In 1958, her father, Gu Gaodi, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and sent to the Qinghai labor camp. However, artistic achievements did not help her escape political shaming and humiliation. In the 1950s and 1960s, Gu Shengying, Fu Cong, Liu Shikun, Li Mingqiang, and Yin Chengzong were known as the “Five Piano Masters of China.” However, Gu Shengying was considered the most outstanding of them all. She received a precious gift in Warsaw: a plaster cast of Chopin’s hand. After this win, she was invited by the Polish government to tour Poland. In 1958, Gu Shengying participated in the 14th Geneva International Music Competition and won the top prize in the Women’s Piano Award.
More than 40 judges agreed that her performance was miraculous.
In 1957, she won a gold medal at the 6th World Festival for Youth and Students held in Moscow and became the first Chinese person to win a gold medal at the International Piano Competition. Gu Shengying buried her thoughts of her father in her heart and worked hard in her career. This period was when people feared being reported even when they spoke in their dreams. On August 29, 1955, just four days before Gu Shengying’s first solo concert, the police suddenly barged into the family home to arrest her father, stating that he was involved in the “Pan Hannian Case” related to treason and counterrevolutionary crimes.īefore being taken away, Gu Gaodi told his daughter: “You have to practice the piano well… Love the country, love the people.” At that moment, Gu Shengying stood up, looked at her father, and said: “I love my country, and I love my father.” After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he resigned from the military and went into seclusion in Shanghai. He covered the activities of the CCP’s underground radio. Gu Gaodi once had close contact with Pan Hannian, the head of the Shanghai secret service of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Her father, Gu Gaodi, devoted himself to the revolution in his early years and held high positions. (Image: via Public Domain) A shining star engulfed under a political cloudĭespite Gu Shengying’s love and freedom to engage, to her heart’s content, in her field of music, a shadow of politics hung over the family. Gu Shengying poses with other famous young Chinese pianists, all recipients of awards at international competitions, in a photo taken on September 20, 1960. She plays 10 to 12 hours a day the number of scores she practiced in a year was at least twice as much as those of top students of the Soviet Conservatory of Music.” Kravchenko once commented: “Gu surprised me with her grades in every class.
The famous Soviet pianist Kravchenko was her teacher. The following year, she became a piano soloist in the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.Īfter 1956, Gu Shengying studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Moscow. In 1953, aged 16, she worked with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for the first time and successfully succeeded. With tireless hard practice, she won the top prize in the Shanghai Junior Piano Competition in the third grade of elementary school. Her natural talent emerged at a young age. She eventually succeeded in studying music theory and the history of music. 103, Lane 1088, Yuyuan Road this was once the family’s residential home.Īt the age of 3, Gu Shengying began to learn to play the piano and showed great musical talent throughout her childhood. Her mother, Qin Shenyi, was a high-achieving student in the foreign language department at Shanghai Datong University. Her father, Gu Gaodi, was the secretary of General Cai Tingkai, the commander of the 19th Route Army of the Republic of China’s National Revolutionary Army. Her family was well-to-do with cultural interests in Shanghai.
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