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Spring Moonlight on the Flowers by the River is one of the most famous Chinese traditional music works. It had been popular among ordinary people before the year 1875, and has become one of the masterpieces in the treasury of Chinese classical music.

It was originally named as Pipa tune Flutes and Drums at Dusk, and was adapted by Liu Yaozhang, a member of Shanghai’s Datong Music Conservatory and renamed as Spring Moonlight on the Flowers by the River by Zheng Jinwen in 1930.

Since 1949, it has undergone many revisions, until now it is a highly polished piece. The intro has a background of musical harmony, and then a Pipa is plunked faster and faster, giving out drumbeat-like notes. At the same time, deft fingering on a vertical bamboo flute produces the melody. The contrast between the two instruments — one producing pellet-like short notes by twanging, and the other producing long-drawn-out notes — conjures up a picture of a river in springtime. The technique, often used in folk music, of phrases repeated over and over, and seemingly chasing one another, gives a vivid impression of ripples on water.

The understated melody, the fluid rhythmical meter, the ingenious subtlety, together with random orchestration, combine to paint a tranquil scene of a river on a moonlit night in spring, and is paean of praise to the countryside south of the Yangtze River.

The whole work is divided into ten sections, each having a different title.

Spring Moonlight on the Flowers by the River (Chun-Jiang-Hua-Yue-Ye):

If you want to listen the music online, it will take your some minutes to begin.

The strongest characteristics of building groups at Huizhou are: the points, A partial survey of Xidi, in which we can see the organic structure of black and white points, lines and surfaces.A partial survey of Xidi, in which we can see the organic structure of black and white points,  lines and surfaces composed of black tiles and white walls and the organic combination of black, white and gray colors, which constitute a Chinese ink-and-wash painting foiled in green hills and blue waters, elegant and refined. Originally, white walls of Huizhou dwellings were not for decoration but an ecological choice at that time, because whitewashed walls can protect against moisture and reflect sunshine. Afterward, with the development of culture, especially influenced by the Huangshan Mountains Painting School, the beauty of white and black colors has been more and more approbated by the people. Huizhou’s developed culture and a number of intellectuals’ quiet and simple but elegant aesthetic sentiment may be another cause of the popularization of black tiles and white walls. Xidi Village is  called “a residence at the land of peach blossoms”, 8 kilometers to the east of Yi county town. The whole village keeps an integrated village structure and environment.

Xidi Village is a place where the Hu clan lives in compact communities. Streets and lanes in the village are zigzag, deep and changeful, with a delightful and cordial constructive scale. They are ways for communication as well as places for villagers’ intercourse.

Everywhere can be found high or low “horsehead walls”, door-visor with refined carving, arches and arch-doorways (A doorway with an arch form, whose upper part is half-round, built by bricks), varied and vivid lattice windows and point-like windows (The windows of this kind are very small, like point.). Streets and lanes link gardens and yards, the later link patios, with a changeable and flowing special rhythm. Besides ordinary dwellings there are tall and upright ancestral halls, buildings for young ladies’ living and memorial archways. Trees, streamlets and fields surround the village. Every building has sloping roofs towards different directions and corresponding horse-head walls which form black surfaces and lines foiled by the huge white walls. Zigzag streets, different directions of buildings and different height, storey and dimensions constitute a building style with organic changes; nevertheless, building materials and basic combinatorial mode are very accordant, so a sight of dwelling groups with both a highly unified style and a lot of diversification come into being. Of course, building’s indoor colors are much more rich than its appearance. Usually, luxurious houses use red girders and pillars, the woodcarvings at important parts of which are decorated by golden powder; but generally intellectuals’ families preferred doors, windows and furniture painted by varnish, with their original color of wood being left. In fact, Huizhou dwellings did not copy existent colors in nature, but made a clear contrast against blue hills and green waters. and they are very harmonious with the colors of sky, land, hills and waters.

Huizhou are seized of green hills and clear waters, where the landscape is like a picture. The Huizhou dwellings adapted to the characters of hills and waters there and gave full play to them. The villages at Huizhou paid much attention to integrated planning, selecting location skillfully, geomantic omen and perfect structure. The buildings at Huizhou were usually located in the shade but faced to the sun, situated at the foot of a hill for using the water sufficiently and suiting measures to local conditions – if on plains, concentrated on a place and if not on plains, distributed dispersedly. The model of these villages is Hongcun, a village of rivers and waters, one of the world cultural heritages.

Hongcun is located at the north of Yixian, northward against Leigang Hill and southward to the Yangjian River. This position is just required by geomantic omen: “to be located in the shade but to face to the sun” and “with hills behind and water in front”. The most distinguishing feature of Hongcun is artificial water channels distributed all over the village.

Hongcun began to be set up in the first year of the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty (1131), but the construction of channels on a large scale began in the early Ming Dynasty. At that time, the villagers introduced the streamlets into the village, and dug channels with a length of over 300 meters, which flowed through the yards of every household at the village, and finally converged on a pond like a crescent moon in the front of the clan ancestral hall, built at the center of the village. 150 years afterward, the villagers opened a large pond – South Lake with a superficies of over 100 mu at the south of the village. In the 400 years from then on, this perfect structure of channels has been still reserved by Hongcun villagers and used by them in their ordinary life. The entrance of the channel system is situated at a relatively high land, where the villagers built a dam with stone and installed a water gate to raise the water level. The water gate is the entrance of channels as well as the head of the channel system.

The general channels are 60 cm wide and 1 m deep, crossing circuitously through the lanes of the village, from the northwest to the southeast extending in all directions. A poet in the Ming Dynasty described: “In every dooryard flows a limpid streamlet”. Lastly, all channels rush down into the village’s center – the Moon Pond, whose north part is straight and south curved, like a new moon. Like a blood circulation system, the channel system stimulates the spiritual and material life of the village. On the one hand, the channel system plays a role of washing, fire protection, drainage and adjustment of temperature and humidity; on the other hand, together with the flagging, gardens and yards, squares and arches over gateway, it has become a changeable sight with distinguishing features and a public place for villagers’ rest and social intercourse. Walking at Hongcun, we can see loquacious waters reflect mottle white walls and black tiles, green hills and blue sky; simple and unsophisticated flagging connect profound courtyards, pavilions, terraces and open halls. In the South Lake at the south of village, we can see osier willows in spring, lotus flowers in summer, red leaves in autumn and white snow in winter – the sight in each season gives full play to its strong points. The channels not only link every house but also are introduced into the dooryard to form a small pond with its own feature. The water brings natural spirit to every house.

Water gate – channels – the Moon Pond – the South Lake, together with the small pond at every yard, compose an integrated water system and become the spirit of the village. The waters and hills, the streets, the lanes and the buildings, as well as villagers’ life and culture form an integrated organism. The enlightenment from them is that the human beings can co-exist harmoniously with nature, utilize and protect the nature; nature is not only the object of human being’s use and transformation, but also an indiscerptible part of human being’s ordinary life.

The best-known piece of Suona is One Hundred Birds Serenade the Phoenix, which is especially popular in Shandong, Anhui, Henan and Hebei provinces.

Aftera spirited introduction, the orchestra settles down to a fixed accompaniment mode. With this background, the Suona section plays a vigorous, piping tune in imitation of the chirping of birds in flight. The closeness of the mimicry expresses the people’s love for nature and the intense scrutiny of ordinary life by folk artists, as well as their virtuosity in performance. Such beautiful  and auspicious tunes help to account for the popularity of this instrument.

The Suona horn is the most widespread and popular folk musical instrument in China. It is commonly called a trumpet. In shape, the Suona horn is conical, with eight holes (seven forward and one at the back). The body is made of wood. At one end there is a thin brass tube with a reed attachment, and at the other end, flares like a trumpet.

One Hundred Birds Serenade the Phoenix (Bai-Niao-Chao-Feng):

If you want to listen the music online, it will take your some minutes to begin.

Henan and Hebei provinces. After a spirited introduction, the orchestra settles down to a fixed accompaniment mode. With this background, the Suona section plays a vigorous, piping tune in imitation of the chirping of birds in flight. The closeness of the mimicry expresses the people’s love for nature and the intense scrutiny of ordinary life by folk artists, as well as their virtuosity in performance. Such beautiful and auspicious tunes help to account for the popularity of this instrument.