The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 2)

前言: 韓德爾的神劇被視為同類型樂種的經典。但我們又是否知道，韓氏的神劇在當代音樂聽眾聽來，不單純是音樂美妙絕倫，非而且充滿愛國情懷和外在意義。皆因韓氏選擇劇本和處理音樂時，往往以樂音借喻，令聽眾能了解其中含意。雖說是巴羅克時期，當代英國的聽眾在聽音樂時，也慣於尋求音樂的表達意義。以下的學術文章，就簡論了韓德爾的神劇腳本和當代的英式思維的關係，讓讀者看出韓氏的神劇精彩奧妙之處。

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts

on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 2)

Paper Continued:

In the Part II of Judas Macchabaeus, author Morell writes:

To Heav’n let Glory, and all Praise be given;

To Heav’n give your Applause,

Nor add the second Cause,

As once your Fathers did in Midian

Saying, The Sword of God and Gideon,

It is the Lord, who for his Israel fought,

And this our wonderful Salvation wrought.

The above text provides a typical answer. Like many other Handel’s librettos of Israelite oratorio, albeit hedge the bets, the point of defending the Christianity is still clear. Morell’s commitment to the defence of Christianity is rather endearing. Here he contributes directly to the orthodox defence of the evidence of miracles and places great emphasis on God’s salvation and mercy, but at the same time, adding rational explanation to meet the Anglican’s teaching. Although contemporary biblical commentaries by orthodox believers reflect the difficulties inherent in the rationalist position in their attempt to present miraculous events as both mysterious and explicable, the librettists of the Israelite oratorios try to have it both ways, giving a rational explanation, or simply the ‘second cause’ while claiming divine intervention. In Belshazzar, Cyrus conquer Bablyon with intelligent strategy as well as the aid of a God-sent dream; in Jephtha, Jephtha has skills of an outstanding general as well as the support of cherubim and seraphim; and in Joshua, Joshua’s men have courage as well as the help of a stationary sun by God to win the battle[1].

The deists also tried to attack the traditional plank of ‘proof’ by discrediting the application to Jesus of the Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah and of the miracles he would realize. Charles Jennens, another librettist of the well-known Handel’s oratorios of Messiah, Saul, Israel in Egypt and Belshazzar, stands clearly on the side of defending the Christianity. He again paid attention on the Old Testament and to prompt renewed efforts to validate Christian revelation and its concurrence with the Gospels. The traces of this part of the debate in his librettos are particularly striking. In the libretto of Messiah, Jennens showed the parallels of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment and the ‘harmony of the gospels’ with each other, and the actual verbal correspondences between Old and New Testament texts. Although the deists had pointed out that citations of the Old Testament in the New do not always correspond to the Old Testament text as we have it, Joseph Hallet jnr (1729-1736), a famous scholar, asserted that ‘among almost three hundred citations the far greatest part are exact’, while only ‘about twenty differ’. At least fifty one of the eighty biblical verses in Jennens’ libretto are either conscious quotations, or echoes, of the Old Testament in the New, for example, Isaiah XL.3, heard in the opening recitative, is quoted in Matthew III.3, Mark I.3, Luke III.4 and John I.23[2]. As a result, the 18^th Century religious thoughts absolutely have a great impact on the librettos of Handel’s oratorio. Meanings that the texts conveyed to the public were clear. On one hand, Handel maintained the rational ground of the belief of Anglican’s teaching by permitting the second cause adding in the librettos; while on the other hand, together with the contributions of his orthodox religious background of his librettists, Miller and Morell were clergymen, Jennens was a scholarly evangelizing Christian and Humphreys wrote commentary to defend Bible, Handel re-emphasized on the Divine salvation, miracles and prophesy fulfillments of the Old to New Testament in order to defend the Christianity against the deism. Perhaps, this was the factor of the success of Handel’s Oratorios in his day.

We have just discussed that the importance of music theatre as a vehicle for political messages. Music and musicians also served as a prime analogy for the state and statesmen. It was not surprising for the 18^th Century English audience to expect the presence of political themes in the artworks and entertainments. From the moment that Handel first arrived in England, he was involved in producing music for national events. The librettists would have been unusual if they had excluded political themes from their texts, and the oratorio audience would have been behaving anachronistically if they had not found political themes in them[3]. What were the political events and thoughts of the oratorio years which the librettists could have absorbed into their texts?

The main national events in the oratorio years were decades of wars and the rumours of war. Relations with other European powers were deteriorating throughout the 1730s. In 1731, there was a French invasion scare, serious enough for the British fleet to be deployed in the Channel. Also, the war of Polish Succession in 1733, the trade war with the tough rivalry Spain in West Indies for overseas commercial interests and the threaten of war with ambitious the Frederick II of Prussia in Europe for his political expansion in the Continent were the subjects of major debates in Parliament and were extensively reported by the press. The newspaper-reading member of the oratorio audience would have been aware of these popular issues: the foreign policy of the European alliance, the British army, the navy, and colonial and commercial expansion[4]. Therefore, all these political events in the oratorio years nourished the common political thought of the 18^th Century British Government and people, that is, the ‘Patriotism’.

According to the drama historian Murray Roston, ‘Handel succeeded in glorifying in Biblical terms the confident patriotism of the English people as they rose on the wave of imperial expansion, convinced that they were carrying the true God to the pagan corners of the world. The heroic, martial splendour of Deborah, of Judas Maccabeus, and of Joshua was adopted enthusiastically as symbol of English integrity and courage.’[5] Undoubtedly, Roston’s saying points out that the essential idea of the librettos of Handel’s oratorio is a kind of ‘patriot libretto’. But how could the political events and the patriotism be absorbed in the so-called patriot libretto? Ruth Smith gives us the answer.

The libretto absorbs all the political ideas in allegorical form. The mid-eighteenth century audience had been taught to regard the scriptural protagonists whom oratorios portrayed not just as figures from the semi-mythological history of a remote race and culture but, in a tradition dating from early Christian times, as reminders of their own redeemer, connected with their own individual lives. The preachers, the scholars and the press habitually identify modern Britain with ancient Israel and they make recurrent specific parallels which bear on the subjects of the librettos. God of Israel is paralleled with God of Britain. English is paralleled with the Israel. The enemy of Israel, such as Egypt, is paralleled with the rivalry of Britain in the Continent. The following comparisons show the commonplace:

The Stuart Family                    Saul and his descendants

George II                                David or Solomon
The Glorious Revolution         The crown of Israel passing from Saul and his family to David and his family

Catholic Europe                      The Philistines

The threat of Popery              ‘Egyptian bondage’ of heathen rites

Irreligion                                Israelite idolatry

Licentiousness                       Israelite neglect of God’s laws

All the figures and circumstances in the right- hand column are subjects of one or more of the Israelite librettos[6]. This kind of analogy was routine, God could intervene in the lives of the British nationals as He had done in the lives of the Israelites. We can take several examples to illustrate this: the Israel events in the libretto are equal to politics events of Britain, the patriotism of Israel is the model of the patriotism of English.

End of Part 2

To Be Continued

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-27 (published)

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 1)

前言: 韓德爾的神劇被視為同類型樂種的經典。但我們又是否知道，韓氏的神劇在當代音樂聽眾聽來，不單純是音樂美妙絕倫，非而且充滿愛國情懷和外在意義。皆因韓氏選擇劇本和處理音樂時，往往以樂音借喻，令聽眾能了解其中含意。雖說是巴羅克時期，當代英國的聽眾在聽音樂時，也慣於尋求音樂的表達意義。以下的學術文章，就簡論了韓德爾的神劇腳本和當代的英式思維的關係，讓讀者看出韓氏的神劇精彩奧妙之處。

正文:

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), a German composer but with success of his career in England, undoubtedly, was a towering figure of the later baroque period. If Madame de Stael very perceptively remarked that Michelangelo was the “Bible’s painter”, Handel must then be called its composer. The number of his oratorios based on Biblical subjects runs to over 30, for example, Messiah and Judas Macchabaeus. Their continual performance by people of every kind from the date of their composition to present proves their accessibility[1]. The success of Handel’s oratorios is not only its accessible music, but also the contribution of its librettos. Just like Mozart accompanied with Ponte, Handel also had a lot of silent supporters, the librettists, such as Charles Jennens, James Miller and Thomas Morell. Although Handel did not write any of the librettos, he involved in editing the librettist’s texts, or principally cutting them. He absolutely recognized the importance of the librettos. The printed libretto-the wordbook-was an indispensable part of attendance at the oratorio in 18^th Century. English audience customarily bought copies of the text in the theatre in order to read the words during the performance[2]. Therefore, it is no doubt to assert that the success of the oratorios is largely the contribution of Handel. However, in the major modern study of Handel’s English theatre works, Winton Dean writes that in the modern opinion an almost complete failure largely because of its dreadful libretto, was popular in his own day. He continues, ‘Samson suffers from an excess of diversionary airs…..’ and he states that at least eight of these are better omitted in the modern performance[3]. In order to understand what captured the interest of the original audience, it is worth for us to explore the meanings conveyed from the librettos of Handel’s oratorios, and especially to recognize the impact on the thought of Handel’s time and to appreciate the artistic and moral criteria that influence their authors. The religious discourse, the moral teaching and the political ideology provide the entry point.

It is nearly impossible for us to understand the artworks, including the music, completely in 18^th century without knowing the thoughts and ideas of the cotemporary Englishmen. The dominant influences on mid-eighteenth-century English thought were religion and politics. They permeated life and art. The pulpit was the major public–address system. Sermons addressed and influenced every aspect of private and public life, of course, including art. Religious discussion, debates and even critics, were the major element of intellectual life. Music theatre served as a political messages center. Religious publications dominated book production, and people believed that God supervised lives and could and would intervene with punishment on a personal or national scale if provoked by wrongdoing[4]. Explicitly, such 18^th Century religious atmosphere nourished many of the Handel’s oratorio librettos.

Generally, eighteenth-century Anglican teaching stressed good works more than faith. Ethical social benevolence is the road to salvation. It was a time that concept of original sin was neglected, doctrine of redemption by grace was lessened and humanity’s potential to fulfill the requirements of divine percepts in life was emphasized. Some versions of religion even secularized ethics to the extent of suggesting that men and women did not need God to teach them perfection[5]. At the same time, the English translation of Richard Simon’s Critical History of the Old Testament dramatically undermined English Protestant faith in the integrity, inspiration and authority of Scripture. These scholarly criticisms of the text of Bible laid the seedbeds of the freethinking deist movement in England[6]. Therefore, the years of the performances of Handel’s oratorios, 1732-1752, were the years of Biblical criticism and religious debate, even the years of the major Anglican rebuttals of deism. Under such chaotic background, the bases of Christianity were threatened. Was the concept of divine revelation still important? Were mercy, miracles and fulfillment of biblical prophecies still the principal elements of truth and salvation? It is very interesting for us to find out the influence on the librettos of the Handel’s oratorio under such situation.

Part I (To Be Continued)

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-20 (published)

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[1] H.C. Landon, Handel and his world, Weiden and Nicolson, London, 1984, p133.

[2] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp5-6, p23

[3] Dean Winton, Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp631-2

[4] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp.8-9

[5] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteen-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.141.

[6] Smith Ruth, pp141-142.

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chiense New Year Celebration

前言:

在大型高級購物商場裡播放的背景音樂，究竟有甚麼作用呢? 以下文章就是我以前做的一個 field work 研究，探討商場的背景音樂對購物者和遊人有甚麼影響。我的研究是在特定的節日期間做的，所有資料是在農曆新年期間搜集而心成。所以，結論是與農曆新年有關的。

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chinese New Year Celebration

Introduction

The notion of cultural identity has in recent years become increasingly problematic. When we think of ourselves as belonging to a particular culture, we tend to forget that we are living in an affluent, globally connected world where the crisscrossing of cultures has become the norm. We can have European raisin bran for breakfast, Indian curry for lunch, and Japanese sashimi for dinner; we can enjoy Western operas, traditional Chinese music, Western classics, jazz, rock, Canto-pop, Japanese song, or even African juju; we can be a Christian, an theist, a Buddhist, or a Sufi. We can choose – or believe we can – different aspects of our lives from what has come to be called the “global cultural supermarket.”[1]  And cultural identity as such is simply a matter of consumer’s choice.

Yet multiculturalism can be deceptive. For while we no longer have a single dominant culture, our ancestral cultures have not forever vanished. The latter, which regularly confound us by their resilience, their survival in spite of everything, may well remain in potent shape.  But if freedom of choice does not necessarily imply the loss of identity, where do we see the possibility of a home culture in a world that seems to encourage too much diversity?  How are we supposed to locate our identity amid a cultural anarchy? One possible line of inquiry towards answering these questions is offered by looking at the way in which a specific social activity – shopping and buying during the Spring Festival period – under the New Year festive atmosphere, which is mostly enhanced by a particular type of community-based music, namely, muzak accompanying Chinese New Year celebration, is used in the department store or shopping mall in Hong Kong.

This paper attempts to show that while the notion of cultural identity is never without ambiguity in present day societies, neither will it be easily undermined by a laisser-faire orthodoxy that simply encourages one to pick and choose. The moral demands and collective identities of a culture may be brought into focus under such specific activities and festive circumstances when the entire members of a community find themselves awakening to their cultural self-understanding.

Participation-Observation Method

The methodology I employed in this paper is the participation-observation method.  This ethnographic method entails a kind of double role or stance.  One the one hand, the “participant part” means that the researcher immerses him/herself in a real world, the “field-based” setting.  This suggests that the researcher is committing his/her whole self to that setting.  By experiencing that setting through feelings, thoughts, emotions and so on, the researcher can obtain a more self-understanding of that music culture or some aspects of it from an insider’s perspective.  However, on the other hand, the “observer part” can bring about a “scientific” approach to creating knowledge and understanding by collecting data, interviewing and observations from that particular setting.  In this paper, my main focus is the socio-cultural activity of shopping-buying “new things” by Hong Kong people during the Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year Festival) under the New Year festive milieu, which is prepared and enhanced by the specific kind of muzak played in the department stores. 

My fieldwork will be carried out in one of the large, representative shopping malls, the Sogo Department Store, at Causeway Bay in the Lunar New Year public holiday.   I will observe and participate in people’s festive activities and examine how the background soundscape can open up a wider sensuous dimension of visitors to conform to the traditional customs.  I will also interview several visitors about their feelings and reactions under such socio-cultural environments.  Be it a functioning anarchy or a faded mosaic, multiculturalism can be a testing ground for traditional cultures to reemerge in a new guise.

Chinese New Year Custom

To Chinese people, “having everything new” for the coming new year is as important as having a Christmas tree or receiving a present at Christmas to westerners.  Without any exception, Hong Kong people are aware of buying new “presents” for themselves, as well as for the others in this festival.   The Chinese describe Spring Festival without having everything new not only as being like a dish without seasoning, but also as symbolizing a bad, unhappy and unfortunate year coming.   Although this year-by-year festive activity is embedded with abundant traditional cultural meanings, it also function as an essential medium for the survival of such Chinese traditional culture.   But how this tradition can be continued in a place where the tradition has often been undermined?

It is widely known that under the British colonial sovereignty, the Chinese traditional cultures in Hong Kong were often undermined.   But traditions can always manifest themselves in new guises and continue to be extant.  As Paul Connerton argued in How Society Remember, “the cultural images of the past are conveyed and sustained by social practices and ritual (more or less ritual) performances.”[2]   We, indeed, experience our present world in a context which is causally connected with past events and objects.  Some of our ancestral cultures can also manifest themselves year-by-year in form of a particular social practice.   Buying and shopping in Chinese New Year time, thus, should be regarded as one of such practices.   But how can music relate to this socio-cultural activity to enhance a metaphor for the “Chinese identity” formation?

Music’s Social Power

Despite its alleged autonomous statue, music is also well known for its social power to influence people’s daily life.   It is implicated in every dimension of social agency.  Just as Tia DeNora argued, “music may influence how people compose their bodies, how they conduct themselves, how they experience the passage of time, how they feel – in terms of energy and emotion – about themselves, about others and about situations,”[3] music, in this respect, can provide a framework for the organization of social agency, and a framework for how people perceive, whether consciously or subconsciously, potential avenues of conduct.   Unsurprisingly, therefore, exploiting music’s social effects are familiar to marketers and social planners.    Many in-store experiments suggest that background music, such as muzak in shopping malls, can be used to structure a range of consumer behaviors and choices, such as, the time it takes to eat and drink, the average length of stay in a shop, the choice of one brand or style over another and the amount of money spent.[4]  Creating a happy and relaxed environment through the imaginative use of music is a vital element in securing maximum turnover and ensuring that the business has optimum appeal.  When the muzak is used correctly, it can influence customers’ buying behavior by creating or enhancing the image, mood and style that the business strategy wishes to achieve. 

During the period of the Hong Kong Lunar New Year, the muzak played in many large shopping malls and supermarkets is the traditional Chinese instrumental music.  This practice may be one of the usual marketing strategies.  However, I believe that this muzak for Chinese New Year celebration does not merely function to fulfill the commercial objective.  It also helps to enhance, or even to confirm every local’s intellectual and sensuous self as a “Chinese,” both in a cognitive and aesthetical dimension.   As viewed, the background music can serve as a medium to modulate and structure listeners’ parameters of aesthetic agency, such as feeling, motivation, desire, action style and memory.   Reliving experience through the Chinese traditional instrumental music assists to constitute memory of a “self-culture.”   Within this human-music interaction, when locals are participating in the family-based activities of shopping, eating, drinking and celebrating in such a festive milieu, whether they are self-aware or not, their practices are interwoven with their acts of memory, reshaping and cementing the so-called the cultural identity. I now begin the description of my observation in the Sogo Department Store.

第一部份:

Part I -- To be continued.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-08 (published)

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[1] It is a term used by Gordon Mathews to describe the present problem of cultural identity of a particular nation or a society.  See Gordon Matthews, Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket (New York: Routledge, 2000), 1-2.

[2] Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 2-3.

[3] Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17.

[4] For the discussion of these in-store experiments by many other scholars, refer to DeNora’s exploration in Music in Everyday Life, 18.

Visiting a Soundscape Site – The “Kingdom Hall”

前言: 研究 soundscape 是屬於民族音樂學的範疇。我也曾修讀過一些這學科的研究方法。以下的文章就是作為旁觀者，我怎樣觀察和了解王國聚會所舉行的一個聚會的 soundscape.

正文:

Visiting a Soundscape Site – The “Kingdom Hall”

      One of the most interesting soundscape in the Christian community of Hong Kong, perhaps, may come from the small family churches in private buildings. Here, I am not talking about the soundscapes produced by the large churches, such as St. Joseph Cathedral in the Central. The ringing of church bells from these large cathedrals has been familiar to many local people, signaling their urgent need for spiritual comfort. However, I am far more interested in a sound that bridges local believers and God in a more private space located in the urban area. It is a “religious site” that has no loud voice of church bell or grand symphonic sound of organ and choir.

It has been widely known that Hong Kong is small but the population is large. Housing congestion is one of its serious social problems. Many large, wealthy church organizations, such as the Roman Catholic or the Anglican, possess large buildings to provide liturgical services for their believers. However, the locations of these large cathedrals or church buildings are often not convenient to the majority of the ordinary layman, especially the grass-root believers who have no private vehicles. In order to meet their spiritual needs, family churches that held meeting in a private resident building is commonly found. Whether in Sunday morning or any weekday night, or coming from the altar or the seats, a special, unique sound of hope and joy, wish and bless, will disperse in the air, spreading out from a small flat, through the doors, windows, then finally up to the heaven. This is a wonderful keynote sound that cannot easily be overlooked in our local society. It may have imprinted itself so deeply on the believers hearing this sound that life without it would be sensed as meaningless and hopeless joke. It may even affect the behavior of people or life style of a society, like the “wanderer”, who finally regained his courage and hope to live on after he has heard an anthem from a church, in O’ Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem”.  

Last Sunday morning, I was invited to attend a meeting held in a private family church. It is located in the residential area of Tseung Kwan O. The place is called Hong Shing Garden, consisting of eight blocks of building. Although it is called “Garden”, it is not the high status garden as you usually find in the mid-hill of the Central, but an estate-like house built by the Housing Society. You can sense a grass-root smell here. There are a few shops forming a small shopping arcade inside the Garden. The situation of the “church” is quite convenient to the people living there, how local, how intimate. If you walk out of the “church”, you can immediately enter the Seven-eleven, the next shop, for a drink. Also there are a few fast food restaurants, a barber shop, a bread shop and a beauty salon located nearby, providing services to the local inhabitants.

On the wall of the entrance of the “church”, there hangs a plastic block writing the meeting times and the name of this “church”, “Tseung Kwan O Kingdom Hall”. Instead of using “church”, the use of “Kingdom Hall” as the name seems to give visitors a rather new, fresh impression, telling them that the “Hall” inside possesses boundary, like a ‘kingdom”, which is a new, however isolated, world. If God presents at the splendid cathedral, God will also dwell in here, since this is His ‘Kingdom’. Thus, the “Kingdom Hall”, which is a community (Christians) inside a community (people living in Hong Shing Garden), is the soundmark.

I still remember that the keynote sound of the “Kingdom” community was not a ting-ting sound of a church bell. It was indigenous sound, like the voice from chatting. People attending the meeting were familiar to each other. They called themselves “brothers” and “sisters”, just like belonging to the same family. It seemed that there were no different between the voices inside the “Kingdom” or outside the retailing shops, except that the language spoken here was more polite and gentle.

The main signal sound undoubtedly was a man’s voice from the stage. Yes, the voice is from the “stage”, not the altar. I did not call it an “altar” because I found no liturgical objects, scared cross, splendid idol of Jesus, or brilliant paintings over the stage. This interior design was so plain, pure that the “Kingdom” looked like more a family, giving visitors a sense of warmness and intimacy. No sooner did the man announce the opening of the meeting than the whole group of worshippers (not more than a hundred) stood up, and then, sang and prayed. This series of actions was the only liturgical activity that I found in the entire meeting. For the rest of the time, the signal sound was the only male voice from the stage, sounding like a priest or bishop, and giving a talk based on the bible to the audience (the worshippers). It was seen that the signal sound of the “Kingdom” was a regular routine, which includes the voices of speech, singing and prayer. During the two hours’ meeting, the background keynote sound remained the occasional noise and people’s daily lives sounds of buying and selling, chatting as well as walking to and fro outside the “Kingdom” community.

Undoubtedly, the “Kingdom Hall” is a special soundmark in the local community. The soundscape produced not only regulates the daily lives, behaviors and life style of the local community, but also brings forth a special form of voices that bridges the God and the grass-root people, not in a supreme and splendid Cathedral, but in a warm intimate family-like “Kingdom”.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-2 (published)



Music Theory Workshop -- 後浪漫風格和聲彙語的研究

致各同學，朋友:

梁 sir 現定於五月十一日開辦一個新的中高等程度和聲理論課程，詳程請看下面課程簡介。

如有興趣報讀的同學們，可以給我 一個 confirmative email，留下通訊方法。如果有足夠同學人數可以開課，我會 send 給你們一個 學員備忘通知。就算以前就某一個課程已留下 email 的同學，因現在是一個新課程，所以也請大家再留一次，以作安排。一般來說，我是不會打擾大家的。如果想進修一下 harmony 和分析樂曲的知識，這些不用趕考試的課程是很適宜的。

謝謝!

梁 sir

Music Theory Workshop 後浪漫風格的和聲彙語研究

這個課程旨在幫助學員進一步掌握調性和聲 (Tonal Harmony) 在十九世紀中後期，在各大師的音樂作品中之運用。眾所週知，由於十九世紀的作曲家為了表達含高度浪漫精神和獨特的個人風格，就在其作品中大量運用變化和絃 (Chromatic Harmony) 和遠系轉調，使傳統的和聲彙語不斷擴張，導致作品的調性面臨瓦解。雖然這樣產生了不少優美感人的樂曲，可是，也同時使一般音樂愛好者由於大師們的音樂語言的艱澀，以致未能理解其樂曲的原貌精神，以及背後蘊藏的深厚意義。這個課程的設計，就是基於要了解樂曲原貌這個基礎意義，跟學員以 workshop ， 即工作坊的學習方式，以數個有代表性的浪漫風格音樂大師們的作品為研究樂例，去探討他們個人獨特和聲的語彙與創作技巧，掀開這些樂曲的神秘面紗。

再者，經梁 sir 教學多年的觀察，學員在八級樂理課程中學過初級和聲學後，只忙於應付各種樂理考試，如八級樂理或 AMusTCL等，根本沒有靜下來消化其學得的和聲理論知識，看看它如何運用在解釋個別大師的音樂作品上。這種學習方式除了能拿一張證書或文憑外，對了解音樂和享受其美，沒有太大幫助。因此，這個課程是希望學員從分析作品的過程中，學到如何運用其學過的和聲概念和分析技巧，去對作品作一個有意義的詮釋，從以提高他們對音樂的認識和鑑賞能力。梁 sir 會引導學員在每一課堂上運用一至兩個技巧去分析和詮釋指定的樂曲或其片段，以此作為研究例證，並輔以 CD / mp3 的音樂作聆聽和思考之用。

課程題目包括:

1.    Enharmonic Modulations By Using Chromatic Harmony
2.    Diatonic Sequence and Chromatic Sequence
3.    Further  Expansion of the Harmonic Vocabulary
4.    Chords and Progressions in Special Situations
5.    Tonal Harmonic Vocabulary in the Late Nineteenth Century

6.    Color and Drama in Composition: Modal Mixture and Chromatic Mediant and Submediants

7.    Tonal and Harmonic Ambiguity
8.    Neo-Tonality: Impressionism
9.    Learning from the Masters: Chopin and Schumann
10.  Learning from the Masters: Brahms and Debussy

全個課程.: 共十課，每課 2 小時

上課時間: 7:45pm -- 9:45pm

上課日期: May 11, 2011 (Wednesday)

上課地點: 旺角，通菜街，威達商業大廈，408 室。(請參閱右方地圖)

人數: 5 至 8 人 (小組)

講授語言 : 粵語及英語

論音樂理論與數學的關係

前言: 究竟音樂理論與數學是否有直接關係? 有很多同學做和聲習作時，根本不聆聽音響，而 是在計數。可是，老師就會在這時大大禁止他們這樣做。同學們就算計數做對了和聲答案，也不算甚麼。可是在音樂理論的研究裡，數學是否沒有任何地位? 如果是有，也是甚麼呢? 以下的閱讀文章評論，相信可以簡易的提出了答案。

正文:

Music Theory and Mathematics

The story of Pythagorean’s discovering the mathematical ratios illustrates not only the establishment of the underlying the science of harmonics but also a frame of reference in music-theoretical thought in the association between music and number. Indeed the relationship between music theory and mathematical models is not through number alone but through the more fundamental notions of universality and truth embedded in Pythagorean and Platonic mathematics and philosophy that one best begin to apprehend the broad range of interrelationships between music theory and mathematics. Catherine Nolan discusses such a relationship in several perspectives of topics, including numerical models, geometric imagery, combinatorics, set theory and group theory and transformational theory in this article.

The article is set out in the discussion of Pythagoreanism in two aspects: numbers are constituent elements of reality and numbers and their rations provide the key to explaining the order of nature and the universe. Nevertheless, central to Pythagorean mathematics is a theory of ratio, the relation of two quantities, and a theory of proportion, the relation of two or more ratios. These theories explain musical intervals in terms of ratios and combinations of ratios, correlating music theory with acoustic science. Through the ratios the dissonant intervals are computed in relation to the consonances.

The rich implications of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy and mathematics, r4atios and magnitudes and their geometric representation, governed the science of music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Ratio and proportion indeed are understood today in the form of algebraic terms. But they were conceived in Greek mathematics as a close association of arithmetic and geometry epitomized by proportional relations of lengths of vibrating strings. Pythagorean’s notion of ratio and numbers thus developed the diatonic tuning which was a music theory remained virtually unchallenged until the fifteen-century. In the monograph Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), for example, Zarlino, a well-known Renaissance music theorist, appealed to this number theory for theoretical justification of the imperfect and perfect consonances.

While the representation of musical intervals through numbers has undoubtedly been most important to music theory, other kinds of mathematical models have also been adopted. This is the notion of geometric images which is used as heuristic devices to conceptualize music theory from number and proportion to logical and spatial representations of relations. Boethius, for example, utilized geometric figures, ideal universal shapes constructed mainly of lines, circles and arcs, to illustrate harmonic rations and divisions of the monochord. This seminal music theory indeed covered a long tradition extending back from Boethius and early medieval of monochord tunings of engaging geometric space to represent harmonic space to Descartes and the  seventeenth-century Enlightenment of formulating a coordinate system and analytical geometry in La geometrie. However, another important mathematical branch, Combinatorics, which concerned with numeration, grouping and arrangements of elements in finite collections or sets, almost came parallel with the development of Descartes’ notion of analytical geometry in the same period. The mathematical combinatorics appeared in the form of ars combinatorial inspired numerous discourses on rational methods of musical composition by a variety of authors of theoretical treatises and practical manuals. Kirnberger, for example, described compositional decision-making by selection, using chance procedures from the total compilation of permutations of a given unit such as melodic or rhythmic figure or a two-part melodic-harmonic module. Thus, from the above discussion, music theory developed in relation to mathematical numbers, ratios and geometric imagery throughout the history was inextricably associated with the development of western science and humanism and rationalism in western culture.

The mainstream of music theory in relation to mathematics in the Modern period was undoubtedly the concept of Set theory, which was initiated by Milton Babbitt and Allen Forte. The algebraic structures of set theory and group theory are designed to explain harmonic innovations in the refractory repertoire of post-tonal music and extend to theoretical studies of other musical parameters and harmonic languages of systems. Even in the present academic field of music theory, there is a growing number of mathematicians and theorists continuing to explore and generalize the algebraic structure of the diatonic system and scales or tonal systems of disparate origins, ranging from diatonic or microtonal scale systems to medieval or non-Western modal systems. Furthermore, the music theorist David Lewin expounded a series of profound treatises, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations, in 1987 was also an important concept of mathematical music theory. His GIS covered a delineation of a formal space consisting of three elements: a set of musical objects, a mathematical group of generalized intervals and a function that maps all possible pairs of objects in the system into the group of intervals. Lewin’s model creates a transformation network recasting the role of generalized intervals, modeling actions upon or motions between objects, and is termed as “Transformation Theory”.

Therefore, mathematics brings to music theory not only the technical means to perform measurements and computations and the statistical means to correlate data, but also the conceptual means, symbols and vocabulary need in order to model musical relations of various kinds and to delineate levels of abstraction. The diversity of music theories developed throughout the western history, undoubtedly, tells the fact that from the ancient Greek to the postmodern present, the studies of numbers, ratios, sets, geometries are all inseparable from music and its related concepts. As such, to regard music theory as a fundamental mathematical paradigm is to enhance our understanding of one of the most abstract form of arts (music) in the world with a rather rational process – mathematical reasoning. In this sense, hearing music is no longer an irrational aesthetic process, which has also been the core of our understanding of music for many centuries in the western history of music.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-04-22 (published)

是音樂的分析，還是描寫，究竟這是甚麼?

前言: 我們動不動就聽到人說音樂分析。他們分析了這段樂曲的和絃運用，label 了chord 的 symbol 之後，就說我分析了這段音樂。考樂理試的學員又常要做所謂的音樂分析題。究竟怎樣才算是好的音樂分析?  label 了 chord 之後，是否算是做了音樂分析呢? 身為音樂理論學者的 Dubiel，就這個問題，坦誠的跟讀者討論。以下就是我讀過這篇文章後的讀後感。


 正文:

Analysis, Descriptive, and What Really Happens?

Although there is a clear distinction between musical analysis and musical description in the present theoretical discourses, Dubiel’s talk seems to narrow this distinction, and make an alternative, or to extend the scope, of musical analysis. Dubiel uses two examples to demonstrate that a new conception of the piece can change the evaluation and the way of listening to and understanding of the piece. Different in sound is the result of a different in conception. This is why Dubiel suggests that a new conception of what the music is doing is to some degree a new conception of what music can do. The power of thought about music can determine what music is. For Dubiel, to analyze a piece of music means “to explain how it should be heard, and to explain how a given musical event should be heard on must show why it occurs: what preceding events have made it necessary or appropriate, toward what later events its function is to lead”. This explanation has to be teleological, empirical, and audible. Any meta-analytical framework should be avoided in musical analysis.

In most cases, I believe that what Dubiel suggests is the true musical experience in many listeners. However, to me, the so-called “conception” that Dubiel suggests is a “perspective” of listening. It works something like lenses. All theories just works similar to various lenses – anthropological, philosophical, linguistic, ethical, social, queer, aesthetical, political, formal, and so forth – through which a musical work may appropriately be listened, and by appropriately I mean to limit the range of lenses to those for which some good justification based in the work itself may be found. Applying various lenses to musical work is for analyzing purpose, in order to uncover the values of that analyzed piece.

Therefore, Dubiel’s teleological theory of music is a kind of reception theory. Since music theory covers a large variety of different kinds, what is a successful theory will very depend on how far this theory can successfully offer listeners a new perspective and understanding of the musical work. If the theory can lead us go “beyond” our understanding of the work, no matter it helps in audible aspect, or compositional aspect, or even the structural aspect, I believe, this is a good and successful music theory, since it uncover the intrinsic and hidden values of that musical art-work.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-04-16 (published)

從香港國際現代音樂節 2002的閉幕音樂會看香港未來藝術文化的政策

前言: 這一篇樂評，雖說是舊作，但我所提出，及所擔心的問題，在今天 2011 年的香港音樂界裡，仍是隱隱可見。難道自由創作的風氣，真的是隨著回歸而告終? 希望各音樂界同工，能從這篇文章反思一下自身的創作立場。謝謝!

從香港國際現代音樂節 2002的閉幕音樂會看香港未來藝術文化的政策

最近，文化委員會發表了一份關於未來香港文化藝術發展的文件，名為諮詢文件2002，其中提出了香港未來的文化定位，並且指出所有香港的藝術發展應在中華文化的基礎上進行創作，以確立香港人對民族文化和其中華民族身份的認同，這才應該是香港未來藝術發展的主要方向。可是，這項建議，卻引起了各界藝術工作者的擔憂。如果政府的定位政策得以落實，這可能影響了藝術創作的自由。因為大部份的支助將會由於中華文化身份認同這個政策的緣故，落在那些只與中國文化有關的藝術創作身上，而忽略了開拓國際視野，發展多元化的藝術，及建立香港本土自已獨特的藝術文化，並違背了創作自由這個基本的藝術原則。香港現代音樂的發展，也因這份諮詢文件，而難以獨善其身。

究竟政府應該為香港未來文化藝術的發展定位與否，實在頗具爭議。然而，在十月十九日晚，香港中樂團在大會堂音樂廳，為香港國際現代音樂節 2002而演出的一場閉幕音樂會中，卻給了我們一個關於未來香港現代音樂創作，或藝術發展的定位問題的啟示。

在這場音樂會裏，全部六首作品的作曲家都是接受西方音樂技巧的訓練。他們自已的創作也大部份是以西方現代音樂為主。可是，他們這次卻為中樂團寫作中國風格的音樂。當然，筆者在這裏，並不是要討論他們的作品是否能成功表現出中華民族的音樂風格; 可是，無可否認的是，這六首作品都是以中國，或民族文化為基礎而創作的。作曲家都自發地嘗試將一些中國音樂，或民族文化的元素放進他們的現代音樂創作裏面，表現出承先啟後的創作精神。例如，林樂培的問蒼天，他用的是聖詠序曲的曲體，雖屬於一種西方的音樂曲體，但音樂的古樂器聲，調子，卻是古氣盎然，充滿中華民族遠祖的風采。聽眾是很難否認作品中的中國元素。

另一首由羅永輝創作的現代中國音樂作品潑墨仙人，就更能表現出作品是含有中華文化的元素在內。這首作品的琵琶部份，很明顯是從一些古琵琶曲，如武曲，十面埋伏的演奏方式移植借用過來的。而琵琶與樂隊的組合，卻以現代音樂的手法，利用聲響去捕捉潑墨仙人這幅畫的藝術精神，及古人的飄逸情懷。毫無疑問，羅氏的這個音樂創作，也表現出他自覺地從中國文化的基礎上，去進行其現代音樂的藝術創作。

至於鐘耀光的永恆之城和郭文景的滇西土風兩首，可說是完全植根於中國及民族民化的基礎上而寫作的。永恆之城是21 世紀香港中樂團國際作曲大賽的冠軍作品。音樂處處能揉合西方現代的作曲技巧和傳統的中樂元素，是一首典形的中國現代音樂創作。而部文景的滇西土風兩首則是取材於中國的小數民族的音樂元素，去創作一首全新的音樂作品。這也是中樂團的委約作品。由於音樂材料是現成的民族音樂元素，這更能體現作曲家在從事現代音樂創作時，對於繼承中國民族音樂特點的重視。

說到陳明志的刮風的日子，雖然全曲的寫作手法相當西方音樂式的前衛，以音層性的音響為主，不似是以中國文化為基礎的創作; 但是，聽眾不要忘記，這首作品卻探索了中國傅統樂器的各種演奏技巧的可能性，拓展了民族樂器在現代音樂中的表現。這首音樂作品，也算是承傳於中華文化的一項現代發展。

因此，藉著回顧這一場音樂會裏的各首音樂作品，我們不難發現，在華人作曲家的音樂創作裏，是有一隻 ‘無形的手’ 在背後調節著他們的藝術創作方向，亦即是他們的藝術文化的定位。 他們無論是出於有意，或是無意，華人音樂創作者都會探索，寫作一些與他們的民族文化身份認同的音樂藝術創作，他們不約而同的植根於中國音樂的傳統，從而探索現在，發展將來。他們大都相信，成功的現代音樂創作，或多或少都跟自已的民族文化有關。他們絕對樂於把中華民族，或傳統文化有關的音樂元素，融合在自已的音樂創作裏。所以，對於香港未來的現代音樂藝術發展方向，實在不需要文化委員會以，甚麼文化身份認同，或是甚麼中華文化的基礎上發展香港的藝術文化作為定位的政策。這種過度強調，缺乏闡釋及監管的指引方式，常常因用白紙黑字記錄下來而成為了硬性規條。很多時候，這些所為指引更很容易被一些不懂藝術的官員所濫用，或個人政治性的取向的影響，造成了創作自由被扼殺的嚴重後果。這難怪當諮詢文件一推出，就引起了香港藝術工作者，包括作曲家們的擔憂。恐怕我們本來多姿多彩，各種各色的的現代音樂花園，會因政府政策的間接拑制，變成了只能孤芳自賞，只擁有單一種花的音樂花園。這是香港現代音樂的悲哀，也是香港整體藝術文化的悲哀。

所以，政府與其發出指引，變成了變相干預了香港未來文化藝術的自由發展，不如讓藝術創作上這隻 ‘無形的手’去自行發揮作用，適當地調節著作曲者自已的藝術文化定位與取向。我們深信，這隻 ‘無形的手’會像經濟學上，阿當史密斯所論到的供求定律一樣，會給予香港現代音樂，一個自由的創作空間或 ‘市場’，從而發展一種既植根於中華文化的基礎上，但又屬於香港自已的獨特音樂藝術文化的創作。再者，我們不應忘記，香港已經回歸了，成為中國領土的一部份。無論香港的藝術文化發展成怎麼樣子，就算是不中不西，或是中西合壁，也是屬於我們中華民族，或是中國藝術文化的一個不可分割的部份，所有的音樂創作和各類的藝術，根本無須刻意地作民族身份的認同。

因以，政府應放棄以中國，或民族文化為主位中心，去為香港未來藝術文化而定位的建議，讓各項藝術的創作，包括現代音樂的創作，在這隻自由的 ‘無形的手’ 中繼續自由運作，順其自然地發展。不然的話，這個所謂藝術文化定位的指引，就只會變成另一隻 ‘無形的手’，不是調節，而是在背後操控，為香港未來藝術的發展，帶來了一場無可挽回的嚴重災難。

David Leung (theorydavid)

2002 (published in In-school Journal)

2011-04-12 (re-published)