Jasmine Flower

Introduction

A Jiangnan folk song, reworked by He Fang from the Liuhe flower tune and given its present form in 1957

Jasmine Flower is a folk song of the Jiangnan region, sung in many local versions and known in one older form as Xian Hua Diao. It is generally said to have been popular by the Qianlong reign, and John Barrow, who came to China with the Macartney mission in 1793, wrote the tune down in Western notation and published it in Europe in 1804. The earliest known Chinese printed source is the Xiao Hui Ji of 1837. In 1942 He Fang heard folk singers in Liuhe, near Nanjing, perform a three-verse flower song, and in 1957 he reworked it so that every verse praised the jasmine. That version was first performed in Beijing the same year by the Frontline Song and Dance Troupe, and Puccini had earlier borrowed the melody for his opera Turandot.

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