NEWS

This is an 85-year-old violin, with the marks of time, but with the warmth and luster of the years. It was made in Qingdao in 1935 by Tan Lizhen, a famous musician and former vice president of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The instrument will be donated to the Oriental Musical Instrument Museum of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music by Liao Chaojie, a retired teacher from Guangxi Nanning Huaqiao Experimental High School.

"China's violin-making business from zero start to today's world domination, which is a microcosm of the sweeping changes that have taken place in our country, as well as the development of China's cultural and musical business." Hua Tianreng, a professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, told reporters that China is now the world's largest violin maker and is becoming a violin-making powerhouse. "Looking back on the development of violin making in China, Mr. Tan Lizhen is a name that cannot be detoured. We cannot forget these musicians who have devoted their hearts to the cause they love."

From the "first" to the "last", he spent his life practicing his sincere love for the violin business

In 1935, at the age of 28, Tan Lizhen made the earliest surviving violin made by a Chinese in China in Qingdao, and in 2002, the year he died, at the age of 95, he made his last violin. "I could not live without music for a single moment in my life. Without music life loses motivation and pleasure. Music is like air and water, I can't imagine how life can go on without music." As Tan Lizhen himself said, he has spent his life practicing his most sincere love for music and violin.

A review of Tan Lizhen's life is like a review of the nearly 100-year history of the violin in China. As a highly respected music educator, violinist and violin maker in China, Shanghai has witnessed many important moments in Tan's life. Born in 1907 in Qingdao, he studied at the Music Institute of Peking University and the Shanghai Fine Arts College, and was the first Chinese violinist to join the orchestra of the Bureau of Public Works in Shanghai in 1927 as a player. From 1949 onwards, Tan Lizhen worked in the leadership of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music for 53 years, and together with the old president He Luting and other leaders, he made the Shanghai Conservatory into a music academy with a world reputation.

In 1924, when Tan Lizhen was studying in Qingdao, his violin broke down and he had to take it to Shanghai to have it repaired, which took more than a month at a cost of 60 yuan. At that moment, my teacher felt that people who play the piano must learn how to repair it," says Hua Tianreng. So he thought about repairing the violin himself and managed to buy reference books on violin making from abroad and ordered tools and materials." At that time, Tan Lizhen met an American cellist in Qingdao who knew how to make violins, and they often studied the techniques and methods of making violins together. In this way, Tan made his first violin in Qingdao.

Where is the first violin made by Tan Lizhen now? Liao Chaojie, a retired teacher in Guangxi, recently went to Shanghai to look for Tan Lizhen's family, and it turned out that he got a violin suspected to be made by Tan Lizhen from a friend of Guangxi Culture Museum. After the identification of Tan Lizhen's family and relevant experts from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, it was confirmed that it was a violin made by Tan Lizhen in 1935. Inside this violin is a handwritten label with a neat English print that reads "After Joseph Guarneri 1741 Tan Lizhen made in Qingdao in 1935".

"Judging from the label in the instrument and the characteristics of the instrument, there is no doubt about the authenticity of this instrument, which says it was made in Qingdao in 1935 by Tan Lizhen, and it is the first violin made in China by the Chinese themselves, the earliest surviving one for which information is available." Hua Tianreng said.

From the founding of New China to the present, Shanghai has made important contributions to the development of the musical instrument industry

In the late fall of 2002, in a hospital room at Huashan Hospital, Tan Lizhen said he was homesick for his violin and wanted to play some of his favorite tunes. As he spoke, he rubbed his left hand and swung his fingers in the air. No one expected that this would be Mr. Tan's last moments of lucidity. The next day, he fell into a coma and died on November 28th. ...... The great master of the violin world had lived an extraordinary life and left an endless treasure for the Chinese violin making industry.

After the founding of New China, there was a shortage of musical instruments in domestic conservatories, so the Shanghai Conservatory of Music set up a musical instrument production room in 1950, and Tan Lizhen, then vice president of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, became the director of the instrument production room to make musical instruments. Due to the outstanding achievements in musical instrument making, especially in violin making, Shanghai Conservatory was commissioned by the Ministry of Light Industry to train violin making talents for the whole country. Fifteen violin makers were selected from all over the country, trained in Shanghai and instructed by Tan Lizhen, who later became the heads of violin factories all over China. One of them, Chen Jinnong, sent from Guangdong, became the first violin maker in China to win a gold medal in an international violin making competition.

In 1958, the instrument factory of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music designed and produced a set of 12 sizes of violins for young people, which was more varied and accurate than the six sizes of violins usually available for young people abroad. 1959 saw the production of a set of string quartets inlaid with ivory and ebony. This string quartet, says Hua Tianreng, represents the highest craftsmanship in violin making and "still looks gleaming today, and its production level is world-class in every way."

Shanghai, deservedly at the forefront of China's violin-making profession, was the first to establish a violin-making program at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1978, with two classes of ten students from around the country, taught by Tan Lizhen himself at the age of 71, setting a precedent for the establishment of instrument-making programs at conservatories. Subsequently, various conservatories across the country also established musical instrument repair majors, training a large number of high-level musical instrument production professionals for China. With the reform and opening up of the country, SSE has also sent students of musical instrument making to study abroad, so that the professional level of musical instrument making in China is soon in line with the international level. 2019, SSE has trained four masters, 42 undergraduate graduates and 105 advanced students in musical instrument making alone, which has made an important contribution to the development of the musical instrument industry in China.