The Overlooked Side of Mr. Tong Leung-tak’s Musical Achievements
Chow Fan-fu
Mr. Tong Leung-tak (31 March 1938 - 31 August 2010) came to Hong Kong with his family in September 1977. I still remember the excited telephone call from Ng Tai-kong, who was at the helm of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and instrumental in turning the amateur group into a professional company, when he exclaimed, “There’s a guy from the Mainland who is very good at the erhu, from the famed Tang Music Group. He has just arrived in Hong Kong! we’re going to invite him to join us. His name is Tong Leung-tak.”
In truth of fact, long before Mr. Tong’s erhu was heard on the concert stage of Hong Kong, the fame of the Tang’s Music Group already preceded him. Music teachers in secondary schools, when talking about the traditional mentoring system of Chinese music training, would mention the group in the same breath. As an important member of the group, Tong enjoyed widespread fame as an erhu artist between the 1960’s and 70’s. On resettling in Hong Kong, he brought with him the crafts and techniques he learned in Shanghai and Beijing. It can be said that he set a new benchmark for erhu playing in Hong Kong with his luminous presence, which was the result of eighteen years (1938-1956) honing his erhu art in Shanghai, and twenty-one years (1956-1977) in Beijing.
When the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild presented him with the ‘Artist of the Year – Arts Education’ award in 1991, it was perhaps just another jewel in the crown. But then, the award served as an affirmation of his efforts in ‘giving up’ the more visible career as a performing artist and opting for music education at the Music Office of Hong Kong. As a committee member of the Guild then, I was very much an ‘insider’ in the music circle of Hong Kong. I can still recall how delighted I was to see Mr. Tong being elected the recipient of that honour by a unanimous vote. It was also the fruit of bounty that Mr. Tong reaped for his dedicated work at the Music Office – which spanned twenty years and 76 days, between 1977 and 1998, to be exact.
Yet there is another side to his music career that has long been overlooked, that is, music arrangement. He had quite an oeuvre in this area, but it had been overshadowed by his achievements as a musician and educationist. When he was in Beijing, he wrote more than a dozen works for orchestra, and another dozen for erhu solo. The titles included A Paean to Oil Fields, Guarding the Frontier on Horseback, Maiden of the South Seas etc.. In March 1988, he and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra gave three concerts entitled An Evening of Ancient Melodies and Jiangnan Classical Music, which was probably his second solo performance since coming to Hong Kong. For that occasion, he gave a new arrangement of Autumn Moon in the Han Palace, and wrote a new piece, Princess Changping. Despite his rich oeuvre, not many of them found their way to the concert stage. This concert is therefore a truly remarkable tribute to this great mentor. The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, his former students, the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra (which sprouted under his hand at the Music Office), and members of the Tang Music Group, have come together to perform some of the most notable original compositions as well as arrangements by Mr. Tong. While his friends, colleagues and students revisit Mr. Tong’s music, the audience can share with them the heart notes of a music-maker who had devoted half of his life to Chinese music education, for the benefit of the people of Hong Kong.
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