Liao Shangguo

Also known as Pen name Qingzhu · Also called Li Qing

Liao Shangguo, who wrote as Qingzhu and also used the name Li Qing, was born in Huiyang, Guangdong, in 1893. He went to Germany in 1912 to study law at the University of Berlin, taking piano and composition on the side, and received a doctorate in law in 1920. That year in Berlin he set Su Shi's lyric on the Red Cliff as the art song Dajiang dong qu. In 1928 he opened a music-publishing bookshop in Shanghai, and from 1929 he taught at the National Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, editing its journals Yin and Yueyi. His books Yuehua and Yinyue tonglun are landmarks of modern Chinese music aesthetics, and his songs include Wo zhu Changjiang tou. He died in 1959.