Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

Introduction

He Zhanhao and Chen Gang's violin concerto built on Yue opera tunes, first performed in Shanghai in 1959

The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto was written jointly by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang. In 1958 the Shanghai Conservatory of Music set up an experimental group for a national school of violin playing, led by He, who had worked in a Yue opera troupe and knew its singing style well. He invited Chen, then a composition student, to write the piece with him, basing it on the Yue opera Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The concerto is in a single movement that borrows sonata form, with the sworn friendship, the refused marriage and the transformation into butterflies set as exposition, development and recapitulation. It was first performed in Shanghai on 27 May 1959, with Yu Lina as the solo violinist. Chen Gang died in Shanghai in 2026.

A work in copyright: facts only.

Parts

1. Sworn at the Grass BridgeThe exposition, matching the scene where Liang and Zhu swear friendship at the bridge
2. Yingtai Refuses the MarriageThe development, matching Zhu Yingtai's refusal of an arranged marriage
3. Butterflies at the TombThe recapitulation, matching the lovers' transformation into butterflies at the tomb