FLOODESIGN

and cultural upheavals. Unlike instruments such as the konghou harp, which went extinct in the Ming Dynasty after it went out of fashion among the elites, the erhu was regularly played among the peasant classes, developing a repertoire that focused on their stories and experiences. This repertoire is the backbone of the erhu and was preserved even as the erhu itself was modernized in the early 20th century. Liu Tianhua, a musician and composer with a love for Chinese music, elevated the instrument to the concert stage as China was beginning to shed its feudal system and as the elite classes believed that modernization could only occur through absorbing Western principles. Liu adapted Western classical performance techniques, aesthetics and compositions for the erhu, pushing it forward as a solo instrument. The erhu enjoyed further recognition at the establishment of the Communist government in 1949, which lauded the erhu both as a voice of the common people and as an example of how Chinese culture could be modernized. Although the chaos of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, which saw the shutting down of schools and institutions, put a pause on the erhu's exposure to concert stages, it continued to be enjoyed among the proletarian classes. A L T H O U G H W E S T E R N AU D I E N C E S P R I M A R I LY K N O W T H E E R H U F R O M C O N C E R T S T A G E S , I T ' S S T I L L E M B E D D E D I N T H E C H I N E S E C U L T U R A L C O N S C I O U S N E S S A S A F O L K I N S T R U M E N T . www.peakperfs.org 35

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