Huang Yau-tai had a tough childhood, one in which musical resources were in short supply. However, he strove to educate himself, motivated by his passion for music and his perseverence. Today, he is the composer of more than 2,000 songs and 20 books on music. Huang is not only a songwriter, but also a performer, educator, and a man of letters, someone who has strived his whole life long to bring music into his daily life. Huang has composed a vast corpus of easily accessible choral works, which has resulted in the popularization of art songs and the refinement of folk music. His works not only invite the audience's appreciation, but also their participation.

Huang's compositions are not only beautiful, his writing style is excellent. Pictured are his works accumulated over many years.

Impoverished childhood, solitary life

Huang was born on January 14, 1912 in Gaoyao County, Guangdong Province, as the sixth of seven siblings. His grandfather was a government official, and both his father and mother had grown up in educated households with extensive library collections. As a child, Huang loved reading Tang poems. Sadly, his father died young, and as his mother was neither strong-willed nor capable enough to maintain the household, finances deteriorated to the point where the family took on debt to survive. Huang characterizes those childhood years as a time of "harsh poverty."

When he was ten, Huang graduated from the elementary school that his father had founded, passing the entrance exam to a higher-level primary school. The school had an organ that drew Huang's attention from the very first day of class. The school's music teacher did not read music himself, but simply taught the students some "schoolyard songs" that consisted of foreign melodies with Chinese lyrics. Huang loved singing, and was drawn to the captivating power of music.

Huang was always at the top of his class in every subject in primary school. Even though he did not know how to properly read music, his teacher gave him permission to play around with and experiment on the organ. Huang began to learn musical theory only in middle school. Later in life, Huang would often volunteer his own time to train more music teachers in order to wipe out musical illiteracy from among the public at large.

When Huang was 11, invading armies came to vie for dominance in the territory. Huang's house was commandeered by soldiers, who not only looted it but also used it as a base from which to launch attacks. When the soldiers retreated, the house was in ruins. In desperate straits, the family could not but take refuge with Huang's eldest sister, who by then was married.

Not only was food in short supply there, but Huang's family was also cruelly mistreated by members of that household. Situations such as being unable to pay his tuition on time, as well as various other sufferings, gave Huang feelings of low self-esteem. But deep down inside, he was still filled with a strong sense of his own dignity. He learned to endure everything through silence, telling himself that only if he persevered in his studies would he be able to find his own way forward.

Huang's fourth eldest brother, who was living with them, fell ill and died. Huang grew seriously ill. The family that his eldest sister had married into did not want him around them anymore, and made plans for him to take up lodging at his school. Despite its spare living conditions, the school was like paradise compared with his previous situation. The school became his home, and Huang continued to move forward in his education, from primary school, to middle school, to a college preparatory course, to university. He supported himself through a variety of jobs and through teaching elementary school.

Perhaps due to his childhood environment, Huang from early on preferred solitude and did not like to play with other children. His classmates dubbed him "the lonely ghost" and "lonely 13." Huang hardly minded at all.

Huang is very open about this aspect of his personality: "Now I'm over 90 years old, and I still love being alone. I simply must have my solitude! Otherwise, how would I be able to compose?"

When Huang was 11 years old, he had his first encounter with a piano keyboard, an event that initiated his lifelong relationship with music. It has been a life in which his music and voice have comforted countless souls.

A pair of chickens in wartime

In those years, studying music was a prerogative of the rich. Though he had talent and ambition, Huang could not openly pursue his dreams, but only look on longingly from afar. Whenever he came across any information relating to music, he would strive to concentrate on it and displayed an amazing memory and capacity for self-education. He learned how to play the violin from books about the technique of famous performers. Lacking a piano on which to practice sight reading or analyze chord structures, he laid out a large sheet of paper on a chest and on it drew a complete keyboard with which he painstakingly practiced sight reading, playing notes and composing in his imagination.

In 1930, Huang enrolled as a student in the education department of the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong. He was determined to transform music into an educational tool. Huang spent many sleepless nights during that time, studying the art of composition. Not long afterwards, the Japanese occupied northeast China. Patriotic songs begin to fill the air, and Huang was struck by the potential for music to deliver the nation and stir the soul. He was even more convinced of his ideals of making music his life's vocation.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Huang served as a music instructor for the training department of the Guangdong provincial government. One day, the department suddenly received an order to beat a hasty retreat, and all the instructors and their families were crammed into the back of a dilapidated truck. There was no room to move. Someone had brought along some chickens, squeezed into a cage, and placed them on the luggage rack. The entire truck was filled with the stench of chicken droppings. No one commented on this, since everyone was so downcast. The truck raced over bumpy terrain, and the passengers were exhausted and demoralized. The chickens, however, were oblivious, and called out without restraint.

An old man could take it no longer and burst out, "How can these chickens sing at a time like this!" Shortly thereafter, one of the chickens, a hen, unexpectedly laid an egg, which fell out of the cage and cracked on top of the old man's head in an ooze of yellow and white. The man was furious and, pointing at the chicken, shouted, "How can you be in the mood to lay an egg at a time like this?!" The other passengers, unable to contain themselves any longer, roared with laughter, and all of the gloom was dispelled in an instant.

Recollecting this moment, Huang says: "Whether we laughed or cried would have had no effect on the dire circumstances at hand. So instead of weeping bitterly, why not laugh heartily? Laughter can lighten your mood and give you new resolve. You can gain strength for living and encounter opportunities to turn things around." Huang indeed learned an important life lesson from those chickens.

Huang tries out a "Chinese violin" developed by Chuang Pen-li, a professor of folk music. Two resonating tubes in the lower portion of the instrument emit sounds that are similar to those of the erhu.

The azalea's mournful beauty

In 1941, the fourth year of the Sino-Japanese war, Fang Chien-peng, then a fourth-year philosophy student at Sun Yat-sen University, gave Huang a few of his poems. One was entitled "Azaleas," a piece that captured the feelings of young lovers during that era. Huang was delighted with the poem and immediately set it to music. The work was performed a capella by music department students, and the audience was mesmerized and called out for endless encores. This passionate reaction exceeded Huang's expectations. The song spread from Guangdong to Guangxi and on to Yunnan and Sichuan, becoming the best loved song among the nation's youth. "Azaleas" can indeed be called Huang's crowning achievement as a composer.

According to Huang, "Azaleas" describes a young, hope-filled woman waiting for her man to return victorious from the front lines. Tragically, her lover has been killed by Japanese bombers, and the young woman is plunged into sorrow. Huang says, "War is tragic enough in itself, and I did not want to simply reduce people to tears. I wanted to convey hope, so I wrote 'Azaleas' as a joyful song about the beauty of a fresh March day."

Within the training department, Huang worked like a songwriting machine. Apart from choral works, he also composed music for the military band. Because of the pressing needs of his immediate environment, Huang learned what he needed to do his job as he went along. He got into the habit of affixing all manner of lyrics on the back of a door, reading them aloud and setting them to music when something touched him. Huang favored a simple and pure compositional style, and his works were never plodding. Greatly admiring a poem that Qing-dynasty literatus Zheng Banqiao had written to adorn a painting, he invoked the poem's spirit in his own compositions: "Bamboo shoots, one, two, three; bamboo leaves, four, five, six. By nature these things are light and airy; why should they be heavy and ponderous?"

Huang's "Forgetting" is a classic Chinese art song. Artists such as the coloratura soprano Cheng Ming-lu and folk singer Li Chien-fu have all performed it.

Love, and Hong Kong days

Talented and handsome, Huang attracted women's amorous attentions from his university days onward. However, he felt he needed to cut himself off from love to pursue music. He pledged to stay unattached, and once even played a cruel prank on an attractive woman who admired him, simply to drive her away.

But in 1943 Huang met Liu Feng-hsien, an independent, strong-willed, modern woman. He was no match for Liu's intelligence, talent, and aggressive attitude, and succumbed to her. But after their marriage, Huang continued to be as busy as ever with his composing and teaching, and did not have much time to spend with his wife. Liu was quite possessive and hostile to women who approached her husband. The couple fought often, and Huang suffered much. After over 20 years of struggling, they finally decided to end their marriage. With their three daughters joining their mother, Huang returned to his solitary lifestyle.

In 1949, with the change of government in China, Hong Kong became a prime gathering place for refugees. Many among them were musicians, including Huang himself and Lin Sheng-shih. The upper class in British-ruled Hong Kong tended to gravitate toward the culture of Europe and America. Ordinary people, meanwhile, tended to listen to Cantonese operas. Huang and other musicians brought with them the seeds of a beautiful popular musical tradition. Choirs sprang up at different schools, and students were eager to sing their songs.

During this period, Huang also came to know many writers, including Taiwanese author Chung Mei-yin. Huang composed many popular and accessible pieces, including "Dark Mist," "Merry Laughter," "When Evening Clouds Fill the Sky," "Autumn Sunset," and "Chilly Evening."

"When Evening Clouds Fill the Sky" and "Forgetting" were set to words by Chung Mei-yin. "Forgetting" took the most time to compose, and is a piece that rivals "Azaleas" in its popularity.

In December 2002, the National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center in Kaohsiung put on a "Choral Presentation of the Works of Professor Huang Yau-tai." Members of the musical community from all over the country were present to pay their respects to this "musical bodhisattva."

"Forgetting" and fate

"If I could not forget, how could my frail frame endure such deep sorrow? People say love is worth a lifetime of memories, but for me it is something I would rather forget! Wildfires are burning on the other shore, a bitter wind stirs the tree branches. All night I walk along the bank, only in order to forget. But you are like a star in the sky, burning and consuming me all through the night."

Chung and Huang made their acquaintance in 1952, when Huang accepted an invitation to travel from Hong Kong to Taiwan for a concert. When he learned that Chung loved to sing, Huang asked if she would write a few lines of romantic verse that he could set to music, and thus augment his supply of working material. Their first collaboration, "When Evening Clouds Fills the Sky," was a great success.

Chung sent Huang the lyrics to "Forgetting" in 1957. But he was preparing to leave for Europe to pursue further studies, and so could not work on it. Eleven years later, Huang returned to Taiwan, where he lectured for two years. Chung once more presented him with "Forgetting," making him regret having neglected it for so long.

When Huang read and re-read the lyrics, he found they were full of contradictions; the narrator repeatedly expresses the desire to forget, but cannot cut ties completely. After much consideration, Huang wove together the melodies for the lines "forgetting" and "burning me all through the night" as the two counterpoised elements in the song. When the melody reaches "forgetting," the accompaniment plays along with "burning me all through the night." Huang says this musical strategy was designed to reveal the true nature of the love described in the song. Some have speculated that "Forgetting" describes the relationship between Huang and Chung, but he dismisses this theory with laughter: "There was no such thing! That's just chasing after wind and shadows!"

In 1983, the "three friends of winter" (referring to the bamboo, pine and plum, and to faithful friends in hard times), Wei Han-chang, Huang, and Lin Sheng-shih, all received special contribution awards at the National Literature and Art Achievement Awards. The three were invited to speak in Kaohsiung, and they all fell in love with the city. But Huang turned his feelings into action and four years later retired from Hong Kong's Chu Hai College of Higher Education, where he had taught for almost 30 years. He moved to Kaohsiung, with the intent of growing old there. The dry climate cured the high intraocular pressure he had suffered from, and the music community in Kaohsiung embraced him warmly as a national musical treasure.

After moving to Kaohsiung, Huang immediately began to work with friends in the artistic community, and threw himself into the second phase of his work "Harbor City Suite." He also wrote "Poetic and Painterly Kaohsiung" and "Song of the Kapok Flower." Huang debuted 31 new songs at one sitting, and is convinced that such music, praising his hometown and glorifying the nation, was worthy of being shared and promoted widely.

Concert poster for the 2002 performance featuring Wei Han-chang, Huang Yau-tai, and Lin Sheng-shih, the "three friends in winter."

A diligent bodhisattva

Perhaps as karmically fated, Huang has also developed an indissoluble bond with his Buddhist faith. In his later works, Buddhist pieces come to occupy a significant portion of his repertoire. Huang feels that the quality of Buddhist music in the past has been uneven. As many composers of Buddhist music do not really understand the teachings, they are confused about many things and produce music that is likewise confused and off the mark.

"Buddhist music is different from ordinary music, "says Huang. "It requires one to compose with solemnity and yet not lose a sense of beauty." For many years, Huang has emphasized that as a teacher he should also be a guide to others and not simply live to do as he pleases.

As old as he is, Huang has never been in the habit of celebrating his birthday. Blowing out the birthday candles, cutting the cake--all these are foreign practices to him.

"My mother once told me that when I had become one year older, instead of blowing out a candle, why not light another candle?" Huang has suffered ill health throughout his life and is never without his medicine. Many in his family never expected him to live long into adulthood, and they certainly could not have expected him to grow stronger with each passing year. Huang even went and studied for six years when he was 46 years old.

Huang has consulted many renowned diviners and palm readers in his lifetime, and all were convinced he would only live to age 59. He took their word and, feeling he did not have much time left, worked with even more drive and fervor. Aside from his music, he was determined to complete the writing projects he had dreamed of while still alive.

All his life he has pursued an ideal of "making Chinese music truly Chinese," and so developed his theory of "Chinese style and sound" in music. He then set several ancient poems to music to prove his theory was workable, for example rearranging "Pipa Song," arranging "A Poem for Palace Attendant Fang" as a choral work, and turning such pieces as "Feng Yang Drums," "Hillside Song of Mi Du," and "Swirling Wind" into large-scale choral works. Thus folk songs were given a refined quality. Huang pushed himself to keep working every day so he would have no regrets if he were to pass away then!

When he reached age 60, it seemed that Heaven was in no hurry to summon him back. Huang felt that Heaven must have known he had come to music late, and that having lived through the war he still had much to do, and had given him a few extra years. Huang grasped the time and launched into a series of writing projects, writing essays to promote music education and exploring the principles behind music and life in a light, humorous style. In a decade or so, he published eight books.

Huang strives to achieve a harmony of lyrics and music, and has been able to render Confucian thought into music. Pictured his is work "Remembering Confucius."

Present at the reunion

Huang has never owned his own home and currently rents from one of his students. His daily life is like a musical piece in three movements--he can be found at his desk, at his piano, or in bed. His life is very simple: he cooks for himself, washes his own clothes, mops his own floor, and has never called on others for help. His spacious quarters are spotless, without the dilapidated feel of the residence of an elderly man living alone. Whenever guests come, he dresses immaculately, complete with tie, and never seems tired even after spending the better part of the day laughing and conversing. Huang says that all this is thanks to his military training as a youth, which has given him an independent, indefatigable spirit and way of living. His diligence and hard work are why he has been able to live to such an old age!

But with his family and friends leaving the scene one by one, especially many of his old friends, Huang cannot help feeling that he is slowly being left behind.

"Sometimes I feel like a child made to stay behind in school and not allowed to go home. Sometimes I feel like a passenger who has forgotten to get off the train at his station, and that I am the only one left in the carriage. This is a lonely, desolate feeling that causes some vexation."

Since Huang pledged his life to musical education and helping others, a never-ending spring has nourished his life. His skies are not clouded over, nor is he disheartened by the darkness. When Huang was 80 he composed an optimistic farewell piece, with lyrics by his good friend Wang Wen-shang: "If I go to the Pure Land in the West, don't be sad! There's no reason to be sad! If I go down to the Nine Springs, I will meet many friends and family, and we will revel in our memories. I only feel that our time together would be too short, so when would I even have the time to be sad?" Huang says that while he has been running late to that reunion, he will surely make it there. He looks forward to meeting his old friends again, and that expectation is stronger than his sorrow at their parting.

Burning one's idols

As for death, Huang has long since adopted a transcendent attitude, not just a fearless one, and death has become his close friend. He describes his own feeling as being not "helpless" but "being a monk for one day means ringing your bell for one day." This is in addition to a "joyful outlook," and "doing one thing after another."

When he was young, Huang had a dream. He was in a snowstorm, shivering and almost frozen. Suddenly he heard a voice call out, "You must be freezing. Come quickly and warm yourself!" On walking closer he saw a wooden puppet, its feet just catching fire as it burned up in front of his very eyes. But the puppet did not seem to mind, and called out cordially to him to come and warm himself."

That image has deeply affected Huang's life. "Living is like being a puppet that sacrifices itself gladly for others. By doing so one fulfills oneself and brings light to others!"

Huang Yau-tai Chronology

• 1912

Huang Yau-tai is born in Gaoyao County, Guangdong Province as the sixth of seven children.

• 1922

At age 11 Huang attends the local advanced primary school. His musical talent is revealed for the first time, and his teacher gives him special permission to play the school organ.

• 1928

At age 17, Huang passes the entrance exam to the preparatory division in humanities at Sun Yat-sen University. Two years later, he advances to the department of education.

• 1931

At age 20, Japan invades Manchuria, and resistance songs fill the land. Huang decides to use music as an educational instrument, and throws himself into the war effort, serving in the area of public education.

• 1939

At age 28, Huang is appointed to the training corps of Guangdong Province as a music instructor. He travels all over, and writes some of his most representative pieces, including "Unable to Return Home" and "Azaleas."

• 1942

At age 31, Huang marries Liu Feng-hsian. They divorce after 22 years.

• 1949

When he is 38, China falls to the Communists. Huang moves to Hong Kong, where he teaches at Dunman Middle School and Chu Hai College of Higher Education.

• 1957

At age 46, Huang travels to Italy to further his studies. His thesis is entitled "Musical Composition and Chinese Musical Style and Sound." After six years, he graduates in composition.

• 1968

At age 57, Huang is invited to Taiwan to lecture for two years. Important works during this period include "Forgetting," "Thinking of Home," and "Asking the Moon."

• 1983

At age 72, Huang receives a National Art and Literature Award along with Wei Han-chang and Lin Sheng-shih. The three return to Kaohsiung to deliver talks there.

• 1987

At age 76, Huang moves from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung. He continues to compose, including various solo and choral pieces such as Taiwanese folk songs, Catholic hymns, Hakka folk songs, Buddhist music, and children's music.

• 1994

At age 83, Huang receives the Executive Yuan's Cultural Award.

• 2000

At age 89, Huang receives the City of Kaohsiung's Lifetime Achievement Award, for achievement in the arts.

Compiled by Chang Meng-jui

Even at 93, Huang does his own housework. His spotless kitchen expresses his diligent attitude.

Huang's compositions are not only beautiful, his writing style is excellent. Pictured are his works accumulated over many years.

Huang Yau-tai lives a simple life, in simple surroundings. He has given his whole life over to composing and educating.

Huang's pieces move tightly with and merge with the lyrics. Even though he uses Western techniques, a Chinese rhythm is present. Here Huang explains musical theory to his students.

Huang's "Forgetting" is a classic Chinese art song. Artists such as the coloratura soprano Cheng Ming-lu and folk singer Li Chien-fu have all performed it.

Nearly 93 years old, Huang Yau-tai has been a composer all his life. "Azaleas," which he composed during the Sino-Japanese war, remains an enduring work and a part of a generation's collective memory.

Even though he is 93 years old, Huang continues to compose and read music daily, working even harder than those who are young.

While studying in Rome, Huang twice ran out of money and was on the verge of giving up and returning to Hong Kong. Fortunately, he was able to get through these hard times with the help of friends. At right in this picture is his advisor Franco Margola, revising one of Huang's compositions.