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Lou Shuhua
Guzheng player and teacher from Yutian, Hebei, a pupil of Wei Ziyou who shaped and spread the classic zheng piece Fishing Boats Singing at Dusk.
On a flat rock above a waterfall, a seven-string zither and a bamboo flute lie on a spread of blue-green cloth; beyond, a waterfall pours into a churning teal pool among misty peaks, with pine branches arching at the top left.
Also known as Lou Yintang · Lou Quanzhong
Lou Shuhua, styled Yintang, was born in Yutian, Hebei, in 1907. Apprenticed to a shop as a youth, he practised calligraphy and erhu in his spare time and from 1925 studied the Zhongzhou zheng tradition in Beijing with Wei Ziyou of Suiping, Henan. In 1935 he toured Switzerland and Austria with a music troupe, and in 1936 he recorded Tianxia Datong and Guanju for Pathe in Shanghai. From that year he taught zheng in Beiping, drawing on qin and Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo pieces and turning gongche notation into a zheng fingering notation. In the late 1930s he shaped Fishing Boats Singing at Dusk from material such as Guiqulai; it became one of the best-known zheng pieces. He died of illness at home in May 1952, aged forty-six.
Life and times
Dates 1907–1952