A History of Musical Borrowing in Chinese Music

前言:

教學忙碌，也意味到沒有太多時間寫文章。不過，本人也有不少 "存貨"，是以前寫下的有份量的文章，現在也拿出來共諸同好。




正文:

A History of Musical Borrowing in Chinese Music

The influence of Western music in modern Chinese music can be traced to the late 19^th century.  This time is also regarded as the period of the ‘germinating’ of Modern Chinese music.  The traditional Ching’s examination and education system[1] were abolished.[2]  The establishment of ‘learning centers’ and addition of the subject music in the lesson had the effect of introducing Western music into Chinese society.  European Brass instruments and music were used in the military bands.  The school songs and military music were popular for troops and students.  This ‘new’ music[3], later, became the foundation for the development of modern Chinese music.[4]

       The years1919-1937, from the May-Fourth Movement to the Sino-Japanese War, was a foundation period for Chinese modern music.  Many Chinese music composers came back to China after having studied overseas.  Huang Tzu and Shio Yiu Mei are two examples.  In addition, many music educational institutions and organizations were set up during this period, such as, the Gor Li Yin Yue Zhuan Ke Xue Xiao [Stadt Hochschule fur Musik] (1927) in Shanghai and Beijing Yin Yue Yan Xi Suo [Beijing University Music Studying Center] (1922-1927).[5]  Under these favorable conditions, many new compositions that used Western compositional techniques were created, although many of the works were only art songs and solo instrumental music.  However, some of these compositions already show certain nationalistic elements that are unique when compared to their European counterpart.  Apart from the use of pentatonic or modal scales to signify the Chinese character, some of the compositions employed borrowed materials; for example, the chorus for males, Fo Qu, Mu Lian Jiu Mu, by Wang Zhi, re-arranged from Quin Xu, Sze Fan, and the art song, Jiao Wo Ru He Bu Xiang Ta, by Zhao Yuan Ren, borrowed from the vocal style and melodic gesture of traditional Beijing operatic tune.  Another composer, Lai Kam Fai used many regional folk tunes, narrative songs and regional operatic tunes in his own art songs.

The Sino-Japanese war, 1937 to 1945, was a difficult period for Chinese music development.  During this period, many Chinese compositions were based on anti-Japanese themes.  Many songs and choruses were written.  The Yellow River Cantata, by Xia Xing Hei, is one of the most important musical works of this period.  The borrowing of Xian Xi folk tunes in this music is obvious.  This borrowing reflects the patriotism of the composer and the promotion of such thoughts in listeners. 

The 1950’s were a new era, during which Socialism was established in China and the development of musical culture was unprecedented in its scope.  Musical talent was gathered together from the entire country.  A steady stream of musical performing companies and theatres arose.  There was an ever-growing interest in establishing institutions for music education and the development of community musical life flourished.  Composers were motivated towards cultivating a wider territory in musical composition.  Many of the new compositions were in Western musical genres, but, at the same time, achievements were made in the rediscovery, collation, and adaptation of folk and ancient music.[6] However, the adaptation of folk elements in new compositions and the exploration of the ways to integrate both theWestern and Chinese musical language was not a new thing.  Chinese composers, from the early 20^th century onward, put their greatest efforts in this direction.  Ding Shande’s Variation on Chinese Folk-themes for piano solo (1945) can be regarded as the first variation, using Western compositional technique, to deal with Chinese traditional music[7].  This example showed that a combination of different musical languages and cultures, Western and the Eastern were possible.  As time passed, in order to fulfill the ever increasing academic and educative needs related to musical activities, Chinese composers developed a unique national idiom of their own through the adaptation of Western musical language within a Chinese musical context.  Borrowing music from folk and traditional sources to compose a new piece because a common and feasible composing practice in this period of ‘regeneration’.

In July 1956, the first National Music Festival was presented.  This major event was meant to encourage new composition and new Chinese music.  However, not all musical materials in the composition were new, since some of the major works performed in this festival used national and folk elements.  From short piano solos to large symphonic works, the re-arrangement of folk songs seemed favored by composers.  Chen Peixun’s solo piano work, Thunder in Time of Drought[8], Yao Mu’s Mongolian Suite[9] and Deboxifu’s Asi’er[10] for orchestra were typical examples.  To other composers, re-working the existing (folk) materials and incorporating these borrowed materials in one’s own musical language to form a new piece was another way of composing music.  Other examples are Li weicai’s Chinese folksong suite and Wang Shu’s Four Folksongs from Eastern Mongolia for orchestra.  Of course, we cannot forget the well-known violin concerto, the Butterfly Lovers, by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.  The remarkable lyrical theme in this work is derived from the traditional tune of a regional opera,Yue Ju, the Liang Shan Bo Yu Zhu Ying Tai.[11] 

This period of time, from the year 1950-1965, before the Cultural Revolution, was an important period in the development of modern Chinese music.  The prodigious output of Chinese compositions in this period[12] and the successful integration of Western musical culture with Chinese musical culture brought about a new level of development in Chinese Music. 

From 1966 to1976, all Chinese artists, including composers experienced the extraordinary ‘Ten Years’ Catastrophe’.  Because of the attitude of the ‘Gang of Four’ towards music and culture, musical composition in China stopped.  Although this was a terrible nightmare for all creative activities, thousands of revolutionary songs and the so-called ‘stereo-typed’ opera of this period, such as the Hong Se Niang Zi Jun (Two girls of the red army), often borrowed folk and national elements in order to exaggerate the political purpose of ‘serving the people’ of the communist state.  Musical borrowing used in this period became a tool of the state, similar to the ideas of the ancient Chinese ruling classes.

After the fall of the ‘Gang of Four’ in 1976, compositional activity was liberated and began to flourish.  With the re-opening of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, more and more young talented composers participated in the new wave of musical compositions contributing to the development of modern Chinese music.  To further encourage musical creativity, two ‘Best songs’ awards were launched in 1980.  The winning compositions were of great variety in theme, style and form.  Although the composers were mostly middle-aged, even younger writers of music and lyrics were included.[13]  Re-arrangement of folksongs for solo voice, choir and other instrumental ensembles was common.  The use of traditional or folk elements in a new piece in a similar tonal idiom showing the Chinese or national style was still favored by composers.  This kind of composition affirmed the merits of combining nationalistic music and modern Chinese music, jointing a modern viewpoint with re-creation according to current aesthetic concepts.  As Li huanzhi stated, ‘we regard the enormous quantity of national music treasures as a very valuable cultural legacy,…………..On one hand, we are concerned with preserving

the original format of traditional format of traditional music……………On the other hand, traditional musical compositions, as rearranged or revived by composers, offer us a wide artistic spectrum in which to carry out large-scale creative experiments, transcribing and composing a great variety of musical works.[14]  Therefore, one of the characteristics of ‘modern’ or the ‘new’ Chinese music is that Chinese new compositions are inspired and by national folk and traditional elements.[15] This results in a new style of music that is distinguished from traditional Chinese music and European music.

With a more open attitude to the West and the influence of contemporary Western musical language, a

new challenge for modern Chinese composers has arisen; that is, to integrate borrowed Chinese

musical materials within a contemporary Western musical idiom and still develop a personal musical

language and style without a loss of national character.  As a result, from 1976 onward, many new

compositions used extended borrowing techniques.  This trend brought with it a new way of using

borrowing, one that suited the needs of the composers with regard to personal artistic purpose and

aesthetic.  Thus, the history of Chinese musical borrowing began a new chapter.  In addition, some

Mainland Chinese composers, such as Tan Dun and Chen Yi began their overseas study in the late 80s

and 90s, especially in the United States.  Under this multi-cultural impact, their use of musical

quotation is somewhat different from other composers from Mainland China.  To some extent, it is

very similar to the situation of Hong Kong Chinese composers. But this discussion will be another

topic that I want to share with my readers in the other article.

---

[1] It is known as Ke Ju. 

[2] Under the Dynasty Ching’s educative system, students learnt from the teacher privately for the examination (Ke Ju).  There were no public schools and music lesson.

[3] Professor Liu Ching Chih stated that the ‘New’ Chinese music is new because this music has no direct relationship with the traditional Chinese Music.  It is not inherited from the past and cannot be found in the history of Chinese music.  The composers, who are mainly trained by European musical tradition, compose all these new music though there may be some traditional or national elements borrowed in the compositions.

[4] Liu, Ching-Chih, Zhong Gor shen yin yu zi luen gou, [The History of the Chinese New Music], vol. 1 (Taipei: All Music Magazine, 1999), 26-38.

[5] Gor Li Yin Yue Zhuan Ke Xue Xiao becomes the National Shanghai Conservatory of Music later and the first principal was Shio Yau mei.  The Beijing Yin Yue Yan Xi Suo was not established as an official department but only treated as an extra-curricular group in the University.

[6] Li, Huan, Zhi, “People’s Republic of China,” in New Music in the Orient, ed. by Harrison, Ryker, (Bure, Netherland: Frits Knuf Publishers, 1991), 210-211.

[7] Lian Ping, “On the Interlock Coordinate of Chinese and West Culture,” in Journal of Xinghai Conservatory of Music 3 (1997), 31.

[8] The main theme is based on a Cantonese traditional tune.

[9] The suite is based on the folksongs from Eastern Mongolia.

[10] The work is based on an Inner Mongolian Folksong.

[11] Lui Chih-jih regarded this work cannot be considered as a work by created because of the largely borrowed materials inside and the composers Chen Gang and He Jianhao only re-arranged this piece.

[12] The composers and their works in this period are listed in the New Music in the Orient by Ryker Harrison in pages 189-198.

[13] The composers and their works from the period of 1976 to 1980 are listed in the New Music in the Orient, by Ryker Harrison, pp. 199-204.

[14] Li, huanzhi, “People’s Republic of China” in Music in the Orient, p 205.

[15] The major compositions which have been arranged from traditional music are listed in the New Music in the Orient by Ryker Harrison for reference, pp. 205-208.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2012-04-23 (published)

Piano Rearrangement and Liszt's Idea of Piano music

Foreword:

How does Liszt's idea of superiority of instrumental music influence the status of musical rearrangment in the history of music? And how does this idea influence Romantic and Modern composer's compositional attitude? The above two questions are worthy of exploration. The follow article attempts to search for an answers. And let us know more about the development of the new musical genre from the 19th century onward -- The Piano Rarrangement.

 Article:

‘Arrangement’ is applied to any kinds of music based on or incorporating pre-existing material: variation form, the contrafactum, the parody mass, the pasticcio, and liturgical works. In the history of music, ‘arrangement’ can be firstly found in the medieval trope and clausula as well as motets, however, vocal arrangement was more popular than instrumental arrangement at that time. Starting from 1600, the practice of transforming vocal music into keyboard music boosted and in 19^th century, piano arrangment was widely accepted only after the release of the Franz Liszt’s piano arragement. Franz Liszt was the most important arranger to establish the state of ‘arrangement’. He divided arrangement into two categories: (1) paraphrases in which the arranger can alter the original freely and add his own fantasy around it; (2) transciptions in which the arranger must recreate the original faithfully.

Liszt’s paraphrases include the operas by Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, in which Liszt fully presents his talent of music, like adding an entire act in a 15-minute concert piece and combining the original themes in it. The most famous paraphrase is Bellini’s Norma, which got a coda with a combination of two main opera’s themes ---- ‘Deh! Non volerli’ and ‘Ite sul colle’. On the other hand, Liszt’s transcriptions are so faithful that they are called ‘gramophone records of the 19^th century’. The greatness of Liszt’s transcriptions are his inventiveness as he can find out all individual piansitic solutions when he encountered various problems in translating mucis from one medium to another. After examining Liszt’s transfer of the Beethoven symphonies, Tovey remarked him that ‘they prove conclusively that Liszt was by far the most wonderful interpreter of orchestral scores on the pianoforte the world is ever likely to see’ Therefore, Liszt helped establish the status of arrangement in the history of music in 19^th century.

In the 19^th century, after Liszt establishing the ‘arrangement’, more arrangers joined this queue. For instnace, Brahms’ orchestration of his Variations for two pianos on a theme of Haydn (1873); Joachim’s orchestral version of Schubert’s Sonata in C for piano duet d812 (‘Grand Duo’) Even in 20^th century, ‘arrangement’ is still important, but new elements are added. For example, in Ravel’s orchestral version (1922) of Pictures at an Exhilbition, he enriched the black-and-while originals of Musorgsky by colours. Then composer-arrangers increasingly appear and they often cross the stylish divide between their own work and that of the past. Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’s G minor Piano Quartet op.25 (1937), gets even more than his earlier ones of pieces by Monn, resulting that Bach and Handel seems to constitute a conscious act of identification with the past. The interpretation of music also affects the ‘arrangement’ of previous work, like Webern’s orchestral version of the six-part ricercare from Bach’s Musical Offering (1935), sets out with the opposite intention of adapting the past to the language of the present. However, Schoenberg uses a slightly expanded Brahmsian orchestra in a more or less Brahmsian way.

In fact, by the turn of the 20^th century, people put less respect on the ‘arrangement’. There was a growing insistence on ‘authentic’ performance and a new emphasis on scholarly objectivity embodied by the Urtext. Arrangements in general came to be regarded as second-class music. During the two world wars, few pianists ventured to play the arranged repertories in public. An inimitable treasury of piano music was ignored and forgotten. It is Brahms that declared Liszt’s operatic paraphrases lay ;the true classicism of the piano’, then the spirit of ‘arrangement’ can be kept afterwards.

The influence of Liszt on ‘arrangement’ can also be noticed in today’s commerical world. There are a lot of old popular songs are rearranged to become the latest popular songs, like in Hong Kong ‘分分鐘需要你’ by 林子祥 is rearranged to become a song of a TV programme and is sung by林子祥; ‘Amazing Grace’ is a religious song but is arranged and sung by 容祖兒。 Consequently, although ‘arrangement’ appeared by thousands of years, it has caught people attention largely after Liszt’s arrangement of previous works, and it becomes important since then.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2012-03-22 (published)

AMusTCL 有關電影音樂的考試題目示範作答

前言:


這不是 model answer。但有感考生不懂怎樣用文字去分析音樂，所以，文字功夫較差的，這條題目就答不好。我也不得不以 Croaching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 為例，寫出以下參巧文章。




正文:

Key words: Value. Techniques. Artistic attributes. High arts. Elite arts. Creative and innovative. Originality. High technicality. Expressivity. Program music. Programmatic meaning. Story telling. Narrative. Mood and atmosphere. Emotions and feelings. Imagined world.

Music is the heart of a film. A film without music is just like a man without a heart, only a body. From this sense, if the film only contains story-line carried out by characters’ dialogues, though it works, it hardly touches audience’s heart. Indeed, music is essential to trigger audience’s feelings and emotions, creating the overall atmosphere ready for them to immerse into an alien world of imagination.

Try to imagine the popular film in the 70s, “Jaws”. If this film has not used the driving two-note percussive motive to anticipate the approach of the huge white shark, or the film “Star Wars” without the now-famous noble trumpet fanfare theme to represent the princess’s lofty and majestic disposition, would the audience be so exciting and shocking? The top-selling of film soundtracks in the commercial market always evidences the important role of music in a film.

Instead of the top-selling billboard that reflects the commercial value of the music in a film, its artistic value can be largely lies on the attribute of expressivity. Film music likens to the program music of western music in the 19th century. Program music can be story-telling, attempting to describe a scene, a person, a subject, creating a related mood and atmosphere through sonic images. Similarly, Film music also can easily steps in an audience's soul so as to express what neither pictures nor words can, creating a new meaning to the audience. Furthermore, music adds extra-dimension to a given scene, not only emphasis but also giving more body and depth to the story, to the characters, to the dialogues, and to the actions. The analysis of the use of music in the film of “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon” is as follows:

        In most action films, such as martial art film or Kung Fu film, the music always parallels and underscores actions. For example, in the scenario of ‘Catching the thief’, the plot is about the night fight between Jen and Shu Lien. Jen, because of her arrogance and self-esteemed, she steals the precious antique sword which belongs to Li Mu Bai, the famous swordman of Wudong. Shu Lien attempts to catch her. The fighting occurs after Shu Lien’s chasing her for a period of time. Here, Tan Dun skillfully employs percussive sonority to create an exciting atmosphere of this fighting scene. A pair of Chinese drum can easily conjure audience up an imagination of the battlefield with the violent fight, since drum is always used in the real battlefield, so as to give signal to and to raise the valor of soldiers. Hollywood film music composers are without exception to exploit this handy, yet ready-made timbre, in many of the film music making.

 In the scene of ‘Catching Thief’, the two Chinese drums are used to enhance the both characters’ chasing on the roof. Shu Lien tries her best to catch Jen to get back the Li’s sword. By employing the devices of repeated rhythmic pattern (ostinato) and accelerando to speed up the tempo, the climax of this chasing scene is gradually built up. Furthermore, the pair of Chinese drums creates a contrapuntal texture so as to increase the intensity of the actions of two fighters. Hit points are multiplied because of the vivid percussive sonority. The pace of the fighting is thus intensified. Audience can easily catch up with the lively action and the violence of the fighting by the hit points of the heavy beating drums made.

However, is the violent mood the only purpose that Tan Dun wanted to create in this scene? Not really. Times Magazine once said that this ‘flying-running’ fighting was a fantastic exemplar of a Ballet dance, somewhat a Chinese style. Undoubtedly, Tan Dun successfully imbues the fighting music with the noble, yet graceful, elements that the dance music should have possessed.

In the climax of the fighting scene, the volume is also gradually increased, locking the audience in a hysterical abyss, seemingly to be the one who is also participating to the fight on the screen, as it were, experiencing the glory of win and the loss of failure. To be sure, without music, nothing can be experienced indeed.

        The  scenario about the first appearance of another main character ‘Dark Cloud' is also worth of considering. In this scene, the somewhat exotic music is played by yun, a Chinese native instrument, supported by the strings accompaniment at the background. This is a typical example of how music can locate a geographical location in a film.  The plot is about the leader of the gang of robbers, Lo, whose nickname is called ‘Black Cloud’, came to rob Jen’s troupe in the journey to Xian Jiang, an area of minority ethnic group. After Lo has taken Jen’s comb, Jen chases Lo to get back her comb. It is the arrogance and self-centered personality of Jen that forced her to do so. When Jen is riding on the horse, and chasing behind Lo’s, the lively Xian Jian dancing music enters.  Then, when Jen fought with Lo in order to get back her comb, the fast tempo Xian Jiang dancing tune played by yun reenters again. It not only intensifies the pace of their fighting, but also creates an aura of Xian Jian territory, as well as, utters to audience of a romantic love story replete with exotic feeling. This dancing tune is made up from the Arabic scale which contains a distinctive feature, augmented second interval. The dance rhythm, together with the Arabic musical style melody, now called Xian Jiang Dance Style, links audience to this minority terrain. Afterward, while Jen stayed in the house of Lo for rest, the low-tone, quasi-murmuring cello stealthily steps in. The cello thematic melody easily reminds audience of the song ‘Love Before Time’, which elicits the endless sorrow of love. True, the romantic love, however distant, between Lo and Li is dommed to  be a tragedy since they belong to different social status and backgrounds.  The use of thematic melody here not only enhances the coherence of the story-line, but also tells the audience that this ‘unequal’ love between Lo and Jen, which is emphasized by the conflicts aroused from Jen’s personal arrogance, as well as her deep longing for liberty, against with a generation of strict moral standard, is doomed to be a tragedy, even in the very beginning as they firstly met.

        One of a remarkable example that uses music playing against scene or images can be found in the scene about Li fighting Jen in the bamboo bush. In this scene, swordman master Li is eager to convert Jen’s wild temperament by his skillful martial art, and he is ready to accept Jen as his disciple of Wudong. They were fighting, flying on the bamboo trees. The theme song melody played by the murmuring cello permeates the whole scene. Accompanying the occassional endless sorrow recalled from the evocative melodic fragments is the reed-like artificial gesture, recurring irregularly in a strict repeated note pattern. This glissando reed-like gesture, as well as the slow tempo of the moving ostinato strings, enhances the ‘flying-fighting’ of Li and Jen on the tree top moving under the support of the slow motion shot. The overall effect is that the violent fighting between them has been transformed into an elegant ballet with two figures dancing to and fro between the bamboo trees, however, dispersing drop by drop of the melancholy. The brutal excitement, thus, is softened because of the music, which is so sparse, tender with a little restless and agitated. With the support of music, everything in this particular scene, no matter it is the visual images or the aural perception, is romanticised, so unattainable, so distant, and so uncertain that deeply interlocks audience's heart. The murmuring thematic cello of 'Love Before Time' seems to tell audience that whether it is the teaching lessons given by Li to Jen in order to persuade her becoming of his disciple, or the unwilling regrets of Jen in her unsatisfied life,  the future of Jen is destined to be dark and gloom without bright sunshine. When Jen jumps into the river, the music increases the volume, again, intensifying the fighting actions and the restless agitated emotions of Jen. Her wildness and arrogance have not yet been surmounted. She continues to step to the road of no return.  

From the above analysis, it is clear that music written for film is not merely an accompaniment, just bringing a nice melody for the audience. On the contrary, music sounded behind each moving images requires composers’ endless imaginations, bringing immeasurable value to the film. This value inextricably links to music’s own expressive power. New meaning of the scene is often raised through the creative uses of music. Therefore, film music, as a form of high art, definitely requires a real genius to be handled with ingenuous craftsmanship and unlimited creativity.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2012-02-24 (published)

Ways of Listening: Aesthetics, Metaphors, and Quotations in Music - Part VI

引言:

真的很久沒有寫新的文章了。教學越來越忙，雖然這表示我的收入多了，生活穩定了，但，這並不是我最喜歡的情況。不過，我已前也確實寫了不少文章，當然以英文寫的佔多，因為我的中文打字很慢。所以，我也只好出版多一些英文寫的文章了。以下的是一篇絕對有實力的學術文章，也是我往後開拓現代音樂美學，意義研究的啟蒙文章。以自己寫的文章作為自己的啟蒙老師，怕是由我開始的了。以下的文章也有數千字，所以會分期刋載。如讀者是喜歡音樂分析的，必能從這篇文章得益。

Part VI

    The work begins with an orchestral tutti playing an “out-of-key” scalic descending melody and is accompanied by a percussive “street beat” pattern.  This opening “mistaken” sound seems to inform the listeners that this piece is neither written for any concert nor amateur band, but is written as a record of the composer’s past listening experience of street performances.  Ives seems to capture such performances from a nebulous memory of childhood.  Although the form this work is not that of a March, the themes are designed in the style of March, portraying a high spirited but affectionate festive atmosphere.  The quoted tunes are always placed on the top of the sonic layers.  Fragment of London Bridge appears most, serving a role similar to that of the Countermelody to support other borrowed tunes.  For example, an altered fragment of The Girl I Left Behind Me follows immediately the first appearance of London Bridge in mm. 24-28, but the residue of London Bridge is still lingering in the sonic background. 

    As I have mentioned before, Country March Band consists of a hotchpotch of quotations in different styles, but they are molded into a framework of March-like piece.  By adding a collage of tunes related to the main tunes and to one another by melodic resemblance, genre, or extra-musical association, the thoughts of the listener, who may be reminded of other tunes that sound similar, or of pieces the band has played before, or of other musical pieces recently heard, or hear more and less extraneous music in his/her mind at different points, as he/her mind wanders and refocuses.[1]  In fact, it is not important whether a listener could identify all the quotations from the piece.  Just as a daily life event that we do not need to count how many apples, oranges and bananas are there in a basket in order to recognize that it is a basket of fruit.  Now, more important is the entirety, not the partial.  Ives’ uses of a hotchpotch of quotations in the Country Band March produces a similar effect to listeners.  Such a cluster of borrowings, mostly marches and patriotic tunes, and several popular songs surrounding the main tunes, therefore, could never fail to evoke a sense of festive experience in our daily life.  Certainly this is a boisterous and lively moment with procession music of March and Patriotic tunes pervaded.  As such, for listeners who are familiar with the American cultures or New England cultural milieu, the entire borrowed clusters, perhaps, may represent a high-spirit affectionate caricature, reflecting the heydays of Ives’ hometown.  To those listeners of non-native background, for instance, as Hong Kong Chinese, my listening experience could associate to the celebrative occasions related to the Disney Visiting. 

    The procession music is not difficult to recall a HongKongese’s experience of visiting and watching Disney’s Shows in the Park.  In fact Disney is a worldwide symbol of fantasies and dreams.  They significantly represent an illusive world of manufacturing happiness and laughter.  Celebrative music in March style is easily heard in every corner of the Disney world.  Parade music becomes one of the signs of worldwide Disney’s world.  As such, the collage quotations in Country Band March are really the “Disney experience” captured in some Hong Kong listeners’ memory.  The metaphor of “Disney Visiting” is no doubt created from one of the Hong Kong popular cultures.  Apart from seeing quotation in Ives’ music as photos in a photo-album or a painting contained many paintings, we can also understand quotation as a reflection of the past in terms of “flashback effect.”  This is the third metaphor conceptualize our minds on the understanding of quotation.

---

[1] Burkholder, All Made of Tunes, 386-87.

To Be Continued.....


David Leung (theorydavid)

2012-01-27 (published)

Ways of Listening: Aesthetics, Metaphors, and Quotations in Music - Part V

  引言:

真的很久沒有寫新的文章了。教學越來越忙，雖然這表示我的收入多了，生活穩定了，但，這並不是我最喜歡的情況。不過，我已前也確實寫了不少文章，當然以英文寫的佔多，因為我的中文打字很慢。所以，我也只好出版多一些英文寫的文章了。以下的是一篇絕對有實力的學術文章，也是我往後開拓現代音樂美學，意義研究的啟蒙文章。以自己寫的文章作為自己的啟蒙老師，怕是由我開始的了。以下的文章也有數千字，所以會分期刋載。如讀者是喜歡音樂分析的，必能從這篇文章得益。

Part V:

Whether the borrowed tune and the last fading sound is an experience of mourning for the nostalgic loss, or acclaim of the past, a preserved value of the childhood or any other kind is no longer the matter.  What is most important is that the series of quotations juxtaposed in this song is a perception of the sonic world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery, leaving a space for us to search what happened and what was there.  The Quotations in the form of song, therefore, is as evocative as the photo images in a private album.  They can always be capable of linking our distant past with that of the present, bringing us a sense of emotional responses in that particular moment.      

 

If the different quotations in The Things My Father Loved are like the “photos” collected in an private sonic album, Ives’ another piece, Country Band March, which comprises a hotchpotch of borrowed tunes of March, Folk and Pop, will somewhat resembles a “photo” or “painting” which contains many other sonic photos or paintings.  This comes to the discussion of the second metaphor of quotation. 

Quotation: “Paintings” inside a Sonic Painting

 

Paintings/photos often depict things.  Things depicted, albeit an image, often have values.  To have things painted and pout on a canvas or recorded down on a photo is unlike buying it and putting it in your house.  If you have a painting/photo, you obtain also the sense of the value of the “thing” it represents.”[1] An art lover is possible to possess all the paintings he liked by owning a painting painted with his all beloved, just like the following painting, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in His Private Picture Gallery by David Teniers (1582-1649, see example 1).

Example 1: Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in His Private Picture Gallery by David Teniers

Numbers of paintings inside a painting can show Archduke Leopold Wilhelm’s sights: sights of what he may possess and want to possess.  This painting of private picture gallery could be a symbol of his wealth, fame, taste, and contribution.  But these quotes might have more values that they actually acquired.  When we appreciate such painting, we also appreciate the value of the entire collection bestowed upon it.  It is not necessary for a viewer to identify all paintings, but more important is the emotional responses aroused from such perceptive experiences.

Similarly, all quotations collected in Ives’ private sonic album, the piece Country Band March, are “things,” and thus possess values.  Country Band March, in fact, is a vivid sonic picture of an amateur band playing with beats dropped and added, parts of step, miscues, mistranspositions, spontaneous solos and general high spirits.  Interestingly, Wiley Hitchcock calls it “an American equivalent of Mozart’s Musical Joke.”[1]  The borrowed fragments consist of various styles of tune: London Bridge, The Girl Left Behind Me, The Battle Cry of Freedom, Arkansas Traveler, Semper Fideles March, Yankee Doodle, British Grenadiers and at least two popular songs, Violets and My Old Kentucky Home.[2]  Some of the quotes are patriotic and celebrative, while others are nostalgic, folk and popular.  To Ives, capturing all sonic elements of the past in this piece could be a way of preserving the most valued “things.”  These sonic “things” belong to the past, for example, a sense of remembrance and love, or nostalgia of a beloved person, and place, or an experience of past life.  By appearing in form of quotations, these “past” things become present, become values.  When listeners are invited to search what were there inside this collection of sonic photos, what values could we find? 

To Be Continued.........

David Leung (theorudavid0

2012-01-11 (published)

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[1] Hitchcock, Ives, 73.

[2] James Sinclair lists all borrowed tunes in the program notes of the full score of Country Band March (Bryn Mawr,   Pennsylvania: Merion Music Inc, 1976).

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[1] John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Biritish Broadcast Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972), 83.

Ways of Listening: Aesthetics, Metaphors, and Quotations in Music - Part IV

  引言:

真的很久沒有寫新的文章了。教學越來越忙，雖然這表示我的收入多了，生活穩定了，但，這並不是我最喜歡的情況。不過，我已前也確實寫了不少文章，當然以英文寫的佔多，因為我的中文打字很慢。所以，我也只好出版多一些英文寫的文章了。以下的是一篇絕對有實力的學術文章，也是我往後開拓現代音樂美學，意義研究的啟蒙文章。以自己寫的文章作為自己的啟蒙老師，怕是由我開始的了。以下的文章也有數千字，所以會分期刋載。如讀者是喜歡音樂分析的，必能從這篇文章得益。

Part IV:

Not only does the first quotation in the song The Things Our Father Loved work like a sonic photo that invites us to share the experience with Ives, all the rest of the quoted tunes function similarly.  After the “Kentukcy” tune of “long ago” brings us to Ives’ imagined “home,” the borrowed old folk song of On the Banks of the Wabash comes next.  The piano sonority becomes more and more dissonant.  Perhaps, it is a kind of appassionate dissonance.  The music of “aunt Sarah’s humming from the organ on the main street”[1] is another sonic photo that we can experience.  While the sense of religious faith emanated from the borrowed Gospel of Nettleton is still haunting us, the patriotic song of The Battle Cry of Freedom suddenly intrudes into our muse of devout.  The block chord accompaniment in the right hand and the swing-like skipping bass in the left hand seem to raise listener’s spirit courageously higher and higher.  The effect of the quoted songs now is no longer the halcyon remembrance or pious meditation, but is changed to a kind of patriotic bravey.  But how does this effect influence our sensation and experience?

To listeners, the march-like music stepping restlessly forward until reaching the climax is particularly a high spirited moment.  We can hear the highest sounding of the piano chords, contrasting with the inexorable descending low bass, to reinforce the voice singing, “all red, white and blue, now!”  This is a moment that Ives attains his “liberty,” or more directly, Ives’s “liberty” in terms of ours, that is, a moment of all made of memorable tunes!  Not for a second, a sweet quoted family folk, In the Sweet Bye and Bye, furtively emerges from the biosterious climatic reverberation.  When the running semiquaver arpeggios are still keeping their rapid chromatic motion, listeners’ sensations are caught up again in this conclusive time.  What are the “things” our father loved?  It is an out-of-key, even distorted, nearly unrecognized fragmental tune from the Sweet Bye and Bye, singing, “in my soul of the things our Fathers loved.”  The unresolved G# dominant ninth chord in the piano suspends softly in the open air, seeming to call listeners to search what was there once again.  It is the final sonic photo in Ives’ private collection.

To be Continued.....


David Leung (theorydavid)

2012/01/07 (published)

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[1] The text of the second phrase of this song is, “I hear the organ on the Main Street corner, Aunt Sarah humming Gospels.”

Ways of Listening: Aesthetics, Metaphors, and Quotations in Music - Part III

 
引言:

真的很久沒有寫新的文章了。教學越來越忙，雖然這表示我的收入多了，生活穩定了，但，這並不是我最喜歡的情況。不過，我已前也確實寫了不少文章，當然以英文寫的佔多，因為我的中文打字很慢。所以，我也只好出版多一些英文寫的文章了。以下的是一篇絕對有實力的學術文章，也是我往後開拓現代音樂美學，意義研究的啟蒙文章。以自己寫的文章作為自己的啟蒙老師，怕是由我開始的了。以下的文章也有數千字，所以會分期刋載。如讀者是喜歡音樂分析的，必能從這篇文章得益。

Part III:


Quotation: “Photos” in a Sonic Album

It is the barely audible C major piano sound, despite a little mediocre, that unnoticeably sets off a sonic journey at the very beginning of Ives’s song The Things Our Father Loved.  This C major chord not only serves to prepare the incoming of the singer’s weak, and nearly murmured utterance, but also to offer an imagined space for the listener to contemplate, to experience.  The prologue of the song is somewhat anticipatory, seeming to call you to wait for what is to come next.  Music, in this sense, is an adventure – it advances, it arrives.  But what will be followed after the opening C major sonority?  It is a three-note melodic figure 3^{^}  – 2^{^}  – 1^{^}  , singing the lyrical words “I think,” which is also confirmed by the piano C major triad once again.  This is the right time for both Ives, the composer, and us, the listeners, to think what are these “things” that “our father” loved.

 

The familiar quoted tune, My Old Kentucky Home, albeit with different text setting, is one of the fruits from such process of thinking.  The occurrence of quotation here is a privileged moment in unfolding that juxtaposes different moments of past experiences.  On the one hand, to Ives, it could be a moment to mediate and also to seek his nostalgic restlessness and the never fulfilled sense of childhood loss.  Just as David Metzer has commented, “quotation becomes the means by which the composer participated in that cultural scene. Through the gesture, he could represent the figure of the lost child and the growing gap between past and present in which that figure was caught.”[1]  On the other hand, it could be a moment that all senses of childhood loss could be redeemed.  Larry Starr has once showed his agreement to this view by warning against the common “widespread misconception of Ives as a nostalgic composer.”[2]  Also, Burkholder has concluded in the discussion of The Things Our Father Loved with a saying that, “……this is not an exercise in nostalgia for the songs and scenes of the past.”[3]  Doubtless for both scholars, Ives has not mourned the past with quotations.  On the contrary, he did prize the past as a trove of values that need to be, and can be, reclaimed by himself.[4]  All the quoted tunes in this song, including My Old Kentucky Home, are all “things” that represent all values – the natural beauty of Ives’s homeland, the religious faith, the patriotism, the group feeling and the hope for a future reunion with those he loved, in Heaven if not on earth.  As such, this particular moment could probably be the beginning of Ives’s search for his “liberty,”[5] in which all things of value in the past that his father, or whom he loved could be contained.  Ives is extolling the past and its values through the use of quotations.

For listeners, the recognized tune of Stephen Foster’s My Old Kentucky Home could be a retrospective moment that invites a search for what happened, and what was there.  Unlike any other parts of the music, a quotation occurred in a particular moment is not merely a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace, like a footprint or a death mask.  Simply put, it works like a private photo-album containing many precious, memorable photos.  From this sense, Ives here is the collector while we, the listeners, are the viewers.  When displaying a private photo-album before our eyes, the collector is inviting us to share with his/her past experiences.  Similarly, the first sonic photo of Stephen Foster’s quoted tune is just a trace, a footprint in this particular moment.  The moment the quotes are heard is the moment we are invited to search for what was there.  But whether listeners can identify the borrowed songs or think of their words is not crucial; what is most important is the character or the style of the songs, each of which represents a type of song that played a distinctive role in our experiences and is endowed with a particular emotional resonance. 

While some listeners are conjured up with the similar emotion of Ives’ nostalgic loss when hearing the rather slow and sustained, even distorted appearance of the quoted tune, others, perhaps, can sense the “liberty” values that the tune represented.  However, to audiences who cannot recognize the quotation, perhaps, a scene of idyll and lyricism may be evoked.  The folk-like melody of Foster’s song is not difficult to express such pastoral aura of a typical American small town in countryside.  However, if we remember the text of the first phrase of My Old Kentucky Home, “the sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,” our experience of Ives’ “old home” may link to an imagined “place in the soul” that contains “all made of tunes.”[6]  This “home” is definitely a bright and sunny lovely place, which comes from our private experiences, our imaginiation, not very much from Ives.  We, in fact, experience Ives’ experiences in terms of our experiences. 

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[1] David Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in 20^th Century, 16.

[2] Larry Starr, A Union of Diversities: Style in the Music of Charles Ives (New York: G. Schirmer, 1992), 52.

[3] Burkholder, All Made of Tunes, 311.

[4] Ibid., 311

[5] The subtitle of this song is “and the greatest of these was Liberty.”

[6] The text of the first phrase of The Things Our Father Loved is, “ I think there must be a place in the soul all made of tunes.”

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-12-12 (published)

Ways of Listening: Aesthetics, Metaphors, and Quotations in Music - Part II

引言:

真的很久沒有寫新的文章了。教學越來越忙，雖然這表示我的收入多了，生活穩定了，但，這並不是我最喜歡的情況。不過，我已前也確實寫了不少文章，當然以英文寫的佔多，因為我的中文打字很慢。所以，我也只好出版多一些英文寫的文章了。以下的是一篇絕對有實力的學術文章，也是我往後開拓現代音樂美學，意義研究的啟蒙文章。以自己寫的文章作為自己的啟蒙老師，怕是由我開始的了。以下的文章也有數千字，所以會分期刋載。如讀者是喜歡音樂分析的，必能從這篇文章得益。

  Quotation and Metaphorical Concept

    The important role of metaphor in shaping our thinking and affecting our daily lives have been discussed by Lakoff and Johnson in the book, Metaphors We Live By. About metaphor, Lakoff has stated: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”[1] Metaphor is not a mere rhetorical device in linguistics. It is in fact the one that governs not only our actions and activities, but also our thinking processes and ways of understanding. We always seek out personal metaphors to highlight and make coherent our own pasts, our present activities, and our dreams, hopes, and goals as well. A large part of understanding is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense to us. It involves unending negotiation and renegotiation of the meaning of our past experiences. As a result, the process of understanding can lead to a continual development of new stories, as well as a creation of new realities in our daily lives. As metaphors exist in a person’s conceptual system, therefore, in this paper, all metaphors created for understanding of musical quotation are to be understood as metaphorical concepts.


     It is, however, nothing new for one to understand music in terms of metaphor in the western music history. For example, in the Cours complet d’ harmonie et de composition musicale (1803-05) by Jerome-Joseph Momigny, there are extensive analyses of movements by Mozart and by Haydn alternating technical description with narrative or dramatic readings. From Powers’ description on Momigny’s writing of Haydn’s symphony no.103, movement one, we can see that Momigny’s understanding of the music was no doubt governed by the metaphorical concepts he made. In fact, Powers stated, “ Momigny’s reading of Haydn Symphony 103 / I, ……the movement is read as a scene in the countryside, with a storm, villagers taking refuge in a temple, elders and grown men, women trembling for their children, and so on, with occasional fragments of text supplied to musical motives to enliven the narrative.”[2] Clearly, Powers’ words, such as storm, temple, elders, men, women, are related to a pictorial images consisting of the weather, temple and people, which are important metaphors to structure Momigny’s thinking. But it was not a unique privilege for Momigny to read music with metaphors, many other philosophers and music critics did so in the 19th century, such as Hanslick’s use of personification to conceptualize his idea on music as a living form,[3] which could animate beauty from the projection of sound, Schopenhauer’s view on music as a representation of human’s will,[4] the Berlin critic Heinrich Hermann’s description on Beethoven’s symphony no. 3 as an almost Shakespearean world of magic, or the Russian critic Oulibicheff Marx’s review on the same work as a military “drama” for delineating a battle and victory of a hero, which the battle is fought for the human freedom.[5] In the recent musicological scholarship, Susan McClary, also used the metaphor of “sexual intercourse” to explain the western tonal system and the musical phenomenon of Beethoven’s symphony no. 9.[6] As such, music in general, and quotations in particular, can be understood in terms of metaphor. This reading is capable of creating a new way of listening, which is capable of offering different perspectives for us to muse, to recall, and to search what happened and what was there.

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[1] Lakoff, Metaphors, 5.

[2] Harold Powers, “Reading Mozart’s Music: Text and Topic, Syntax and Sense,” in Current Musicology 57, (1995): 5-44.

[3] We can refer to Mark Evan Bonds’ discussion on this topic in his book, A History of Music in Western Culture ( Upper Saddle River, H.J. : Prentice Hall, 2003), 366.

[4] Ibid., 361.

[5] Thomas Sipe, Beethoven: Eroica Symphony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 54-62.

[6] Susan McClary, Feminie Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (London, Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press, 2002)53-79.

 

To be continued.....

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-12-01 (published)