Developments in Mainland China's New Music
Identifieur interne : 000A95 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000A94; suivant : 000A96Developments in Mainland China's New Music
Auteurs : Frank KouwenhovenSource :
- China information [ 0920-203X ] ; 1992-06.
English descriptors
- Teeft :
- Actual sound, American music, American serialism, Ancient china, Ancient chinese, Artistic integrity, Bart6k, Beijing, Bright sheng, Cello solo, Chamber ensemble, Chamber music, Chamber orchestra, Chamber works, Chen, Chen qigang, Chen yuanlin, Chengdu, Chinese, Chinese authors, Chinese composers, Chinese conservatories, Chinese conservatory, Chinese context, Chinese folk, Chinese instruments, Chinese music, Chinese orchestra, Chinese record company, Chinese tradition, Columbia university, Composer, Composition student, Computer music, Conservatory, Contemporary chinese music, Contemporary music, Cultural revolution, Dquo, Early works, European music, First composition, Folk music, Folk song, Foreign experts, Former student, Ganru, Hong kong, Hungarian folk music, Little attention, Luogu, Mainland china, Many composers, Many others, Margaret leng, Mario davidovsky, Modern music, Music movement, Music teachers, Musical career, Musical climate, Musical language, Native culture, Number systems, Orchestral music, Orchestral works, Other composers, Other parts, Other pieces, Other works, Paul griffiths, Peng zhimin, Percussion, Percussion instrument, Piano piece, Piano pieces, Playful piece, Practical level, Recent works, Revolutionary china, Romanticism, Same problems, Same year, Second part, Serialism, Shanghai, Shanghai conservatory, Sheng, Shifan, Shifan luogu, Sichuan, Sichuan conservatory, Single tones, Stanford university, String quartet, Strong impact, Taiji, Taiji system, Traditional music, Various pieces, Violin concerto, Wang, Wang anguo, Wang haiping, Wang jianzhong, Weijie, Western colleagues, Western composers, Western influences, Western models, Western music, Western orchestra, Western romanticism, Western techniques, World music days, Xiaosheng, Xiaosong, Yang liqing, Yang yong, Yinyue, Yinyue wudao yanjiu, Young chinese composers, Young composers, Younger composers, Younger generation, Zhao, Zhao xiaosheng, Zhongguo yinyuexue, Zhongrong, Zhou, Zhou jinmin.
Url:
DOI: 10.1177/0920203X9200700102
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:F77B3E5C7C5AECB49A7438AAB3EEA5936BAB61CBLe document en format XML
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(1990)</json:string><json:string>AL-52, 1986</json:string><json:string>RL-29, 1984</json:string><json:string>AL-57, 1986</json:string><json:string>Memoriam 1966</json:string><json:string>London 1981</json:string><json:string>"Sichuan Suite", 1963</json:string></ref_bibl><bibl></bibl></unitex></namedEntities><ark><json:string>ark:/67375/M70-GFR5WGJM-H</json:string></ark><categories><wos></wos><scienceMetrix></scienceMetrix><scopus><json:string>1 - Social Sciences</json:string><json:string>2 - Economics, Econometrics and Finance</json:string><json:string>3 - General Economics, Econometrics and Finance</json:string><json:string>1 - Social Sciences</json:string><json:string>2 - Social Sciences</json:string><json:string>3 - General Social Sciences</json:string><json:string>1 - Social Sciences</json:string><json:string>2 - Arts and Humanities</json:string><json:string>3 - General Arts and 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Developments
in Mainland China's New MusicPart I: From China to the United States
SAGE Publications, Inc.1992DOI: 10.1177/0920203X9200700102
Frank Kouwenhoven
The author is Secretary of the European Foundation for
Chinese Music Research (CHIME) and Editor of its journal CHIME, Leiden, The
Netherlands
, ..'...
-I.~ The "New Wave" in Chinese music is no more. Young Chinese composers from
the mainland havc left thcir native country to settle in the United States,
Europe, and other parts in the world, in search of opportunities which arc
denied them in their own country. They no longer form a coherent group with
shared ideals and a shared background - if, indeed, they ever did. New Chinese
music now has very different connotations, depending on where it is written,
and under what kind of influenccs. This is the first of two articles on mainland
China's avant-garde music, in which a bird's eye-view is presented of the
recent achievements of young mainland composers. The first part deals with
the role of thc older generations of music teachers, and with a number of
Chinese composers currently working in the USA. The second part will deal
with Chinese composers active in Europe and other parts of the world, as well
as with those who are, at this moment, still studying at Chinese conservatories.
Most Western students of Sinology or Musicology who visit me to discuss contemporary
Chinese music appear to be interested in one and the same theme, namely the
impact of politics. While the influence of politics on every single aspect
of life in China is undeniable - and its role in contemporary music has been
frequently underlined in my own writings -, it is unfortunate that so very
little attention has been paid to the music itself. The works of young composers
are seldom studied outside the framework of Chinese political history, and
hardly ever viewed in an international musical context. This article is a
first, cautious attempt in that direction. Lack of space forbids me, however,
to enter into a detailed discussion of even the major pieces of the past fifteen
years, and it should be clear that now is hardly the time for a general assessment.
As the necessary distance in time to make a really balanced judgment is slill
lacking, this article can merely point out general tendencies in a preliminary
fashion. ' Towards A Musicological Approach ~ ~' ' A discussion of new Chinese
music in purely musical terms is urgently needed. Western musicologists generally
have insufficient insight into China's cultural heritage and are therefore
hesitant to undertake the task. Chinese musicologists are in touch with their
own culture, but their views are limited in various other ways. First of all,
they cannot escape political and ideological censorship, which inhibits a
free discussion. It requires considerable courage for a Chinese musicologist
to go against the stream of political and scholarly conventions in his country.
He is always expected to acknowledge the values of contemporary Chinese music
within an official political framework. As a result, many Chinese articles
about new music arc a toilsome struggle with established musico-political
thcories rather than practical and informative essays. Wang Anguo's review
of the "New Tidc", in spite of many good observations, is a case in point.'
Secondly, very few Chinese authors possess real affinity with or knowledge
about music outside China, although the situation is gradually improving.
While Western influences in new .. ,t , ~ ., .; - ~ i. t. 1.... '{ , ~ r .'
, ..
1 Wang Anguo: "Wo guo yinyue
chuangzuo 'Xin Chao' zongguan", in: Zhongguo yinyuexue, 1986, No. 1,
4-15. Translated as "A Review of the 'New Tide' in China's Musical Compositions",
in: Musicology in China, English Edition (Beijing), No. 1, 1989, pp.
106-126.
2218
Chinese
music are readily acknowledged, their impact is, however, never analyzed,
nor their origins specified. For example, in an essay on the development of
Chinese symphonic music, Liu Hongjun provides many interesting examples of
the use of both contemporary Western and traditional Chinese elements in the
works of Chinese composers, as does Wang Anguo in the abovementioned article.'
But both authors present their examples in an entirely Chinese framework,
as if the Western techniques discussed have no historical origin and no acquired
meaning of their own. In this way, it is impossible to compare Western concepts
with Chinese ones, or to examine the artistic integrity and individual views
of Chinese composers when they adopt Western elements in their music. Chinese
authors tend to regard the development of 20th century Chinese art music as
a single evolutionary process. In their view, major political events in China
(the civil war, the Cultural Revolution) serve either as interruptions or
as major incentives to "the" musical evolution. The possibility that there
have been many different developments on independent levels, leading to a
variety of results, is hardly considered. The interaction between political
and cultural history is reduced to a one-dimensional, linear process, and
its complexities and many contradictory developments are ignored. As a consequence,
Chinese authors fail to recognize, for example, the impact of the Cultural
Revolution on the music of the younger generation. They portray this period
as an isolated tragedy, and only a few will admit that it actually paved the
way to a new cultural era. Even those who do, fail to describe how it happened.
Nonc. of them seems to recognize the immense distance between the artistic
conceptions of older and younger composers. Liu Hongjun, for example, considers
both Xian Xinghai's Tchaikovskian orchestral pieces from the 1940s and Qu
Xiaosong's "Mong Dong" from 1984, a piece for a mixed chamber ensemble, to
belong to the same Chinese symphonic tradition. In short, they offer a generalizing,
perhaps sympathetic, but nevertheless distorted picture, in which musical
doctrine rather than musical history is emphasized, quantity rather than qualily3,
and musical detail rather than musical essence. Although one may be critical
of such writings, one should not, however, reject them out of hand. It must
be borne in mind that the authors have no other choice but to work within
the narrowly defined limits of the cultural policies and scholarly hierarchies
existing in China. Their private convictions may be far removed from what
they dare commit to paper. Their intentions are pure: authors like Li Xi'an,
Liang Maochun and Wang Anguo have offered vital support for a generation of
young and vulnerable artists. Their writings may provide fascinating study
materials in the fields of Chinese cultural policies and musical aesthetical
theory. Nevertheless, they do not and cannot offer authoritative views on
China's new music within the general framework of 20th century musical history.
Even if the authors would be ready to do so, the circumstances in China make
it impossible for them to achieve such an aim. The Threat and Inspiration
of Pluralism The new-won authority of some Chinese composers, both at home
and abroad, is beyond dispute. The sudden take-off of their careers surprised
Western audiences. Their works testified to a musical renaissance in China
which, only a decade ago, nobody would have thought possible.
2 Liu Hongjun,
"Lun Zhongguo jiaoxiang yinyue lengge yanbiande guiji", in: Zhongguo yinyuexue,
1989, No. 1, pp. 126-141. While longer and more substantial than many
other Chinese articles on new Chinese music, it is hardly acceptable as a
general outline of the field. Liu quietly passes over the deep conflict that
ensued between progressive and conservative artists when contemporary Western
techniques were imported. He is not specific about the impact of those Western
techniques, since he does not know their exact origins, nor how "new" or
"established" they really are in the West. His study is based on the assumption
that there is a continuous evolution of "orchestral style" in China. Nothing
could be less true.
3 Cf. Li Huanzi's
chapter on mainland China in Harrison Ryker (ed), New Music In the Orient:
Essays On Composition In Asia Since World War II, Knuff Publishers,
The Netherlands, 1991, pp. 189 - 216.
2319
But
the surprise is quickly wearing off. The main attraction is no longer the
fact that a group of artists from a tragic and politically harassed society
is capable of writing good music. While leading figures like Tan Dun, Ou Xiaosong
and Ge Ganru in New York, Chen Qigang in Paris, Chen Xiaoyong in Hamburg,
and Guo Wenjing in Bcijing are widely praised for their works, it remains
to be seen in what direction each of them will eventually move, and whether
future audiences will continue to react so favorably to their works. Their
music has now become part of an international contemporary tradition where,
as Paul Griffiths puts it, "plurality is the single distinctive feature".'
Chinese composers currently work in widely different surroundings, and absorbing
very different musical idioms which they adapt in the light of their own Chinese
experiences. One might say that cultural pluralism is the force which keeps
alive new Chinese music, while at the same time threatening it most. This
is an acute dilemma for young Asian artists in general, and particularly for
the Chinese, who grew up in an isolated, culturally impoverished country,
where political campaigns and anti-intellectualism kept people ignorant of
foreign traditions until 1978. ......~.,... i t '," .- ...~.. 1_. r , j The
Role of the Music Teachers ' , ' I ; , We must begin by trying to recapture
briefly the atmosphere of excitement, heated debate and youthful recklessness
at the conservatories in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, at the time shortly
after the Cultural Revolution, when the whole country was about to make a
new start and to (re-)open its doors to the West. Let us focus, for a while,
on the older and middle-aged teachers, some of whom stimulated the young students
to find new ways in Chinese music and to look for examples abroad. What has
become of these older men and their music? We can be brief about the once
brazen romantics of revolutionary China, most of them now octogenarians. They
were never prepared for the new music movement, nor did they afterwards realize
the true extent of the musical change that had taken place. They were concerned
witnesses rather than active participants, none of them able (or interested,
for that matter) to claim a substantial contribution to their students' success.
Their own music offered little inspiration and attracted very little attention
outside China. Their emotional reactions towards the work of their students
were a mixture of jealousy, abhorrence and disbclief. It was a different story,
however, with the teachers who are now in their late forties to early sixties.
Some werc directly responsible for changing the musical climate. They were
the ones to introduce new Western techniques to their students, and all shared
the same tragic fate. They had been in the cross-fire of political upheaval
from the 1950s onwards and suffered most from the painful process of cultural
transformation which they themselves helped to bring about in the 1980s: while
enthusiastic about the avant-garde, they failed to pursue the new path in
their own works. The avant-garde was a new musical domain which they entered,
partly with relief and with curiosity, but perhaps also with a dark premonition
that they would be in it, but not of it: the musical climate of revolutionary
China had marked them so deeply that they began to sway unhappily between
Western tonal romanticism and superficial "modern" gestures, between mock-Chinese
tunes and true borrowings from Chinese tradition. It was mainly older composers
like Sang Tong, Luo Zhongrong, Gao Weijie and Wang Lisan who first introduced
atonal music and serialism in China, but their own experiments in that field
were heavily dependent on Western models. Middle-aged composers like Zhao
Xiaosheng, Yang Liqing and Peng Zhimin were more innovative in that they invented
new compositional systems and introduced constructivist methods in China on
a more systematic scale. Their theoretical writings boldly discussed the technicalities
of a modern fusion of Chinese traditional and Western music. But the sound
of their own works, while formally based on tone-rows, pitch-class sets, and
complicated structural formulas (mixing Chinese and Western theoretical ideas),
betray nostalgia for a bygone era. . , -. ,,,' - _ ___
4 Paul Griffiths,
Modern Music: The Avant Garde Since 1945, Dent Publishers (London 1981),
p. 12.
2420
Some
explained their own conservatism by pointing out that the public (i.e. the
government) compelled them to write old-fashioned music. Indeed, their social
position was such that they were expected to set an orthodox example for their
students. They could "innovate", but only within certain limits, making ample
reference to the musical past with its revolution-inspired "music for the
masses". Others seemed hardly aware of following a beaten track. They argued
that serialism and other Western devices, applied in a Chinese context, were
bound to lead to a new kind of music. Western techniques did achieve a new
meaning when they were introduced in China, but to widely differing degrees,
and on many different levels. While the "atonal" or "serial" works of middle-aged
composers in China struck native listeners as radically new works of art,
to many Western listeners they sounded like poor imitations of European music
of the 1920s to the 1950s. They are nevertheless interesting even from a stylistical
point of view, because they present an extraordinary attempt to reconcile
totally alien worlds, viz. the claustrophobia of Stalinist heroic romanticism
with the intellectual freedom and arrogance of European serialism. One could
hardly think of poles wider apart. Some Chinese artists may have silently
recognized the dilemma, but they never verbalized it in these terms. Early
Twelve-Tone Music Chinese composers of the early 1980s began to adopt twelve-tone
principles in their music in many different ways, horizontally and vertically,
sometimes simply with a grateful nod to Schoenberg, sometimes with the help
of newly invented rules. Recently, the Chinese musicologist Zheng Yinglie
has tried to summarize the development of Chinese twelve-tone music.' His
technical observations on the adoption of Schocnbcrgian and Hauerian principles
in China are correct, but he does not bother to determine their new significance
in a Chinese context, if any. His music examples seem to indicate that, very
often, the mechanisms of twelve-tone music were adopted, but not their functions,
as will be shown below. Most Western composers - whether they approve of twelve-tone
technique as an end in itself or not - will agree that the technique has primarily
served, and may still serve, as an escape-route from the conventions of 19th-century
tonality. However, the Chinese works quoted in Zheng's article (pieces by
Luo Zhongrong, Lu Shilin, Wang Jianzhong, Li Baoshu, Wang Xilin, Zhou Jinmin,
Peng Zhimin and Yang Hengzhan) usually remain to a certain extent dependent
on conventional Western tonality, thus ignoring a major function of twelve-tone
technique. Their melodies and chords are often based on twelve-tone series
in which Chinese pentatonic intervals dominate. As a result, the piano pieces,
songs and miniature chamber works of these composers are frequently reminiscent
of Western fin-de-siecle music, with added flavors of chittoiserie. In actual
sound, they appear more indebted to Hindemith and Debussy than to Schoenberg
or Webern. Luo Zhongrong's art song "Picking Lotus Flowers Along The River"
(1979) is a case in point. Although it contains the first strict twelve-tone
melody ever written in China, it has a pentatonic basis, so much so that the
music remains essentially tonal. It is an attractive but entirely Western
type of art-song. The piano-writing, the vocal technique, the melodic and
dynamic gestures are all borrowed from European music. This same pattern of
overall-imitation can be detected in the songs and piano pieces, written in
the 1980s by other composers of Luo's generation, like Wang Jianzhong and
Chen Mingzhi. Early Atonal and Serial Experiments Some composers are gradually
expanding their twelve-tone experiments, adopting genuine atonality
5 Zheng Yinglic,
"Letter from China: The Use of Twelve-Tone Technique in Chinese Musical Composition",
in: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 3, 1990, pp. 473-488.
2521
and
various strands of serialism. As a result, their music occasionally tends
to become even more "Western". This is true for younger generation composers
as well, for example Han Yong and Wang Haiping.' While displaying an admirable
control of European techniques, it appears that they do little beyond simply
imitating them. In some cases, atonalism is simply transplanted to the domain
of Chinese traditional instruments. Cui Wenyu, for example, has written a
piece called Yrcn (1987), a quartet for dizi, erhtt, shen~ and zhen~.' It
moves along melodic lines which are sometimes reminiscent of Schoenberg, but
retains the inherent Chinese expressiveness of the bamboo tlute, the mouth-organ
and the two stringed instruments employed. The result may be judged attractive
(the piece was well received at the 1988 World Music Days of the International
Society of Contemporary Music in Hong Kong) although thc combination of Chinese
and foreign elements appears to be facile and somewhat non-committal. Do we
have here a Schoenbcrg in Chinese disguise? Whatever thc answer, it is important
to realize that many Chinese composers do not attach the same importance to
originality as their Western colleagues generally do. One composer, Luo Zhongrong8,
has actually stated that he has never actively sought to establish a personal
style in his music.' This becomes immediately clear when one listens to his
compositions. Most of it is romantic and could easily be judged "old fashioned",
but a handful of his works are harshly dissonant and percussive in style.
Like many of his contemporaries, Luo Zhongrong is somewhat of a stylistical
chameleon, but he is one of the few who has attracted some attention outside
China. His ideas are certainly not without merit. Interestingly, he has stated
that it was partly Chinese tradition which first put him on the track of serialism:
"If you wish to investigate the history of serialism, you might as well start
in China. There is a coincidental but very interesting relationship between
the rhythmical or timbral serialism of composers like Messiaen and Berg, and
the structural principles of shifan hiogii, a genre of Chinese, ritual percussion
music. Messiaen began to work with
6 I-Ian Yong
was born in 1957 in Xi'an. He began his career studying piano, but overstrained
his hands and had to give up the instrument. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied
composition at the Shanghai Conservatory with Ye Chunzhi and Shi Yongkang.
He developed a compositional system of his own, much indebted to twelve-tone
principles, and wrote a technically admirable 13-minute, Berg- and Bartók-like
"Violin Concerto" (1982). He now lives in New York. Wang Haiping studied
at the Chinese Conservatory in Beijing. Some of his atonal pieces for
xiao (bamboo flute) were recorded by the China Record Company ("A Treasury
of Xiao Tunes", AL-14, 1987). He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.
7 Cui Wenyu
was born in 1952 in Guiyang (Guizhou) and graduated in 1981 as a composition
student from the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. He is in charge of the Guizhou
Chinese Music Association.
8 Luo Zhongrong
was born in 1924 in Sichuan and started his musical career as a violinist.
He was active as a member of the underground Communist Party before 1949
but eventually devoted all his time to music. As a composition student of
Tan Xiaolin (between 1946 and 1948) and Ding Shande at the Shanghai Conservatory,
he developed a special interest in the music and writings of Paul Hindemith,
whose book on harmony he later translated into Chinese (published in 1983/87).
He secretly maintained his interest in modern music after 1949. His formal
reputation as a composer was initially based on a popular mass song, "The
Land is Beautiful Beyond the Mountain" (1947). He went to Beijing in 1951
where he became a resident composer of the Central Philharmonic Society.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he produced a number of successful orchestral
works, some in romantic style (e.g. "Symphony No. 1", 1959), some mildly
dissonant and reminiscent of early folklore-inspired works of Bartók (e.g.
"Sichuan Suite", 1963). He was harassed and imprisoned during the Cultural
Revolution. When he took up composition in 1979, his style gradually grew
more modern, while his interest in Western music shifted from Hindemith to
Schoenberg. He wrote several song cycles and chamber works applying serial
techniques. He taught composition at the Chinese Conservatory in Beijing for
some time, and visited Germany in 1985. Mo Wuping and Chen Qigang were among
his best-known students. Because of his personal and artistic integrity,
he is regarded somewhat as a fatherly hero by many composers of the younger
generation.
9 These and
following quotations are from an interview which the author held with Luo
Zhongrong at his home in Beijing, 25 June 1990.
2622
rhythmical
and timbral series in the 20th century, but Chinese musicians already did
so many centuries ago". Luo applied serial principles of shifan luogu in his
own compositions from the early 1980s onwards. He took them from Yang Yinliu's
study Shifan Luogu (1980) and applied them in a number of piano and chamber
works, notably in his "Three Piano Pieces" (1986) and his "Second String Quartet"
(1985). Below, an example of a traditional luogu series is given, which combines
rhythmical and timbral elements." 'j Example 1. Yu he ba ("The Sum is Always
Eight"): one of many rhythmic formulas used in shifan hiogu (Chinese music
for gong and drums ensemble).
The
series should be read from left to right and from top to bottom without a
break, ignoring the blank spaces between the notes. In hiogi music, the sequence
is played by two groups of percussion instruments, A and B. They play in alternation,
the part of A gradually growing shorter, that of B gradually becoming longer,
until the end is reached and the whole sequence is repeated. To enhance variety,
each line of A is played by different instruments, resulting in different
timbres. This particular series is called Yii he ba ("The Sum Is Always Eight"),
referring to the total sum of beats per line, which remains eight". The result
in sound, in traditional Chinese music, is a tight pulse of quavers with rapidly
shifting long accents. The sound colors vary from short, dry beats on woodblocks
to loud and resonant gong-beats. The short, fast movements of Luo Zhongrong's
"Second String Quartet" are strongly percussive in character and make use
of various htogu series, including the one quoted above. Interestingly, Luo
retains the general idea of telescoping rhythms in luogu, but not necessarily
their underlying pulse. For example, a traditional Chinese percussion player
would not directly recognize the Yu he ba series as applied in the fifth .movement
of the quartet (see Example 2). Here, in its initial appearance, B is not
simply one beat, but already an entire rhythmical motif. Furthermore, the
idea of timbral variety in the original series is translated into different
playing techniques on the string instruments (Bart6k pizzicato, col legno,
arco and ordinary pizzicato). The result of this experiment with luogu materials
is interesting in several ways. Firstly, in Luo's "String Quartet", the percussive
nature of Chinese ritual music is emphasized, but the actual rhythms in this
piece are not necessarily reminiscent of luogi - the influence of traditional
rhythms is present on a theoretical rather than on a practical level. Secondly,
although the melodic material of the quartet is based on twelve-tone series,
the twelve-tone technique as applied in this piece is not necessarily reminiscent
of Western i~.velve-tone composers. The actual melodies and
10 From Yang
Yinliu, Shifan Luogu, Renmin yinyue chubanshe, Beijing, 1980 p. 43.
For a more elaborate discussion of luogu rhythms in Luo's quartet,
cf. Zheng Yinglie, "Luo Zhongrong 'di er xuanyue sichongzou' shixi", in:
Yinyue yishu, No. 4, 1988, Shanghai, pp. 55-58.
11 Admittedly,
each line is supplemented by a tail sequence of a fixed number of beats- "x"
in the example shown above - but these additional beats do not affect the
validity of the "A+B=8" principle.
2723
counterpoint
often sound more like Bart6k. These two re.markable paradoxes need some closer
examination, because they are representative of a general trend in the music
of elder Chinese composers in the 1980s. - Example 2. Luo Zhongrong - "Second
String Quartet" (1985), beginning of the Fifth Movement.
2824
The
Impact of Bart6k When I told composer Zhao Xiaosheng that the dominating influence
of Bart6k in contemporary Chinese music puzzled me, he reacted by saying that
Bart6k was not always necessarily a direct intluence.'2 Zhao pointed to a
number of similarities which happen to exist between Chinese and Hungarian
folk music: certain pentatonic scales and syncopic rhythms. It may have led
both modern Chinese and Hungarian composers to adopt folk tunes and folk rhythms
in their own music along similar lines. He referred to an essay by the musicologist
Du Yaxiong about some remarkable melodic relationships between Chinese and
Hungarian folk songs", and mentioned certain musical instruments which both
countries have in common, notably the dulcimer. I remained sceptical, because
I was aware of the fact that Bart6k's music was already well-known in China
in the 19COS.'4 I had found that Bart6k's influence could clearly be discerned
in Chinese piano pieces of that period, such as Wang Lisan's "Sonatina" (1957).
But something interesting happened when Zhao Xiaosheng asked me to listen
to his "Second String Quartet" of 1981. He acknowledged that this piece, written
while he studied in the United States, was directly influenced by Bart6k.
In fact, it was dedicated to the Hungarian composer and performed during the
Bart6k Centenary Celebrations. However, at one point during the piece, when
the strings were playing a telescoping rhythm which immediately struck me
as typically Bart6kian, Zhao Xiaosheng jumped up and said cnthusiastically:
"Can you hear it? Wonderful! This is just like Chinese percussion!" He said
he had been inspired by luo~~ec rhythms. Even if one assumes that the influence
of Bart6k in the work of Chinese composers is usually a direct one, the question
remains why Bart6k has been so much more influential than other major composers
from the West, such as Schoenberg or Stravinsky for example. Not only Bart6k's
rhythms, but also his harmonies and contours of melodies can be heard frequently
in Chinese modern music. Are they subconscious quotations? Or do underlying
relationships exist between certain types of Chinese and Hungarian folk music,
which create natural affinities with Bart6k's music? Obviously, the matter
needs further investigation." Zhao Xiaosheng's Taiji System I have already
mentioned two notable paradoxes in modern music by elder Chinese composers.
One is the strong impact of Bart6k, in spite of the fact that the music is
often based on serialist
12 From an interview
which the author held with Zhao Xiaosheng in Shanghai, 30 April 1990.
13 Du Yaxiong,
"The Relationship Between Chinese and Hungarian Folksongs", manuscript, 1990.
This essay will be published in CHIME, Vol. 6, Fall 1992 (forthcoming).
It is specifically concerned with folksongs of the Western Yugurs, a minority
of Turkish descent in Western China (Yugur - not to be confused with Uygur).
See also: Du Yaxiong, "Xiongyali min'ge he Hasake min'ge you yuanyuan guanxi
ma? Yu Han Bing tongzhi shangque", in: Xinjiang yishu, 1989, No. 3; Zhang Rui, "Xiongyali min'ge tong woguo mouxie min'ge xiangsi yuanyin qiantan",
in: Yinyue wudao yanjiu, 1985, No. 6, pp. 21-28; and Bu Jie, "Yuguzu
xibu min'ge he Xiongyali min'ge xiangsi de yuanyin", in: Yinyue wudao
yanjiu, 1985, No. 11, pp. 19-21.
14 Cf. Chao
Feng, "Bartók and Chinese Music Culture", in: Liszt-Bartók, Report of the
2nd International Musicological Conference, Budapest 1961, Akadémiai
Kiadó, Budapest, 1963, pp. 383-393. This article must be read with strong
reservations, as Chao (pinyin: Zhao) Feng, a researcher from Beijing,
offers a rather idealized picture. He claims that Bartók's popularity in
China is largely due to the efforts of the Communist Party, and that "thousands
of music conservatory students [in China] draw inspiration from his compositions".
In reality, by the early 1960s, Bartóks music was severely criticized, and
students who imitated him (if they were able to find any materials about
Bartók) were also likely to be criticized.
15 One other
Western composer that immediately springs to mind is Debussy. His "broken"
tonality fits in wonderfully with the floating nature of Chinese pentatonicism.
Debussy's impact on Chinese music, too, deserves to be studied in detail.
2925
principles
to which Bart6k never felt attracted. The second paradox concerns the major
influence of ancient Chinese traditions and theories. These are much discussed
in Chinese scholarly essays, but seldom audible in actual sound. Take, for
example, Zhao Xiaosheng. His Taiji system, a set of rules for musical composition,
is based on the Chinese concept of yin and yang - the cosmic theory that everything
in the universe can be expressed in terms of a balance between diametrically
opposed forces. In ancient Chinese musical theory, the principles of yin and
yang were reflected in the system of twelve Iii: standard pitches produced
by bells or bamboo pipes. These pitches were divided in six yang (male) and
six yin (female) pitches. The ratio 3:2, or 2:3, using the numbers which symbolized
heaven and earth, was applied to the lengths of pitch-pipes to generate series
of pitches. In his Taiji system, Zhao Xiaosheng adopts these principles and
combines them with the hexagrams of the Ycjirtg, the Chinese classic of divination.
He then creates a vast and complicated network of horizontal and vertical
pitch sets: Example 3. Diagram f'rom Zhao Xiaosheng's Taiji composition system.
(From Taiji zuoqu xilong, p. 86). .
Unlike
Schoenberg's twelve tone rows, Zhao Xiaosheng's tone sets vary in length.
In the circle shown above, sets in opposite positions present contrasting
combinations of yin and yang, which will either "supplement" or "eartinguish"
each other. Recently, Zhao has elaborated his Taiji system. It now combines
elements of ancient Chinese music theory with Western conventional harmony
(the antithesis of major and minor keys) and twelve-tone composition. He says
that, from the very beginning, he has found inspiration for his Taiji system
not only in ancient Chinese sources and
3026
Western
contcmporary music, but also in the paintings of M.C. Eschcr, and in J.S.
Bach's crab fugues. Over the past few years, he has written many compositions
based on Taiji, ranging from piano solo and chamber works to orchestral music.
Whilc the whole aim of his system is to merge West and East, ancient and modern,
the music which is based on it often sounds predominantly Western, and not
always as innovative as Zhao Xia~sheng may have intended. The first composition
he based on the system, simply called "Taiji", is a piano solo piece from
1988 which virtually explores all of the 64 pitch sets shown in Example 3.
It serves as a kind of showcase of the whole network. The dreamy, ten-minute
piece alternates softly floating passages with short, brilliant fortissimo
outbursts. Whatever its Chinese and ancient roots may be, the music is surprisingly
reminiscent of Bart6k in its rhythms and gestures. While theoretical concepts
from Chinese traditional music are frequently applied by Chinese composers,
the results do not necessarily guarantee a "Chinese sound". Most of the elder
composers consciously try to establish a Chinese identity in their music,
but the problem is that they were primarily educated in Western music or Western
techniques. Their knowledge of Chinese traditional music was based only on
theoretical sources, or on the virtuoso-type of traditional music inventcd
at Chinese conservatories and developed under a strong influence of Western
music. (The e/7!~, for example, was never a virtuoso concert instrument in
ancient China, but its appearance and technique were adapted in the 20th century
to turn it into a Chinese equivalent of the Western violin.) Zhao Xiaosheng
probably gets much closer to his Chinese ideal in some of his works for Chinese
instruments than in his piano music. His brilliant "Huan Feng" for a 31-valve
sheng (1989), and his concerto "Yi" for erliii, gnohu (two types of Chinese
riddles) and Chinese orchestra (1988) are expansions of the "acaclcmic" tradition
ol~ Chinese folk music as developed in Chinese conservatories. His own importance
as a composer does not depend on the Taiji system. Zhao is a very enthusiastic
and energetic music teacher, and a pianist with a great talent for improvisation.
The impact of his music is largely created in performance, and depends perhaps
more on musicianship than on his architectural talents. It is highly significant
that his piano improvisations on Chinese contemporary paintings sometimes
sound like real compositions, while his compositions often sound likc improvisations.
Couldn't it be that, in the end, improvisation is much more at the core of
Chinese tradition than any of the theoretical, structural devices applied
so dexterously by Zhao and his colleagues? True enough, the idea of elaborate
mathematical and mystical organization of music and ritual also seems a strong
characteristic of the cultures of the Orient. It may go some way in explaining
why Chinese composers have begun to rely heavily on ancient Chinese theoretical
sources, and why they have also developed such an enthusiasm for Western serialism:
it may have given them a shock of recognition. A Group of Structuralists in
Sichuan , .~ The early 1980s saw the emergence of many inventors of Chinese-inspired
systems of composition, serialist or otherwise. Zhao Xiaosheng's adventures
basically illustrate what many of his contemporaries tried to achieve. The
tone for a Chinese-style structuralism was not set by Zhao, however. It was
in Sichuan that the first (informal) group of contemporary musicians in China
was established. Things were set in motion first by Gao Weijie and his students
at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, which invited foreign experts of new
music at a relatively early stage. 16 Gao Weijie, an older composer, born
in 1938 in Shanghai, started his career as a romantic in the 1950s, but radically
changed his style aftcr the Cultural Revolution, when he took the initiative
to organize study sessions on modern music in Chengdu together with pupils.
This is his story:
16 Among the
first foreign guest-lecturers in Chengdu were Leland Smith (a former student
of Milhaud, now a professor at Stanford University, California) in 1984,
and Carl Vine (a young composer from Australia) in 1986.
3127
"It
began in the summer of 1980. We had already found our way to the music of
. Hindcmith. Then we began to write works in twelve-tone style. Everyone studied
some material separately, and then all of us came together to discuss it.
In the beginning, we worked on Schoenberg and Webern, but soon we were to
discover Messiaen, Penderecki, Ligeti, Berio, Stockhausen and others. _ ..
' ~ , ~ ~ . ~ ",' ... ~, Foreign experts began to visit us, so that Chcngdu
became a real center of new development. Our group was actually very informal,
you might say we were a kind of open salon. In 1985, we founded an unofficial
organization, which was led by He Xuntian and me. We called it the "Society
for the Exploration of Musical Compositions". We tried very hard to introduce
more contemporary music in the official curriculum of the Conservatory students,
and partly succeeded. I remember we asked Yang Liqing, a colleague from Shanghai,
to come over and do some iccturing, because he had been to Germany and knew
a lot about new music. In that same period, He Xuntian began to develop his
own system of composition; in 1986, he won a prize with his piece "Sounds
of Nature", which was a great encouragement to all of us. A year later, the
New Zealand composer Jack Body visited our Conservatory. His interest in genuine
folk music exerted a deep influence on us. We began to wonder how we could
use folk music in our own compositions. Body also made us realize that twelve-tone
technique was already considered "classical" in Western music, so he encouraged
us to invent our own systems. In my piano piece "Autumn Wilderness", written
in 1988, I used pitch class sets. Not because I wanted the music to be completely
atonal - I think we have moved away from complete atonalism again, just as
much as we can now discern, in contemporary Western music, a tendency towards
neo-classicism"." . ~ . Jia Daqun's Mathematical Principles The new music
group in Sichuan gradually fell apart in thc late 1980s. Two teachers, Yang
Lu and Lan Guangming, left for the USA.18 Gao Weijie himself moved to Beijing,
where the stage for a different kind of contemporary music had already been
set, and He Xuntian was invited to start teaching at the Shanghai Conservatory.
Nevertheless, a strongly theoretically oriented new music movement had been
established in Sichuan, and its spirit was carried on by several composers
- those who stayed behind in Chengdu, like Jia Daqun and Hu Ping19, as well
as others, like Peng
17 From an interview
which the author held with Gao Weijie, in Beijing on 27 June 1990. Gao is
still very active as a composer. He is particularly fond of orchestral music
and has written various ballets, including "Yuan ye" (1987), as well as a
"Symphony" (1989), a "Dizi Concerto" (1992) and various smaller works.
He is a skilled craftsman in the field of small-scale pieces for Chinese
instruments, compositions which he often refers to as "play-things" or "games".
18 Yang Lu (b.
1953) is a theorist, now working in a laboratory for computer music at Stanford
University. Lan Guangming (b. 1954) is still active as a composer. He studies
with Allan Forte at Yate University.
19 Hu Ping (b.
1959, Chongqing), is a former student of He Xuntian. Among his works arc "Xuantong",
for seven performers (1988), modelled after He Xuntian's "Sounds of Nature"; a String Quartet, "Wu jie" ("World of Awareness"), written in 1989. He is
now a teacher at the Sichuan Conservatory.
3228
Zhimin
and his group in Wuhan2°, and Cao Guangping and colleagues in Guangdong2'.
Jia Daqun, who is currently still in Chengdu, is perhaps one of the most gifted
younger composers who have immersed themselves in structuralism. Jia was born
in 1955 in Chongqing and started his artistic career in painting, but he damaged
his eyesight during the Cultural Revolution, working for eight years in an
insufficiently lit room. He began to discover music as a possible alternative,
rapidly shifting his attention from Chinese revolutionary opera to Beethoven,
and from Tchaikovsky to 20th Century Western composers. He became an early
student of Gao Weijie. Jia's "String Quartet" of 1988, which recently won
an award in Japan', is based on the pitch set theories of Alan Forte.23 Another
composition of his, the wind sextet "Counterpoints of Time" (1989) is rhythmically
very tightly organized - using number systems like the Fibonacci series -
while the pitches in the piece are free. He explained: "I thoroughly enjoy
using mathematical principles to express emotions in music. I have been inspired
by many Western examples. In my view, Webern is a more rational and therefore
more important composer than Cage, for example. Obviously, Cage has a ratio
of his own, closer to nature perhaps than that of Webern. He has a philosophy,
probably not all that far removed from the impulsiveness and free-flowing
thought found in ancient Chinese music. But at present I feel there is a general
tendency in music towards rationalism. Rationalism presents modern man, and
I feel naturally attracted to it. Of course, rational principlcs applied in
music can lead to many different results". His own music seems to underline
it. The written score of his "String Quartet" betrays a carefully constructed
edirice, but the music does not sound "constructed" at all. It has overtones
of quiet Taoist hymnal music and flows along freely. It is somcwhat difficult
to imagine that the composer who wrote this piece usually spends his evenings
as a keyboard player in a local disco in Chengdu. Tan Dun and Qu Xiaosong:
Two Worshippers of Nature ' What is the attitude of younger composers in China
in respect to serialism and structuralism? Do they regard it as a purpose
in itself, like in the music of Gao Weijie and his younger colleagues in Sichuan?
There is no easy answer to this. Most of the young composers who are still
active in the PRC have few opportunities to come to the fore with their compositions.
Concerts of new music in China have become rare events. Some musical journals,
like Ynyue chumigzuo, occasionally include music scores of piano and chamber
pieces by young composers, but less frequent than before, and they are only
a meager handful, randomly selected from hundreds of unpublished and unplayed
works. It is difficult to gauge what is going on. However, among Chinese composers
who left China and whose works are now being performed abroad, the interest
in serialism, with a few exceptions, is visibly limited. The early works of
Tan Dun and Qu Xiaosong, written during their conservatory years in Beijing,
already
20 Peng, although
a composer himself, is mainly influential as a theorist. He writes in various
journals, and founded a modern music society at the Music Conservatory in
Wuhan. His piano and chamber works betray a strong interest in serialism.
21 Cao Guangping
(b. 1942, Shanghai) graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory in 1965 and is
currently a teacher at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou. He
mainly writes chamber music. His piece "Nüwa" for prepared piano and 19 extra
instruments (1987), was played during the 1988 World Music Days in Hong Kong.
It is partly reminiscent of Crumb's "Macrocosmos" and appears to quote freely
from Debussy and Messiaen.
22 Jia's Quartet
won the 12th Irino Prize for Chamber Music in Tokyo on 15 July 1991.
23 As introduced
by Forte in his standard reference book The Structure of Atonal Music,
(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973), and in later publications
of the mid-1980s.
3329
demonstrate
the usc of serialist principles as an extra means, no longer as the sole key
to the structure of the music. It was Tan Dun, in particular, who set the
scene for a genuinely new direction in Chinese music, and who also helped
to establish a platform for Chinese composers abroad. He dominated music circles
in Beijing until his dcparture from China in 1985. He was among the first
to return to genuine roots of Chinese folk and traditional music, while experimenting
freely with whatever modern compositional techniques the West had to offer.
Both Tan Dun and Qu Xiaosong, now living in New York, appear to have reached
a stage in their careers where they may still be deeply indebted to Western
composers, but are no longer dependent upon them. Although they have partly
taken their cues from American music, from serialism to Crumb, and from jazz
to minimal music, their works are deeply personal statements. Qu Xiaosong
(b. 1952, Guiyang), sometimes called "Wolf' by his friends, is a lover of
nature, a romantic philosopher and painter. His early works are wild and exalted,
while his later works are quiet and concentrated, usually exploring the interplay
of sound and silence. Like Qu Xiaosong, Tan Dun (b. 1957, Changsha) is a worshipper
of nature. He promotes naivety, directness, the scent of the earth and of
primitive, tribal life in his music. His music is a continuous exploration
of spatial and timbral contrast, with a dominant role for percussion, but
it is also frequently infused with ritual elements - shouts, whispers, mysterious
dance rhythms, or ghost-like drum-beats. Tan is by far the best-known and
most productive composer of his generation now in the USA. Qu Xiaosong's Early
Works - ' The titles of Qu Xiaosong's early works leave little doubt about
the romantic nature of his aspirations: "Mountain Song" for cello and piano
( l~)82), "Girl of the Mountain" for violin and orchestra, "The Mountain",
a symphonic suite (1983), etcetera. The first movement of his "String Quartet"
of 1981, later rescored for strings, piano and percussion, betrayed many folk
influences but was also reminiscent of Bart6k. As Qu explained: "I began writing
it before I had heard any Bart6k. So you can imagine how surprised I was when,
shortly afterwards, I discovered Bart6k and found striking similarities to
my own music. I was even more excited when I read that he had based much of
his works on peasant tunes".2a Looking back in late 1983 on the works he
had written as a student, Qu found them conservative. He tried an entirely
new approach in "Mong Dong" (1984), a ten-minute piece for chamber orchestra
of Western and Chinese instruments, more "folk-like" than any of his previous
works. It was a joyful orgy of banging and shouting, like the wild dance of
some primitive tribe, and immediately established his name in China. The music
was inspired by the crude, unstudied and childlike rock-carvings of the Wa
minority in Cangyuan, Yunnan Province. Qu was moved by their serenity, which
he took as a symbol of primitive man's oneness with nature. In the vocal parts
of "Mong Dong", Qu Xiaosong dispensed with established singing techniques
and concentrated instead on natural vocalization, which he had become familiar
with through folk song (See Example 4). There was no real text, the words
used being either abstract syllables (like the title), or randomly selected
dialect words, including a local term of abuse. The exuberant timbral and
rhythmic explorations in the piece were suggestive of rural ensemble music.
There were folk instrumental sounds (including imitations on Western piccolo
and oboe), primal shouts, and ritual drum beats. Qu also applied shifan luogu
formulas, including . : .--, ., , .-.... ---""'-~ .....-.
24 From an interview
with Qu Xiaosong, 7 December 1990, New York. Qu subsequently wrote a second
movement (of the String Quartet) which became almost a straight paraphrase
of the opening of Bartók's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta". He
later explained that such was his enthusiasm for Bartók, that he was unable
to control himself.
3430
the
yu he ba series which we have already seen in Luo Zhongrong's music. He stayed
closer than Luo to the audible effects of the rhythms.25 .., Example 4. Qu
Xiaosong, "Mong Dong", beginning (part for solo voice). " .1
Qu
also used microtones, harmonic cells and tone-rows in "Mong Dong", but tone
row principles were applied only incidentally because he basically regarded
them as "unnatural"." In fact, "Mong Dong" was very much born from a sudden
impulse, and immediately written down in a full score. Still, its range of
expression and variety of techniques easily surpassed the achievements of
Qu's seniors or fellow-students at that time. The piece was illustrative of
a renewed interest in Chinese tradition, this time on a practical level. Young
composers became fascinated with ancient Chinese culture as a whole. Their
music became a spiritual return to the splendors of China's great, mysterious
past. They put on the garments and proud airs of celebrated writers and philosophers
from ancient dynasties. While reading Zhuangzi, they became Zhuang7~i themselves.
While admiring ancient rock-carvings, they became rock-carvers. It was a soothing
and miraculous antidote to the painful memories of the more recent past. It
was not just a mental escape, but a total rebirth. ~"')'..P. : n~ ~tVi..l...!""
't., r~ Towards "Stillness" (1991) '" ' " Towards "Stillness" (1991) Qu Xiaosong
again changed his course shortly after finishing "Mong Dong". In "Huan" for
piano and strings (1985), he explored, for the faust time, the quiet atmosphere
evoked by single tones and long sustained silences which would become the
identifying mark of lus later works. He temporarily returned to a Shostakovichian
type of romanticism in his "Symphony" of 1987, a somber piece written in response
to the tightening of political and cultural control in China in that
25 For another
example, see the part of the woodblock from bar 111 onwards. The score of
"Mong Dong" was published in Yinyue chuangzuo in 1985.
26 E.g. the
melodic development in bars 32-49 is formally constrained to a range of five
notes.
3531
period.
His big cantata "Cleaving the Coffin" (Da pi guan), written later in the same
year, was optimistic and romantic in a broad sense, taking in elements of
Sichuanese folk opera. It was a popular work for vocal soloists, choir and
orchestra, probably closer to the ideal of a Chinese "music for the masses"
than any of the drab socialist cantatas of modcl composers of the 1950s. Its
borrowings from folk music were genuine, its humor and wit very convincing.
The text, based on a story about the classical philosopher Zhuangzi, was to
be sung in Sichuanese dialect. Subsequent works, like the very dynamic "Concerto
for Percussion and Wind Instruments" (1986), for example, or "Song of Deities"
(1987) for Chinese wind instruments and Chinese orchestra, attested to his
continued interest in folk musical materials. Gradually, however, his focus
shifted towards a greater economy of resources, and greater sparsity of lines.
His music gradually acquired a more reflective nature. "Game" for two percussionists
(1988) and "Ya Ya" for six musicians (1990) retained the playfulness of "Mong
Dong" but were literally childlike in their simplicity. "Ya Ya" was partly
based on number systems, showing that Qu maintained an interest in academic
devices. "Yi" for seven players (1991) reached a new level of tranquility,
its score showing even more blank spaces than a score by Webern. One of his
works was actually called "Stillness" (1991). His development away from the
brazen folksy spirit of "Mong Dong" towards meditation and serenity disappointed
some and impressed others. What remained was the impulsiveness of his writing,
as well as his fascination with childlike purity, and his longing for a spiritual
union with nature. ... Tan Dun's "Death and Fire" (1992) ~ . Folk songs, native
scenery, closeness to nature, and childlike spontaneity were also points off
departure for Tan Dun in his early career as a composcr. As I have already
discussed most of his artistic development in another article27, I will limit
myself here to a discussion of one of his most recent works, the Symphony
"Death and Fire - Dialogue with Paul Klee" (1992), arguably his most eclectic
work up to date. Strands of Mahler, Bart6k, Shostakovich, Messiaen and Bach
in this piece have led some critics to call it a work of "acculturation".
But the final result is unlike any music that existed before, and the hand
of Tan Dun is recognizable in every bar. It may well be that the Symphony
illustrates a wider tendency of eclecticism in current avant-garde music.
A great many composers, from Schnittke to Druckmann, have come to regard the
entire musical past as a potential reservoir of hasic materials for new compositions.
They quote and borrow freely. Tan's music is still a different case, because
many of his "quotations" are probably unintentional. The connotations of his
borrowings may also be different from what they were in their original conteh-t,
simply because the composer does not share the historical affinities of his
Western colleagues with respect to the European past. All this, however, makes
Tan Dun no less a master of his own fate. The symphony is eloquent, powerful,
at times theatrical, a summary of all the elements that determined his works
so far. His borrowings from Western music, like those of the entire generation
of young Chinese composers, should be approached with some caution. The work
is intended as a tribute to Paul Klee, and its various sections carry the
titles of some of his paintings. "Death and Fire" is a late painting by Klee,
and often referred to as the painter's final self-portrait. Tan's Symphony
is also partly a self-portrait. Its centerpiece is formed by an attractive
"Adagio for Strings" which Tan had already written in 1985, while still in
China. It combines the spacial fecling of his Chinese chamber pieces with
a superb command of 20th century string orchestra technique. The outer parts
of the Symphony are new and employ the entire orchestra. The Bach tunes towards
the end of the work are literal quotations, and a reference to Klee's comments
on Bach as a master of counterpoint and spatial feeling. The way Tan Dun uses
them may actually remind
27 See Frank
Kouwenhoven, "Composer Tan Dun: Ritual Fire Dancer of Mainland China's New
Music", in: China Information, Vol. VI, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92),
pp. 1-25.
3632
Western
listeners of the skillful treatment by Alban Berg in his "Violin Concerto"
of a Bach choral, but actually, the similarity of style and means is coincidcntal.
The overall impression of the symphony is that of a kaleidoscope of rapidly
changing sonic events - eithcr melodies of single tones, wavcringly produced
in space by solitary instruments, or bold, dance-like tunes to pointed rhythms,
with a major role for percussion. The element of sound-color is all-important.
j' 'J .1. L" : ; ;,', '>. ' . Chinese Composers in the USA ;i' I ' " . Over
the past ten ycars, dozens of other young Chinese composcrs have settled in
the USA, in order to study composition and to seek better performance opportunities
for thcir own works. Historically, the US is probably their most important
destination in the West. The country is generally looked upon by young Chinese
as a symbol of frcedom and as a refuge from the poverty and social pressures
of China. Admittedly, the actual face of the States has disappointed many.
Most composers have found it very difficult to gain a foothold, both economically
and artistically. Nearly all of them stopped writing music for a while, and
some never took it up again, the "culture shock" or the enticements of a job
in business and trade proving too big. Those who came in the early 1980s missed
the "back to Chinese tradition" movement at home, and some of them practically
turned into Western-style composers. Others, arriving in the latter half of
the decade, were more critical of Western music. A list of young Chinese composers
currently active in the United States, as far as known to this author, appears
in the Appendix to this article. It was the older composer Chou Wen-chung
(b. 1923) who helped many young students to find their way to the New World.
Chou, the godfather of new Chinese music in the West, has taught composition
to Chinese students at Columbia University for many years, familiarizing them
with serialism and other aspects of Western compositional techniques. While
some of his students, like Chcn Yi and Zhou Long, have gradually developed
a deep affinity with serialism, others like Tan Dun have turned away from
it, regarding it as incompatible with the spirit of Chinese tradition. Basically,
this is the point wherc the young generation composers in the USA have parted
ways. While nearly all of them defend their "Asian inheritance" and frequently
refer to it in their music, they differ widely in opinion about its actual
contents, and about its possibilities to serve as a basis for a new expressive
musical language, especially when Western techniques and methods of composition
are involved..... , ' . ' ' Learning F.'om the West - Among those who stay
very close to Western models is Yang Yong. He taught harmony and counterpoint
at the Central Conservatory in Beijing for several years before coming to
Pittsburgh in 1987, where he began his American career as a technically skilled
composer with an evident interest in atonality and complex structures. His
"Concerto for Chamber Orchestra" (1989) is based on a Chinese folk tune, but
not audibly so; the tune is stretched out in the whole piece and functions
as a structural backbone, determining rhythm, pulse, harmony and motif changes
in the piece. His "Octet" (1990), recently awarded at the ALEA III International
Composition Competition in Boston, is even more overtly indebted to Western
models. It sounds like a tribute to major representatives of American serialism
such as Carter, Babbitt and Wuorinen.28 Another, even more "americanized"
Chinese composer is Sheng Zhongliang. After his arrival in New York in 1982,
he changed his name to Bright Sheng, to make it more easily pronounceable
for Westerners, and perhaps also as a formal mark of leaving behind his troubled
life in China during the Cultural Revolution. He studied with George Perle
and Hugo Wcisgall, then moved
28 Yang Yong
recently started on a PhD at Brandeis University, while continuing his activities
as a composer. Among his other works written in the USA arc "Leeh" (1988)
for solo piano. "Intensionem" for orchestra ( 1988), "Darking Light" for
Clarinet and Strings (1990), and various chamber worla, including a "Trio"
(1987) and a "Second String Quartet" (1990).
3733
to Columbia
University, where his teachers were Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky, and
eventually received scholarships at Aspen and Tanglcwood. The pianist Peter
Serkin and the conductors Gerard Schwarz and Leonard Bernstein became ardent
supporters of his music. Developing an awareness of Western music history
was his first "big step" after he arrived in the West, and he regards his
contacts with Bernstein as his second important step: "I have learned so much
from him, because he was always so deeply involved in music and talked a lot
about it. I was still very uncertain about my own development as a composer.
Only after knowing him for a year I dared to ask him whether he thought a
fusion of Eastern and Western music was actually possible. He said: 'Shame
on you! What do you mean: fusion? Stravinsky is fusion. Shostakovich is fusion.
Debussy is fusion. Brahms is fusion with folk music. I am fusion. Of course
it is possible"'.29 In 1990, Bright Shcng orchestrated Bernstein's "Arias
and Barcarolles" at Bernstein's request and offered the score to him as a
birthday present. 30 Bright Shcng's reputation in the USA is primarily based
on his orchestral work "Hun" ("Lacerations - In Memoriam 1966-76" )31 , a
dense and dramatic piece recalling the violent tragedy of the Cultural Revolution.
The music, written in 1988 and performed successfully in various major cities
around the world, is strongly rhythmic and percussive in nature. Its syncopated
rhythms and skillfully built-up tensions and climactic outbursts may remind
some listeners of Bernstein. American critics have also heard echoes in this
piece of Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", and of Ligeti,
Var6se, and Bart6k. Bright Sheng's chamber works are different: more lyrical,
more recognizably "Chinese" as far as melodic materials are concerned. His
"Three Chinese Folk Songs" for soprano, viola and piano (1988) are essentially
Western art songs, delicate, though overtly romantic. His one-act opera, "The
Song of Majnun" (1990), to a libretto by Andrew Porter, was recently performed
by the Chicago Lyric Opera, where Bright Sheng is currently composer-in-residence.
I have not heard the music, but I expect it to radiate the same kind of Western
sophistication as his other works up to date. In mid-1990, Bright Sheng was
selected to represent the younger generation of American composers in a Festival
of American Music in Moscow. His piece "Hun" fealurcd in a program together
with pieces by Carter, Bernstein, Schuller and Kirchner. He was honored, but
also rather embarrassed to be regarded as an American, sincc he sees himself
as a Chinese artist. Another composer who has deeply immersed himself in Western
music is Chen Yuanlin. He came to the USA only in 1990, after a successful
career as a teacher and composer at the Beijing Central Conservatory. 32 His
early orchestral work "Hai shi" ("Sea Erosion") of 1989 betrays influences
of Britten, French impressionist composcrs and serialism. It is tightly packed
and powerful music, which holds a promise for the future of this composer.
The musical language of his choral work "Ga" (1987), a piece written for a
film about the tribal traditions of the Dong people in Southern China, is
close to Ligeti and Schocnberg. As in the case of Bright Sheng, it is difficult
to assess in Chen's music the actual weight of all these Western influences.
It is hard to say how much of it is sheer imitation, and how much of it is
truly absorbed, transformed and
29 From an interview
with the composer on 5 December 1990 in New York.
30 The music
was recorded on the Delos label. Bernstein himself would also have conducted
it for a recording by Deutsche Grammophon, if it had not been for his failing
health.
31 The piece
was recorded on New World Records, CD 80407-2, together with chamber works
and piano music by the same composer. A review is forthcoming in CHIME,
Leiden.
32 Chen Yuanlin
was a student of Wu Zuqiang in Beijing. He was in the same composition class
as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Chen Qigang, Zhou Long, Chen Yi and others. Among
his older compositions are "Yuewu" ("Ancient Dance") for orchestra (1983),
which is partly based on shifan luogu rhythms, and a "String Quartet"
(1981), as well as various pieces for synthesizer and percussion.
3834
remoulded
into a musical language that can be understood and appreciated on its own
terms. Learning F'rom Chinese Tradition Naturally, most Chinese composers
in the USA experience these acute questions, at least at some stage in their
career. The fear of loss of their ethnic identity usually manifests itself
as soon as they come face to face with Western culture. Only then do many
become interested in preserving an essentially "Chinese" style in their music,
often with the help of Chinese means. They suddenly come to regard the sounds
of Western music in their own scores as a foreign intrusion - but the spiritual
road back home is not always easy. Zhou Jinmin, currently a PhD student at
the University of Maryland in Baltimore, was among the first to write contemporary
solo music for gliqiii, the seven-stringed zither which embodies the spirit
of the Chinesc literati and of classical Chinese poetry. His guqin-piece "Xiao
Yao You" (1985) sounds like a frec improvisation, combining Western atonality
with melodic gestures reminiscent of both giiqiii and Chinese opera music.33
His works for Western instruments are folk-flavored imitations of Western
music. Li Binyang graduated at the Central Conscrvatory in Beijing in 1985,
and recently obtained a Master of Music Degree from the Louisiana State University.
He started his career in Beijing with a 12-minute, brazenly romantic "Symphony"
(1985) in a mixed idiom recalling Rimski-Korsakov, Honegger and French impressionists.
Only after his arrival in the USA did he makc his first attempt to write music
for Chinese traditional instruments. "Southern Features" (1986) is a playful
piece 1°or ,uiii and guqill, in which he pays tribute to southern Chinese
folk music. The work includes a "jazzy" passage where the gatqin is employed
as percussion instrument. His recent works for Western chamber ensemble, like
"Eguor Notab" (1990) and "Ecliptic" (1991), while indicating his essentially
lyrical stance as a composer, show that he is still seeking a personal style.34
More exciting is the music of the woman composer Luo Jingjing. She was educated
in Shanghai and Beijing and started her musical career as a piano prodigy.
Her early compositions include a "Piano Concerto" (1980), "Songs of Dunhuang"
for soprano and orchestra (1980), piano solo pieces based on three "Dunhuang
Poems" (1981), and "Two Movements" for piano, mezzo-soprano and orchestra
(1983), all of which draw heavily on Western romanticism. After Luo cntered
the New England Conservatory in Massachusetts, she moved away from Western
patterns and developed closer affinities with Chinese music. Her piece "Cicada
Slough" (1986) combines the classical ~tqiu with a Western brass and percussion
ensemble. Like Tan Dun, Luo J ingjing acquired a strong interest in theatrical
elements. She is an active performer of her own music - not only as a pianist
but also as a ~~ctqin player and vocalist. While it is ever more common for
avant-garde composers the world over to become performers of their own music,
the need is more urgent in the case of Asian artists who wish to employ musical
instruments or singing techniques from their own musical traditions. The road
is not always from romanticism towards serialist sophistication and then back
to Chinese tradition. Take, for example, Lu Pei, who entered the field of
serious music as an admirer of the linear textures of Anton Webern. As a student
in Guangxi and later in Shanghai he also experimented with the native tradition,
eventually extending his interest to Chinese folk songs and tribal music.
In "Scenery of Daning River" for orchestra (1986), Lu uses a tape with a folk
song which he recorded in Sichuan. He wrote various pieces for Chinese instruments,
including a
33 For a score,
see Chinese Music, journal of the Chinese Music Society of N. America,
Vol. 8, No. 4, 1985.
34 A concert
of his chamber works was presented in Baton Rouge in November 1991, including
the works mentioned above. "Eguor Notab" is "Baton Rouge" read backwards.
Li Binyang's currently lives in Baton Rouge. "One direction of the word corresponds
to my Eastern background and the other corresponds to my Western knowledge",
the composer explains in a program note.
3935
"Yangqin
Concerto" (1986), a violent and brooding "Symphony for Traditional Orchestra"
(1988) and a "Sextet" (1989). Several of his works, including "The Vibrating
of the Rainbow" for chamber ensemble (1987), were inspired by the work of
the contemporary poet Bei Dao. As in the case of so many others, the problem
of "foreign influences" only became apparent to Lu Pei after he came to the
USA in 1991. Studying at the School of Music of Louisville University, he
found it hard to escape the influences of American academic trends, as is
evident in his most recent works: "Yi", for flute, clarinet, violin, percussion
and piano (1991), "Fantasy" for oboe, saxophone, doublebass, harp, piano and
celesta, and "Duet" for cello and marimba. Lu Pei hopes to go back to China
eventually, after finishing his formal education program. He prefers to live
in his own country and wants to reinforce ties with his native culture. ."
Zhou Long and Chen Yi Perhaps none of the abovementioned composers - with
the exception of Tan Dun and Qu Xiaosong - have attracted quite the same attention,
internationally, as Zhou Long and his wife Chen Yi. Zhou Long was born in
Beijing in 1953 and spent his youth doing compulsory labor in the countryside
of Heilongjiang Province. He worked in a local song and dance company before
starting his professional musical training in Beijing in 1978, where he studied
with Professor Su Xia. He went to New York in 1985. Chen Yi was born in Guangzhou
in 1953 and worked as a violinist in a Beijing Opera Troupe in Guangzhou before
moving to the Bcijing Conservatory in 1978, where she studied with Wu Zuqiang.
She followed Zhou to New York in 1986. : In China, they arc well-known as
an avant-garde composers' couple, although they actually co-operate mainly
in practical matters, while pursuing individual careers as composers. They
both move happily to and fro between the high-brow avant-garde idiom of Columbia
University and the free-flowing lyricism of ancient China, as they do between
"uptown" and "downtown" traditions. If one piece sounds like traditional music,
the next one may sound like academic music, or as a strange mixturc of both.
More than any of the other composers mentioned above, they seem to achieve
their balance between East and West, not by a gradual process of fusion, but
by continuously shifting their positions. They first met each other in the
famous composition class in Beijing where Tan Dun and Qu Xiaosong also began
their careers. Among their first full-scale compositions were some boldly
romantic works for Western orchestra. Chen Yi became known as the first Chinese
composer to write a concerto for viola and orchestra ("Xian Shi", 1982). Zhou
Long wrote a "Guang Ling San Symphony" (1983), which, like Chen Yi's viola
concerto, is a ragbag of Western influences - in spite of the title, which
refers to a piece of classical gliqin music. However, Zhou Long soon went
on to quickly establish himself with a number of fine works in Chinese traditional
style, in which he applied Western principles only sparingly, such as "Su"
for flute and guqin (1984), "Valley Stream", for dizi, gzlanzi, sheng and
percussion (1983), and a string quartet based on the sounds of the gliqin:
"Song of the Chin" (1984). In China, these works sounded sufficiently modern
to make one musicologist remark that Zhou had "dealt a blow to the established
formulas of Chinese music of the last thirty years". In retrospect, they sound
rather innocent, like contemporary arrangements of traditional pieces. Chen
Yi also soon surprised native audiences with a virile and Bart6kian dance
piece for piano, "Duo Ye" (~1984), which, in orchestral arrangement, would
bring her some fame in the United States as well." Inspiration had come to
Zhou Long easily in China, but the process of composing became slow and laborious
after he went to the United States. For two years, he wrote almost nothing.
Then, under the influence of his teachers at Columbia University - Chou Wen-chung,
Mario
35 Some of Chen
Yi's and Zhou Long's early works were published on three cassettes by the
Chinese Record Company: "Zhou Long: Compositions For Traditional Instruments"
(RL-29, 1984), "Guang Ling San, A Collection of Orchestral Works by Zhou
Long" (AL-52, 1986) and "Duo Ye, A Collection of Orchestral Works by Chen
Yi" (AL-57, 1986). Chen Yi's "Duo Ye" for piano was recorded on CD by Shi
Shucheng (Chinese Record Company, CCD 90-088, 1990).
4036
Davidovsky
and George Edwards - his music gradually acquired a technical and stylistical
sophistication which marked almost a complete departure from what he had written
before. Both the Russian-inspired romanticism and Chinese traditionalism of
his pieces composed in Beijing were now dropped in exchange for a European
avant-gardc idiom and a growing fascination with serialism. Some of his colleagues
soon described Zhou Long as "a typical Columbia composer", a criticism which
does not do justice to his best works, however. The strong impact of American
serialism in a piece like thc "Shijing Cantata" for soprano and chamber ensemble
(1990) is undeniable; there arc echoes of Carter and Schocnberg in both the
infections of the vocal part and the individual treatment of the instruments.
But Zhou appears to have grown closer to his native culture as well. The sparsity
of lines, the expressive glissandi in various solo statements, and particularly
the undercurrent of tranquility and meditation in the cantata arc all reminiscent
of Chinese elite musical traditions, such as kutiqu, nanguan and, of course,
gziqi7i solo music. These elements are prominent in many of Zhou Long's chamber
works of recent years, and they are further supported by literal quotations
from Chinese music in traditional style. He has also continued to write music
for Chinese traditional instruments, albeit with varying results. "Daqu" (1991)
for percussion and orchestra is an energetic but rather uneven work, not quite
succcssful in blending Chinese percussion with the ways and manners of a Western
symphony orchestra. "The King of Chu Doffs His Armor" (1991.) for pipa (Chinese
lute) and orchestra, is a traditional piece in romantic disguise - almost
like a return to Zhou's idiom of the early 1980s, though technically superior.
But then again, in one of his most recent chamber pieces, "Wu Ji" (1991) he
successfully and masterfully combines two instruments which are almost opposites
in terms of expression, technique and sound: the piano and the zheflg (Chinese
bridged zither), supplemented with percussion. "Wu Ji" is a truly fine piece,
which combines the Chinese sophistication of Zhou Long's early chamber works
with the technical mastery acquired in the USA. Chen Yi, after her arrival
in America in 1986, showed far less affinity with American serialism than
her husband, but she, too, has been influenced by it, and has experienced
great difficulties in finding her own style. She studied with the same teachers
as Zhou Long, and has been particularly inspired by the ideas of Chou Wen-chung:
a return to ancient Chinese values as expressed in classical literature, a
taste for Chinese traditional sonorities, and, in particular, the idea of
applying aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy to music. Perhaps her greatest
success in the USA was "Duo Ye II" (1987) for orchestra, not so much a new
orchestration of the piano piece of 1984, as a complete reconsideration of
it. The piece has an impressive energy and vitality, but is anchored in romantic
tonality, and its many borrowings from BartoK are too frequcnt to be overlooked.
It is somewhat difficult to associate the almost mechanical drive and violence
of the piece with the friendly and happy personality of Chen Yi. Some of her
recent chamber music is far better - more advanced in style, more concise,
perhaps also more personal in expression. She wrote a fine "Woodwind Quintet"
(1987) which combines atonal lines with the sonorities and grandeur of Chinese
temple music, and a very intimate piece for soprano, violin and cello, "As
in a Dream" (1988), which was performed with Chen Yi herself as an excellent
vocal soloist. Other pieces, however, sound like a somewhat facile return
to the past, although "The Points" for pipa solo (1991) has all the grandeur
and technical display of a traditional pipa piece. Ge Ganru Two other Chinese
composers in the USA need to be mentioned: Ge Ganru and Ye Xiaogang. Ge Ganru
is essentially a percussive composer, evoking rhythms and sonorities as close
as possible to the spirit of either Chinese giiqlli or traditional percussion
music. His "Yi Feng" ("Lost Style") for amplified cello solo (1983) is a truly
astonishing picce, in which Ge employs the cello mainly as a percussion instrument.
He wrote it when he was a composition student of Chen Gang, at the Shanghai
Conservatory of Music. It may well be termed the first genuine avant-garde
piece in mainland China, surpassing the achievements of many other Chinese
composers at the time. Ge became first became aware of genuine avant-garde
techniques at a seminar on
4137
contemporary
music given by the British composer Alexander Goehr in Beijing in 1980. This
led him to write works like "Yi Feng"36 , as well as his "Chamber Symphony"
(1981) and "Moments , of Time" for piano (1981). The latter two already explore
the possibilities of serialism, tone clusters and aleatoric music. Ge Ganru's
early years in America were very difficult. Like Chen Yi and Zhou Long, he
; studied with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University,
but spent much of ' his time earning a living. His first composition abroad
was "Fu, a String Quartet" (1983), which , embroidered on the experience gathered
in China. This was performed by such distinguished ensembles as the Manhattan
Quartet, the American Quartet and the Kronos Quartet, and was , later followed
by two more string quartets (1988, 1989). Perhaps his most remarkable works
are those he wrote in close co-operation with the pianist Margaret Leng Tan
from Singapore, who specializes in contemporary music, particularly in music
for prepared piano. Like Ge Ganru, Margaret Leng Tan appears to be the happiest
when piano , no longer sounds like piano. She premiered Ge's Piano Concerto
"Wu" (1987), which is more . effective in its original setting for 17 instruments
than in the later version for full orchestra. The > :; concerto deserves to
be better known, although its percussive and harsh sonorities owe as much
: to Bart6k as to Chinese luogu (percussion music) and Ge Ganru's own genius.
Another noticeable > work for prepared piano (solo) is "Guyue" ("Ancient Music"),
written in the same year, which ' consists of conscious imitations of four
Chinese instruments (gong, drum, pipa and ~nlqiri).3' ' His Requiem "Ji",
for choir and orchestra (1989) is dedicated to "those innocent Chinese people
who lost their lives in political turmoil and civil war". Although impressive
in its macabre ,; grandeur, it is essentially a Western work, recalling similar
grand-scale, elegiac works for choir a and orchestra by composers like Penderecki.
Its entire text consists of repetitions of a single word, ' f the Buddhist
incantation amilofic. i~~tl1`. ti '=· i · !'. ~ ~ t i » 'i`~l' ~', ~'f!·11`
I .'. J - ¡' r' .11 ,; ¡( ,. , . '.".''.) í ',:, , : ÷ ' . ,, :' . Ye Xiaogang
Like Ge Ganru, Ye Xiaogang was born in Shanghai, and received his first important
artistic stimuli in Beijing, in Alexander Gochr's master-class. He was among
the first Chinese avant-garde composers to be discovered abroad, with his
chamber orchestral work "Xi Jiang Yue" (1984), a piece in a subdued, contemplative
style that was to mark his future direction. Other early works are his romantic
"Violin Concerto" (1983), his quasi-Mithicrian Symphony "Horizon" for soprano,
baritone and orchestra (1985), as well as "Eight Horses", a playful piece
for twelve Chinese instruments and chamber orchestra (1985), "Ballade", a
vigorous piece for piano (1986) and "Juzi shoulc" ("Oranges Riping") a setting
of a poem by Bei Dao for unaccompanied choir (1981).38 This last work is less
known as well as earlicr than the other pieces mentioned, but very interesting
nonetheless. In all these early works, Ye Xiaogang hovered between overt Western
romanticism and the tranquility of Chinese elite traditions. The element of
meditation began to dominate especially after he continued his studies at
the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in 1987. Among his first works in
the USA were the quiet "Threnody" for piano quintet (1988) and - quite unlike
anything else he wrote - a ballet piece for choir
36 The cello
solo piece was premiered by the young, talented musician Huang Su in Shanghai
in 1983, shortly before Ge's departure to America. Ge Ganru later found out
that many young composers in China had a copy of the piece.
37 Recorded
by Margaret Leng Tan on CD, "Sonic Encounters: The New Piano", published in
1988 by Mode Records (P.O. Box 375, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 USA). It co-features
music for prepared piano by Cage, Crumb, Alan Hovhaness and Somei Satoh.
38 Many of Ye's
early orchestral works were recorded on cassettes. "Horizon" was published
by the Chinese Record Company in 1986 (AL-51), and contains the symphony
and some smaller pieces. The HK Record Company is currently preparing a CD
featuring his "Violin Concerto", and his ballet suites "The Old Man's Story"
(1985) and "Dalai VI" (1988). "Song of the New Moon" for zheng and
orchestra (1984) was previously published on cassette by the same company.
4238
and
orchestra called "Dalai VI" (1988), a powerful and "folksy" evocation of Tibetan
ritual music. "The Ruin of the Himalaya" for orchestra (1989), which won him
the Howard Hanson prize, is actually a continuation of his exploitations of
Western romanticism. In 1989, Ye became a PhD candidate in composition in
the State University of New York at Buffalo, and studied for a few months
with the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. His music gradually developed in
the direction of a greater clarity and stricter economy of resources. The
most noticeable outcome of this development is perhaps his recent work "The
Mask of Sakya", a reflective and mystical piece for shakuhachi (the Japanese
vertical flute) and Chinese orchestra (1990). This music also exists in a
version with Western orchestra. Concluding Remarks It remains to be seen whether
Chinese composers in the USA will in the future develop their music along
the lines described in this article. So far, they have choscn widely divergent
directions, while encountering similar problems along the way. They experience
much the same "acculturation" problems as composers from other Asian countries
attracted by the West. It is as difficult to assess their achievements, as
it is to give a complete overview. I have been unable to recover the tracks
of many composers who once started on promising careers in China but then
left for the USA, such as Lin Dehong, Zhou Qinru and Wang Chengyong. While
it is clear that virtually all Chinese composers of the young generation have
accepted the challenge of a downright confrontation with Western avant-garde
music, not all of them have addressed the same problems or worked with the
same tools. It is a remarkable fact that most Chinese composers now in the
USA have so far avoided what is certainly one of the most important new genres
in 20th century music - that of electronic and computer music. Some have tried
their hands at it but have decided that they do not like it, while many others
have hardly come across it. The situation is different in Europe, where a
small but enthusiastic group of Chinese composers is working in the IRCAM
studio of Pierre Boulez in Paris. Their experiences, as well as those of other
Chinese artists currently working in Europe and other parts of the world will
be discussed in the second part of this article. It will also discuss the
activities of the youngest generation of Chinese composers, those who are
presently still studying at Chinese conservatories. (To be continued) (Character
name list appears on next page) -' rT" · ~ ! .r;_
4339
APPENDIX
Character List of the Names of Chinese Composers and Music Theorists (The
names of those people currently residing in the USA, as far as the author
has been able to trace, have been marked with an asterisk) ' -."..</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes><p>1 Wang Anguo: "Wo guo yinyue chuangzuo 'Xin Chao' zongguan", in: <italic>Zhongguo yinyuexue,</italic> 1986, No. 1, 4-15. Translated as "A Review of the 'New Tide' in China's Musical Compositions", in: <italic>Musicology in China,</italic> English Edition (Beijing), No. 1, 1989, pp. 106-126.</p><p>2 Liu Hongjun, "Lun Zhongguo jiaoxiang yinyue lengge yanbiande guiji", in: <italic>Zhongguo yinyuexue,</italic> 1989, No. 1, pp. 126-141. While longer and more substantial than many other Chinese articles on new Chinese music, it is hardly acceptable as a general outline of the field. Liu quietly passes over the deep conflict that ensued between progressive and conservative artists when contemporary Western techniques were imported. He is not specific about the impact of those Western techniques, since he does not know their exact origins, nor how "new" or "established" they really are in the West. His study is based on the assumption that there is a continuous evolution of "orchestral style" in China. Nothing could be less true.</p><p>3 Cf. Li Huanzi's chapter on mainland China in Harrison Ryker (ed), <italic>New Music In the Orient: Essays On
Composition In Asia Since World War II,</italic> Knuff Publishers, The Netherlands, 1991, pp. 189 - 216.</p><p>4 Paul Griffiths, <italic> Modern Music: The Avant Garde Since 1945,</italic> Dent Publishers (London 1981), p. 12.</p><p>5 Zheng Yinglic, "Letter from China: The Use of Twelve-Tone Technique in Chinese Musical Composition", in: <italic>The Musical Quarterly,</italic> Vol. 74, No. 3, 1990, pp. 473-488.</p><p>6 I-Ian Yong was born in 1957 in Xi'an. He began his career studying piano, but overstrained his hands and had to give up the instrument. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied composition at the Shanghai Conservatory with Ye Chunzhi and Shi Yongkang. He developed a compositional system of his own, much indebted to twelve-tone principles, and wrote a technically admirable 13-minute, Berg- and Bartók-like "Violin Concerto" (1982). He now lives in New York. Wang Haiping studied at the Chinese Conservatory in Beijing. Some of his atonal pieces for <italic> xiao</italic> (bamboo flute) were recorded by the China Record Company ("A Treasury of Xiao Tunes", AL-14, 1987). He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.</p><p>7 Cui Wenyu was born in 1952 in Guiyang (Guizhou) and graduated in 1981 as a composition student from the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. He is in charge of the Guizhou Chinese Music Association.</p><p>8 Luo Zhongrong was born in 1924 in Sichuan and started his musical career as a violinist. He was active as a member of the underground Communist Party before 1949 but eventually devoted all his time to music. As a composition student of Tan Xiaolin (between 1946 and 1948) and Ding Shande at the Shanghai Conservatory, he developed a special interest in the music and writings of Paul Hindemith, whose book on harmony he later translated into Chinese (published in 1983/87). He secretly maintained his interest in modern music after 1949. His formal reputation as a composer was initially based on a popular mass song, "The Land is Beautiful Beyond the Mountain" (1947). He went to Beijing in 1951 where he became a resident composer of the Central Philharmonic Society. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he produced a number of successful orchestral works, some in romantic style (e.g. "Symphony No. 1", 1959), some mildly dissonant and reminiscent of early folklore-inspired works of Bartók (e.g. "Sichuan Suite", 1963). He was harassed and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. When he took up composition in 1979, his style gradually grew more modern, while his interest in Western music shifted from Hindemith to Schoenberg. He wrote several song cycles and chamber works applying serial techniques. He taught composition at the Chinese Conservatory in Beijing for some time, and visited Germany in 1985. Mo Wuping and Chen Qigang were among his best-known students. Because of his personal and artistic integrity, he is regarded somewhat as a fatherly hero by many composers of the younger generation.</p><p>9 These and following quotations are from an interview which the author held with Luo Zhongrong at his home in Beijing, 25 June 1990.</p><p>10 From Yang Yinliu, <italic>Shifan Luogu,</italic> Renmin yinyue chubanshe, Beijing, 1980 p. 43. For a more elaborate discussion of <italic>luogu</italic> rhythms in Luo's quartet, cf. Zheng Yinglie, "Luo Zhongrong 'di er xuanyue sichongzou' shixi", in: <italic> Yinyue yishu,</italic> No. 4, 1988, Shanghai, pp. 55-58.</p><p>11 Admittedly, each line is supplemented by a tail sequence of a fixed number of beats- "x" in the example shown above - but these additional beats do not affect the validity of the "A+B=8" principle.</p><p>12 From an interview which the author held with Zhao Xiaosheng in Shanghai, 30 April 1990.</p><p>13 Du Yaxiong, "The Relationship Between Chinese and Hungarian Folksongs", manuscript, 1990. This essay will be published in <italic>CHIME,</italic> Vol. 6, Fall 1992 (forthcoming). It is specifically concerned with folksongs of the Western Yugurs, a minority of Turkish descent in Western China (Yugur - not to be confused with Uygur). See also: Du Yaxiong, "Xiongyali min'ge he Hasake min'ge you yuanyuan guanxi ma? Yu Han Bing tongzhi shangque", in: <italic>Xinjiang yishu,</italic> 1989, No. 3; Zhang Rui, "Xiongyali min'ge tong woguo mouxie min'ge xiangsi yuanyin qiantan", in: <italic>Yinyue wudao yanjiu,</italic> 1985, No. 6, pp. 21-28; and Bu Jie, "Yuguzu xibu min'ge he Xiongyali min'ge xiangsi de yuanyin", in: <italic>Yinyue wudao yanjiu,</italic> 1985, No. 11, pp. 19-21.</p><p>14 Cf. Chao Feng, "Bartók and Chinese Music Culture", in: Liszt-Bartók, <italic>Report of the 2nd International
Musicological Conference, Budapest 1961,</italic> Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1963, pp. 383-393. This article must be read with strong reservations, as Chao (<italic>pinyin:</italic> Zhao) Feng, a researcher from Beijing, offers a rather idealized picture. He claims that Bartók's popularity in China is largely due to the efforts of the Communist Party, and that "thousands of music conservatory students [in China] draw inspiration from his compositions". In reality, by the early 1960s, Bartóks music was severely criticized, and students who imitated him (if they were able to find any materials about Bartók) were also likely to be criticized.</p><p>15 One other Western composer that immediately springs to mind is Debussy. His "broken" tonality fits in wonderfully with the floating nature of Chinese pentatonicism. Debussy's impact on Chinese music, too, deserves to be studied in detail.</p><p>16 Among the first foreign guest-lecturers in Chengdu were Leland Smith (a former student of Milhaud, now a professor at Stanford University, California) in 1984, and Carl Vine (a young composer from Australia) in 1986.</p><p>17 From an interview which the author held with Gao Weijie, in Beijing on 27 June 1990. Gao is still very active as a composer. He is particularly fond of orchestral music and has written various ballets, including "Yuan ye" (1987), as well as a "Symphony" (1989), a <italic>"Dizi</italic> Concerto" (1992) and various smaller works. He is a skilled craftsman in the field of small-scale pieces for Chinese instruments, compositions which he often refers to as "play-things" or "games".</p><p>18 Yang Lu (b. 1953) is a theorist, now working in a laboratory for computer music at Stanford University. Lan Guangming (b. 1954) is still active as a composer. He studies with Allan Forte at Yate University.</p><p>19 Hu Ping (b. 1959, Chongqing), is a former student of He Xuntian. Among his works arc "Xuantong", for seven performers (1988), modelled after He Xuntian's "Sounds of Nature"; a String Quartet, "Wu jie" ("World of Awareness"), written in 1989. He is now a teacher at the Sichuan Conservatory.</p><p>20 Peng, although a composer himself, is mainly influential as a theorist. He writes in various journals, and founded a modern music society at the Music Conservatory in Wuhan. His piano and chamber works betray a strong interest in serialism.</p><p>21 Cao Guangping (b. 1942, Shanghai) graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory in 1965 and is currently a teacher at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou. He mainly writes chamber music. His piece "Nüwa" for prepared piano and 19 extra instruments (1987), was played during the 1988 World Music Days in Hong Kong. It is partly reminiscent of Crumb's "Macrocosmos" and appears to quote freely from Debussy and Messiaen.</p><p>22 Jia's Quartet won the 12th Irino Prize for Chamber Music in Tokyo on 15 July 1991.</p><p>23 As introduced by Forte in his standard reference book <italic>The Structure of Atonal Music,</italic> (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973), and in later publications of the mid-1980s.</p><p>24 From an interview with Qu Xiaosong, 7 December 1990, New York. Qu subsequently wrote a second movement (of the String Quartet) which became almost a straight paraphrase of the opening of Bartók's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta". He later explained that such was his enthusiasm for Bartók, that he was unable to control himself.</p><p>25 For another example, see the part of the woodblock from bar 111 onwards. The score of "Mong Dong" was published in <italic>Yinyue chuangzuo</italic> in 1985.</p><p>26 E.g. the melodic development in bars 32-49 is formally constrained to a range of five notes.</p><p>27 See Frank Kouwenhoven, "Composer Tan Dun: Ritual Fire Dancer of Mainland China's New Music", in: <italic>China
Information,</italic> Vol. VI, No. 3 (Winter 1991-92), pp. 1-25.</p><p>28 Yang Yong recently started on a PhD at Brandeis University, while continuing his activities as a composer. Among his other works written in the USA arc "Leeh" (1988) for solo piano. "Intensionem" for orchestra ( 1988), "Darking Light" for Clarinet and Strings (1990), and various chamber worla, including a "Trio" (1987) and a "Second String Quartet" (1990).</p><p>29 From an interview with the composer on 5 December 1990 in New York.</p><p>30 The music was recorded on the Delos label. Bernstein himself would also have conducted it for a recording by Deutsche Grammophon, if it had not been for his failing health.</p><p>31 The piece was recorded on New World Records, CD 80407-2, together with chamber works and piano music by the same composer. A review is forthcoming in <italic>CHIME,</italic> Leiden.</p><p>32 Chen Yuanlin was a student of Wu Zuqiang in Beijing. He was in the same composition class as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Chen Qigang, Zhou Long, Chen Yi and others. Among his older compositions are "Yuewu" ("Ancient Dance") for orchestra (1983), which is partly based on <italic>shifan luogu</italic> rhythms, and a "String Quartet" (1981), as well as various pieces for synthesizer and percussion.</p><p>33 For a score, see <italic>Chinese Music,</italic> journal of the Chinese Music Society of N. America, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1985.</p><p>34 A concert of his chamber works was presented in Baton Rouge in November 1991, including the works mentioned above. "Eguor Notab" is "Baton Rouge" read backwards. Li Binyang's currently lives in Baton Rouge. "One direction of the word corresponds to my Eastern background and the other corresponds to my Western knowledge", the composer explains in a program note.</p><p>35 Some of Chen Yi's and Zhou Long's early works were published on three cassettes by the Chinese Record Company: "Zhou Long: Compositions For Traditional Instruments" (RL-29, 1984), "Guang Ling San, A Collection of Orchestral Works by Zhou Long" (AL-52, 1986) and "Duo Ye, A Collection of Orchestral Works by Chen Yi" (AL-57, 1986). Chen Yi's "Duo Ye" for piano was recorded on CD by Shi Shucheng (Chinese Record Company, CCD 90-088, 1990).</p><p>36 The cello solo piece was premiered by the young, talented musician Huang Su in Shanghai in 1983, shortly before Ge's departure to America. Ge Ganru later found out that many young composers in China had a copy of the piece.</p><p>37 Recorded by Margaret Leng Tan on CD, "Sonic Encounters: The New Piano", published in 1988 by Mode Records (P.O. Box 375, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 USA). It co-features music for prepared piano by Cage, Crumb, Alan Hovhaness and Somei Satoh.</p><p>38 Many of Ye's early orchestral works were recorded on cassettes. "Horizon" was published by the Chinese Record Company in 1986 (AL-51), and contains the symphony and some smaller pieces. The HK Record Company is currently preparing a CD featuring his "Violin Concerto", and his ballet suites "The Old Man's Story" (1985) and "Dalai VI" (1988). "Song of the New Moon" for <italic>zheng</italic> and orchestra (1984) was previously published on cassette by the same company.</p></notes></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>Developments in Mainland China's New Music</title><subTitle>Part I: From China to the United States</subTitle></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>Developments in Mainland China's New Music</title><subTitle>Part I: From China to the United States</subTitle></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Frank</namePart><namePart type="family">Kouwenhoven</namePart><affiliation>The author is Secretary of the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research (CHIME) and Editor of its journal CHIME, Leiden, The Netherlands</affiliation></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XTP-1JC4F85T-7">research-article</genre><originInfo><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1992-06</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1992</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>China information</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/JMC-0GLKJH51-B">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0920-203X</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">1741-590X</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">CIN</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID-hwp">spcin</identifier><part><date>1992</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>7</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>1</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>17</start><end>39</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">F77B3E5C7C5AECB49A7438AAB3EEA5936BAB61CB</identifier><identifier type="ark">ark:/67375/M70-GFR5WGJM-H</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1177/0920203X9200700102</identifier><identifier type="ArticleID">10.1177_0920203X9200700102</identifier><recordInfo><recordContentSource authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XBH-0J1N7DQT-B">sage</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods><json:item><extension>json</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>application/json</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/F77B3E5C7C5AECB49A7438AAB3EEA5936BAB61CB/metadata/json</uri></json:item></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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