Modern Chinese musician Lian Tianhua (1895-1932) specialized in traditional Chinese violin (erhu) and was the composer of many memorable melodies.

Liu was a high school music teacher in a southern town of China before the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Devoted to rejuvenating traditional Chinese music, Liu sit quietly in forest everyday and contemplated about the role traditional Chinese music could play in the modern world. One day, a letter from Beijing University changed his whole career. The letter was written by the newly appointed chancellor of Beijing University, inviting Liu to teach Chinese music there.

In Beijing, Liu Tianhua got to know many people with the same interest and his practice and theory of Chinese music became mature. But his position at Beijing University was terminated after the May Fourth Movement subsided. He managed to find a similar position at Beijing Women's Normal University, however. As his fame in Chinese music grew, more and more students came to him. In 1930, with the help of many of his like-minded friends, Liu was able to hold a personal concert at Beijing Hotel, the most important of the kind in modern China.

But Liu Tianhua had been ill for a long time. Two years after the concert (1932), Liu died of illness at the age of 37.

His magnum opus include ten erhu pieces such as Toward the brightness, Beautiful night, Birds sing in the vacant mountain, Bitter, Sad song etc. and three lute pieces like Songs and dances.