Ma Sicong

Ma Sicong the Chinese violinist and composer of the twentieth century (1912-1987) who was long regarded as the leading violinist of his country and who founded the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He is remembered for his lyrical compositions, especially the Inner Mongolian Suite, and for a career that carried the violin into the mainstream of Chinese musical life.

Early Life and Study Abroad

Ma Sicong was born on 10 May 1912 in Haifeng, in Guangdong province, into a family with literary and musical interests. His elder brother was a composer, and the household encouraged the arts. He showed unusual musical talent as a child and was sent abroad at the age of eleven to study, first in France, where he entered the conservatory at Nancy and later the Paris Conservatoire.

In Paris he studied the violin with leading teachers of the French school and absorbed the elegance and clarity of French playing. He also studied composition, and he began to write music that drew on the folk songs of his native Guangdong. His double training as performer and composer set him apart from most instrumentalists of his generation.

He returned to China in 1929 and made his debut as a soloist, quickly establishing a reputation as the finest violinist the country had produced. He toured widely and gave recitals in many cities, and his performances introduced Chinese audiences to a broad repertoire of Western violin music that had rarely been heard on the concert stage.

The Performing Career

Ma Sicong built his career on the concert platform, appearing as soloist with orchestras and in recital throughout China. His playing was praised for its sweetness of tone and its expressive phrasing, qualities suited to the lyrical repertoire in which he excelled. He became a household name at a time when the violin was still an unfamiliar instrument to most Chinese listeners.

He was also an energetic organiser of musical life. He founded orchestras and teaching institutions, and he worked to create opportunities for Chinese performers and composers. His efforts helped to establish the violin as a serious instrument in a country whose classical tradition had centred on the guqin, the pipa and other native instruments.

During the war years he continued to perform and teach, moving with the shifting centres of cultural life. After 1949 he was appointed to lead the newly organised musical institutions of the capital, and he devoted himself to the training of a new generation of violinists whose later careers spread his influence across the country.

Compositions and the Inner Mongolian Suite

Ma Sicong's compositions are lyrical and strongly melodic, often rooted in the songs and dances of particular regions. His best known work, the Inner Mongolian Suite, draws on the music of the northern grasslands and evokes the open landscapes and the life of the Mongol herdsmen. It became a standard piece in the repertoire of Chinese violinists.

His output includes other suites, sonatas and many shorter pieces, several based on folk tunes from Guangdong and other provinces. He had a gift for translating vocal melody into violinistic writing, and his works test the player's lyrical control rather than mere virtuosity. They were written partly to give Chinese performers music they could call their own.

He also wrote orchestral and chamber music and made arrangements of folk material for concert use. His approach to composition was closely tied to his playing, and he often composed at the instrument, seeking lines that lay naturally under the hand and that allowed the violin to sing in the manner of a human voice.

The Central Conservatory and Teaching

In 1950 Ma Sicong was appointed the first president of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, an institution created to train the nation's leading musicians. In this role he shaped the curriculum, recruited distinguished teachers and set the standards that governed professional musical education in the capital for many years. The conservatory became the model for others across the country.

He was a demanding teacher who insisted on solid technique and on the study of the classical repertoire, while also encouraging students to know the folk music of their own regions. Many of the violinists who came to prominence in the following decades were his pupils or the pupils of his pupils, and his influence on the development of string playing in China was immense.

His position made him a public figure, and he used his standing to argue for the importance of music in national life. He wrote and lectured about the need to build an indigenous tradition of composition and performance, and he worked to bring the best of international practice into Chinese musical education.

Later Life and Legacy

The Cultural Revolution brought Ma Sicong persecution and the destruction of much of what he had built. He was denounced, his works were banned and he was forced to leave his post. In 1967 he fled to the United States, where he lived in exile for the remaining two decades of his life, teaching privately and appearing occasionally in concert.

In exile he was separated from the musical institutions he had founded, and he watched from afar the later rehabilitation of his reputation. His compositions were gradually restored to performance in China, and the conservatory he had led honoured his memory. He was recognised once more as a founding figure of Chinese violin playing.

He died on 20 May 1987 in Philadelphia. He is remembered as the musician who made the violin a Chinese instrument, both by his own playing and by the school of performers and composers he trained. The Inner Mongolian Suite and his other works remain in the repertoire, and his name stands at the head of the modern Chinese violin tradition.

See also

• Central Conservatory of Music
• Inner Mongolian Suite
• Music of China
• Violin