Xiao Shuxian facts for kids

Xiao Shuxian (born April 4, 1905 – died November 26, 1991) was a famous Chinese composer and music teacher. She is also known as Hsiao Shu-sien. She helped many students learn about music and created her own unique musical pieces.

Her Life Story

Xiao Shuxian was born in Tianjin, China. She came from a family that loved culture and learning. Many of her relatives were important people in Chinese history.

Early Music Studies

Xiao Shuxian first studied music in China. Later, she traveled to Europe to continue her studies. She went to the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, Belgium. There, she won a special prize in 1932 for her musical talent.

Life in Europe

From 1935 to 1954, Xiao Shuxian was married to Hermann Scherchen. He was a well-known conductor, someone who leads an orchestra. Their daughter, Tona Scherchen, also grew up to become a composer.

Xiao Shuxian lived and worked in Switzerland for 14 years. During this time, she shared Chinese culture with people in the West. She did this through her music and her writing.

Sharing Chinese Music

Two of her early works became famous in Western countries. One was her 1938 Chinese Children's Suite. This piece was for a singer and a piano. The other was her orchestral suite called Huainian Zuguo. This means A Commemoration of My Homeland. These pieces were among the first by a Chinese composer to be known outside of China.

Return to China

In 1950, Xiao Shuxian decided to return to China. She wanted to help her home country grow and develop. She also wanted to build her own career there. She went back with her three children. Sadly, she never saw her husband again after this.

A Dedicated Teacher

After returning to China, she taught at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. She taught there until she passed away. Many successful Chinese composers today learned from her. They remember her teaching very clearly.

Xiao Shuxian was one of the first Chinese musicians to have direct experience with Western art music. She knew many different ways to compose music. This made her a very valuable teacher.

Her Own Music

For most of her life, it was hard for composers in China to work independently. Because of this, her own music was not widely recognized for a long time. It was only a few years before she died that a concert of only her music was held. This concert took place at the Conservatory. After that, her musical scores were published.

Besides teaching and composing, she also translated many books about Western music into Chinese. She passed away in Beijing in 1991.

Her Musical Style

Xiao Shuxian did not write a huge amount of music. However, her style was special. It mixed parts of Chinese folk culture with traditional Western music techniques.

Developing Her Style

She mainly developed her unique style while teaching polyphony in the 1950s. Polyphony is a type of music with several independent melodies playing at the same time. Most of her pieces were written for small groups of instruments or voices. For example, she wrote music for solo singers and solo piano.

Neo-classical Influence

Some of her best works, like her Piano Sonatina, have a "neo-classical" style. This means they are new pieces that use ideas and forms from older, classical music.