二胡
Two-string fiddle
Èrhú (二胡) is a Chinese two-string bowed fiddle, a spike fiddle and the most widely played member of the huqin family. It is heard in solo recitals, small folk ensembles, opera bands and large modern Chinese orchestras.
- 張寶利二胡音樂會（1989年）Zhang Bao Li, erhu, at Brooklyn Public Library, 198931:56
- 楊浦公園拉二胡Yángpǔ gōngyuán lā èrhú — Erhu in Yangpu Park, Shanghai2:28
- 和平公園的二胡與手鼓Hépíng gōngyuán — Erhu and hand drum in Heping Park, Shanghai5:36
- 北海公園的二胡Běihǎi gōngyuán — An old man practising erhu near Beihai Park, Beijing1:32
- 江河水Jiāng hé shuǐ — River Water5:02
- 和平公園唱曲Hépíng gōngyuán chàngqǔ — Singing with erhu in Heping Park, Shanghai12:50
- 蓬萊公園唱曲Pénglái gōngyuán chàngqǔ — Singing with erhu in Penglai Park, Shanghai6:08
- 萬華二胡Wànhuá èrhú — Erhu in Wanhua, Taipei0:48
- 關西服務區的二胡藝人Guānxī fúwùqū èrhú — Erhu busker at the Guanxi rest area4:00
- 紐約高架公園的二胡Gāojià gōngyuán èrhú — Erhu on the High Line, New York2:00
- 沙田中央公園笛子二胡合奏Dízi èrhú hézòu — Dizi and erhu duet in Sha Tin Central Park1:09
- 胡琴四重奏（一）Húqín sìchóngzòu — Huqin Quartet, part 16:02
- 胡琴四重奏（二）Húqín sìchóngzòu — Huqin Quartet, part 22:42
- 張寶利二胡與舞蹈（1989年4月11日）Zhang Bao Li, erhu, with dancers, Brooklyn, 11 April 198944:31
- 張寶利二胡音樂會（1989年4月16日）Zhang Bao Li in concert, Brooklyn, 16 April 198946:45
Liner notes
The first character of the name means "two". It may refer to the two strings, or to the instrument's place as the second-highest huqin in pitch, after the gaohu.
The instrument
A long neck rises from a small resonator whose front is covered with python skin, which does much to give the erhu its voice. There is no fingerboard. The player presses the strings in the air, and a loop of string acts as a nut while a small wooden bridge stands on the skin. A catalogue note on an early 20th-century erhu at Yale describes the same plan: a hardwood neck, a hexagonal body with a python-skin table, and two strings running from the end of the spike to two front-mounted pegs.
The bow hair passes between the two strings rather than over them, so the player uses one side of the hair for each string. The strings, once silk and now usually metal, are commonly tuned a fifth apart, giving a range of about two and a half octaves. The player sits with the body resting on the left thigh and the neck upright, and shapes pitch with slides, vibrato and shifts of hand position.
A short history
The erhu is believed to descend from the xiqin, a bowed instrument that may take its name from the Xi people of northeast China, and its ancestry is usually traced to instruments that reached China by the Tang dynasty. For a long time it was a folk instrument of southern China, while the sihu was preferred in the north.
Its modern career as a concert instrument owes much to Liu Tianhua (1895–1932), who brought it to Beijing in the 1920s and wrote 47 exercises and 10 solo pieces between 1918 and 1932. The blind street musician Abing (Hua Yanjun), recorded by two musicologists shortly before his death in 1950, left the best-known erhu piece of all, Erquan yingyue. Today the erhu is a core instrument of silk-and-bamboo music in the Jiangnan region and of Chinese opera ensembles, and it leads the bowed strings in the modern Chinese orchestra.
Start with
For the concert side of the instrument, try Zhang Bao Li at Brooklyn Public Library in 1989, or Zhang Peijian's River Water. For the erhu as an everyday instrument played outdoors, listen to the recording made in Yangpu Park, Shanghai in 2013. More of that world is on the guoyue page.
Questions
- What is an erhu?
- The erhu is a Chinese two-string bowed spike fiddle with a small python-skin-covered resonator and no fingerboard. It is the most popular instrument of the huqin family of Chinese fiddles.
- How is the erhu played?
- The player sits with the resonator on the left thigh and the neck upright. The bow hair passes between the two strings, and the left hand stops the strings in the air, without a fingerboard, using slides and vibrato.
- Who made the erhu a solo instrument?
- Liu Tianhua (1895–1932) is credited with developing the erhu as a solo concert instrument. Between 1918 and 1932 he wrote 47 exercises and 10 solo pieces for it, and in the 1920s he introduced it to Beijing.
- What is the difference between the erhu and the gaohu?
- The gaohu is a smaller, higher relative of the erhu, tuned a fourth higher, with a brighter tone. It was developed from the erhu in the 1920s and leads Cantonese music ensembles.