, was made in 1908 by EMI company, more than ten of his records have been released by EMI company and Gaoting company in the early 1920s. Since then, he has performed in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hankou, Jinan and other places. In the ninth year of the Republic of China, he won the reputation of "king of drum circles". By the early 1930s, he had reached the level of perfection in art and formed the main art school of Jingyun Dagu - "Liu school".

In his later years

In his later years, Liu Baoquan suffered from the devastation of the old society, and his life was extremely poor. In 1942, after performing Shuangyu Tingqin in Beijing Jixiang theater, Liu Baoquan fell ill and soon died at the age of 73.

Main works

Liu Baoquan

There are 24 pieces of repertoire.

Some of the verses learned from the Song Dynasty include: Zhao yunjiejiang, Ma'anshan, wulongyuan, nanyangguan, bowangpo, youwumiao, baishantu, Chou Mo Yinchu. Some of the verses learned from Hu Shi include daxixiang and Changbanpo

Some of the jokes learned from Huo Mingliang are "single sword club", "Huarong Road", "ancient city club", "battle in Changsha", "Guan Huang's sword", "straw boat borrows arrow" and "Li Kui seizes fish" (i.e. making trouble in Jiangzhou)

With the help of the scholar Zhuang Yintang, the following are the verses: a loyal man, farewell to my mother's arrow (i.e. the first and second books of Ningwu pass), CI tangqin, Bai Di Cheng, Xu Mu's scolding Cao and catching Sanlang alive

Liu Baoquan made 33 Jingyun Dagu records. In 1939, Shanghai Zhonghua film company made his "ningwuguan farewell to my mother's random arrow" into a stage documentary film, which has been made into VCD and published.

Liu Baoquan officially accepted five apprentices, namely Bai Fengming, Tan Fengyuan, Chang Xujiu, Zhong Dehai and Han Derong. In addition, there are many people who are famous for Liu school art, such as Liang Xiaolou, Xiao Hei girl (Jin Huijun), Xiao Caiwu (Luo Yusheng), Lin Hongyu, Zhang Cuifeng, sang Honglin, Zhong Junfeng, sun Shuyun, Hou Yueqiu, Xiao Yingxia and so on. They all inherit and develop Liu school art to varying degrees. Bai Fengming and Luo Yusheng, on the basis of inheriting Liu Baoquan's singing style, according to their respective voice conditions, absorbed and used the art of pangpai school for reference, and made comprehensive reform to establish "Shaobai school" and "Luo school" respectively.

Nowadays, the influential actors of Liu school are Zhang Qiuping, Zhong Yujie and Yang Fengjie.

Commemorative activities

As a great master of Jingyun drum, Liu Baoquan has had many commemorative activities and special performances in the past decades.

1. In 1962, Tianjin, commemorating the 20th anniversary of Liu Baoquan's death

Performances: Yang Fengjie's "horse lost its way", Xiao Yingxia's "Zhao Yun intercepting the river", sang Honglin's "stabbing Tang Qin", Lin Hongyu's "making trouble in Jiangzhou", Xiao Lanyun's "Ziqi Tingqin", Liang Xiaolou's "Shuangyu Tingqin", and sun Shuyun's "Xu Mu scolding Cao".

2. In 1982, Beijing, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Liu Baoquan's death

program:

Scene 1: Zhao yunjiejiang by Zhong Yujie, he long in Lizhou by Zhang Qiuping, Bai Niu Shuo Shu by Lu Yiqin, Da Xixiang by Ma Jingyi, Tan Qingwen by Yan Qiuxia, Xu Mu scolds Cao by sun Shuyun and he Shibi by Luo Yusheng

The second scene: Liu chunai's beating the drum and scolding Cao, Zhong Yujie's lianhuanji, Zhao Xueyi's Baoyu getting married, Ma Jingyi's Changbanpo, Lu Yiqin's Fisherman's daughter, sun Shuyun's Ziqi Tingqin and Luo Yusheng's Hongmei Pavilion

3. In 1999, Tianjin, a special show to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Liu Baoquan's birth

Performances: Han Mei's Changbanpo, Zhao Tongguang's Zhao yunjiejiang, Yao Shiquan's youwumiao, Yang Yaqin's zhanchangsha, Zhong Yujie's bowangpo, Yang Fengjie's catching Sanlang alive, Zhang Qiuping's single sword club, sun Shuyun's seven star lantern, etc

4. In 2010, Tianjin, a special show commemorating the 140th anniversary of Liu Baoquan's birth

Performance programs: Zhang Yingying's "sitting on the floor to kill regret", the key "lianhuanji", Zhao Tongguang's "Ziqi Tingqin", Wang Yulan's "daxixiang", Yang Fengjie's "Xu Mu scolds Cao", Zhang Qiuping's "Zhao Yun intercepts the river", Xiao Yingxia's "naojiangzhou"

Character evaluation

Liu Baoquan's big drum singing is a combination of the strengths of Hu Shi, song Wu and Huo Mingliang. He also integrated Beijing opera, Hebei Bangzi, Shiyun, lianhualuo, Matou tune into the singing and performance of Jingyun Dagu. His singing style is vigorous and gorgeous, solemn and witty. Sometimes he learns from the singing method of old students in Peking Opera. He uses both real voice and fake voice skillfully and freely, and resonates with chest, throat, nose and the back of the head, so as to achieve the wonderful situation of "the bass is mellow and the treble is loud". At the same time, it also improves the singing method of "talking like singing" and "talking like singing". In the 27th year of the Republic of China, he went to Shanghai to perform at the age of 70. At that time, someone in the magazine of half moon drama wrote an article praising his singing "single sword club", saying that he was "lively in spirit, sonorous in tone, delicate in expression, crisp and fluent when he rose, like a crane in the sky. When he goes down, he is round and free, like a jade plate and a pearl. He is strong and solemn. He shows that Lu Zi is sincere and sincere. There is a play on his face, that is, between his eyes, waist and legs, and there is also a play. After he turned to Allegro, he had more beautiful tunes, sometimes sparse, sometimes tense, sometimes quiet, sometimes passionate, sometimes like spring waves, sometimes like river tides roaring, sometimes like Wu women crying, and sometimes like ten thousand horses galloping. The wonderful thing is not to delay, not to rush, cadence, slow disease, lasting for 40 minutes, there is no trace of wheezing and decaying. It's really commendable that an old man is competent for the complicated drama work. His artistic creation not only influenced the drum music circle, but also absorbed and used for reference by many famous Peking opera singers.

In addition to Jingyun Dagu, Liu Baoquan is also known as three great drums: playing pipa, singing Shiyun and singing Matou. In these aspects, he made great efforts to enrich and improve the drum art. He learned to sing Shi Yun from Shi Yukun's son-in-law surnamed Ma at the cost of teaching his granddaughter to play pipa, but he never performed it in public. In the first year of the Republic of China, he was in Tianjin. He heard that Kui Songzhai in Beijing wrote and performed Lianzhu express book. He specially invited Kui to perform in Tianjin for three days to observe each other's skills. After Kui's instruction, he seriously corrected the shortcomings of too broken and disordered steps in the performance, and was praised by his peers.

Liu Baoquan is very strict in his daily life. He doesn't smoke, drink, whore or gamble. He likes to eat vegetarian food. He has been eating regularly and quantitatively for decades.

Chinese PinYin : Liu Bao Quan