The full text of the analysis of the musical characteristics of the opera "Canal Ballad" is as follows:
The opera "Canal Ballad" takes the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal with a history of more than 2,500 years as the story background, and reflects the history and reality by describing the life situation and emotional experience of the people at the bottom of society. This work skillfully combines the symphony orchestra and the choir, and shows it through various artistic forms such as solo, duet and chorus, absorbing and integrating elements such as western opera, folk songs and traditional opera. It interprets the story through the characteristics of China's four tones and national singing, which makes the work more understandable, real and vivid.
"Canal Ballad" was composed by Yin Qing, a famous composer in China, written by Huang and Dong Ni, directed by Liao, Wang Hongwei and Wang. What is the basic skirt? Starring is the most powerful singer in the film. The whole drama is divided into six scenes, which are rich in content, distinct in hierarchy and interlocking. The work is based on the Grand Canal running through Beijing and Hangzhou. The story took place in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, with the love between scholar Qin and wandering artist Shui Honglian as the main line, and the abandoned blind girl Guan Yanyan and Bazhou as the conflict point to promote it, and launched a series of intricate tragic and beautiful love stories. Through the description of life and love of canal people, it reflects people's living conditions in a difficult environment. Through the mutual help of the hero and heroine, let the audience believe that as long as they are kind and sincere to people, they can bring light to the world. Praise the kind working people and pure love, and expose the ugly face of the oppressed class. This paper analyzes its musical characteristics from the following aspects:
First, the basic analysis of music language
The prelude to "Canal Ballad" begins with beautiful lyrical strings, flowing quietly like a sparkling Grand Canal. The clarinet plays like ripples on the calm water, and then the bow of the strings appears, which makes the music tense and paves the way for the following story. At this time, the theme song "We Are the Running Water of the Canal" sounded, attracting the audience's attention to this beautiful and prosperous canal. The screenwriter personified the Grand Canal and presented it as a singer in Tsing Yi, as if lined up on the canal bank and singing the theme song? We are the flowing water of the canal, flowing year after year, watching the sea, watching mulberry fields, watching joys and sorrows; We are the living water of the canal. We watched life and death, good and evil, and the past in America year after year.
In the first scene, the dramatic dragon boat song and dance started, using the musical elements of Hangzhou tea-picking tune, reflecting the prosperity of the ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and showing the customs of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. The typical folk music melody in the play is accompanied by percussion music, which is lively and jubilant. With the tense rhythm of the strings and the contrast of the bass, the color of the music changed immediately, and the following story came into being.
In the second scene, the Qingyi singer lined up by the canal and sang again? We are the living water of the canal? This theme, and sing the story of the first scene and what will happen next, so that the audience can easily understand and play a connecting role. The harp with crisp and beautiful timbre runs through the aria of the heroine Shui Honglian. The music is full of Jiangnan color and melodious, which makes the audience feel the endless stream of canal water. At the same time, such delicate music also lays the groundwork for the love story of the hero and heroine. The bowing of the strings and the staccato of the wind music make the music light and clear, highlighting the playful, cheerful, refreshing and generous personality characteristics of Shuihonglian.
The harp appeared in the third scene, and its timbre imitated the national musical instrument pipa, which was more in line with the musical characteristics of Chinese opera. Open an aria of Shui Honglian and sing her words of suffering. Next came Qin's aria, which expressed his inner emotional entanglement and impatience. It seems that the pipa wheel guides Guan Yanyan's singing, and the bass of the harp appears in the background music, which is ethereal and desolate, just echoing Guan Yanyan's tragic experience. At the end of the third act, the chorus and symphony orchestra change with the plot of the drama, so that the audience can fully feel the musical charm of the opera while enjoying the story. Where does the canal water flow, and blood and sweat are clearly flowing? Push the mood in this field to a high point.
In the fourth scene, the harp sets off beautiful notes, such as the flowing water of the canal. Qingyi will sing throughout the play, playing the role of narrator, and the symphony orchestra will play the theme song together? We are the living water of the canal, flowing year after year? This scene is the classic of the whole opera, with many colorful aria, which fully shows the painful entanglement of the three people in this relationship and the dilemma of love and righteousness.
The fifth scene begins with percussion, which gives people a tense atmosphere and creates suspense for the next story. When the officers and men came from the main road, percussion Malimba appeared in the background music of the play. The music color was very humorous and interesting, which made us feel the lazy and dirty atmosphere in ancient officialdom and showed the exquisiteness of composer Yin Qing. Red-violet is willing to sacrifice herself to save Qin. She left the purest love to Qin and sympathy to Guan Yan. Her love transcends the love of children, and makes Qin and Guan Yan find the home of wandering souls. Hong Lian's Love You in the Afterlife pushed the whole opera to a climax, and the drama of the story was intertwined with the tension of music, which shocked the audience.
In the sixth game, Qin and Guan Yanyan came to Beijing and decided to report corrupt officials. Beijing is a prosperous city and people live and work in peace and contentment. The chorus of Soybean, White Rice and Peanut by male and female voices is unpretentious and full of Beijing flavor, and it uses the musical elements of Jingyun Drum, which is in sharp contrast with the music of Jiangnan style before. At the end, the aria "Canal Ballad" sung by Honglian rang again. A canal is a thousand miles away, and the two sides of the canal are hometown? Express your yearning for red lotus. Although she is gone, her songs and feelings are still there. Chorus theme song? We are the living water of the canal, flowing year after year? Echo from beginning to end, making the whole song and drama complete.
Second, the multi-voice music form
(A) the use of chorus
The role of chorus in opera is mainly manifested in: creating an environmental atmosphere; Express emotions, portray characters, participate in dramatic conflicts, and even directly reveal the theme of opera. It not only actively promotes the plot development from the front, but also assists other forms of drama to promote the plot development from the side. It is incomparable for other art forms to render the atmosphere with the power of the group to achieve the climax effect.
In the opera Canal Ballad, female chorus, male chorus and mixed chorus are successfully used. At the beginning of the overture, with the advance of the music, the stage lights lit up slightly and the screen slowly opened. Qingyi singer sang "We are the Flowing Water of the Canal", which showed the sparkling and calm of the canal with full and round timbre.
In the second scene, the songwriter created a tracker chorus with the elements of labor songs, and the lyrics were just right: hey, yo-ho, hey, yo-ho, face to the slate, sweating step by step? Which male chorus and? Lead the crowd? In the form of blending, the chorus tone is dim, low and negative, which shows the tracker's hard work and helplessness, fully embodies the class nature of society, and feels the pain and helplessness of these oppressed poor people who are unable to resist. In the third scene, Zhang Shui thief wants to kill Qin Xiao. In this scene, the singer of Qingyi sang with the tracker, forming a mixed chorus of men and women, which set off the ruthless and life-threatening tension to the extreme.
The sixth mixed chorus "Soybean, White Rice, Peanut" is full of Beijing flavor, and it also has the charm of Beijing rhyme drums and big bowls of tea. Finally, it ended with a lively and peaceful scene, which also reflected a truth. Don't flinch in the face of darkness and evil forces, and always believe that the right path on earth is vicissitudes! (B) the use of duets
Ensemble is one of the indispensable art forms in opera. In the history of world opera, Mozart, a composer in the classical period, regarded it as an important means of dramatic expression and became a leading figure. In opera, duet not only embodies the function of recitation and aria in expressing emotion and promoting plot, but also produces drama and three-dimensional sense because different timbres and different parts correspond to harmony skills.
Male and female duets can be arranged freely between men and women of different relationships. According to the needs of the plot, they can express the fierce contradictions and complex inner feelings between different characters.
This opera adopts various forms of duets, including male and female duets, trios and quartets. In the second scene, Shui Honglian and Qin's mixed voice duet also used the elements of chorus and rotation, which shows that they are harmonious. Love duet is the most important form of duet. It will always be an important passage deliberately displayed by opera composers. Any opera must have a touching love duet, lingering and deep. H tactfully touched the hearts of countless audiences. The affectionate duet between the hero and heroine is the best way to show loyalty and beautiful love in opera. The third and fifth scene mainly used a trio to show the emotional entanglements of three people. What are the lyrics? I am duckweed, am I a loser? The lead singer of this aria also used the method of singing in turn, the same lyrics, different tunes and rhythms, which respectively expressed the different feelings of three people. This arrangement by the songwriter makes the story content and characters' personality more vividly expressed and the emotional color more full.
In the fourth scene, a female duet is used to express the carefulness and kindness of the two heroines. When Zhang Shuibiao found out that Qin was not Li Xiaoguan, a mixed-voice quartet appeared, which fully demonstrated Zhang Shuibiao's sinister and sinister and Qin's despair, laying the groundwork for Red-violet to give her life to save people. In the process of creating Errenzhuan, the songwriter not only used China's four-tone national singing method, but also combined with western narrative techniques, which did not break away from the popular aesthetics and fully demonstrated the charm of China's original national opera.
Third, the reference of national elements.
(A) the way to participate in national singing.
China's national opera requires distinctive national characteristics. The original operas of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, such as Stone, Mountain Village Woman Teacher and Orphan of Zhao, are all excellent national operas, but The Ballad of the Canal is the best in topic selection, arrangement, composition and actors, and it can be called a classic of the original operas of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. The most obvious difference between "Canal Ballad" and other operas is that the whole opera performance highlights the interpretation by national singing.
Jia Lei, the actress of female Gillian; Wang Hongwei, male horn Qin, is a national singer in China. Opera singing has always been performed with bel canto: the tone of bel canto is rich, round and full, which requires the head, mouth, chest and abdomen to ring, so the sound travels far. But it is different to interpret traditional Chinese opera with national singing. National singing is sweet, euphemistic and clear, which requires that the * * sound in the head, mouth and chest is slightly smaller than bel canto, so the transmission of sound will be limited. In the background of symphony, the singer's volume is often overwhelmed, which leads to the singer's inability to hear his own voice, and as a result, he sings harder, which leads to voice fatigue and difficulty in completing the performance. So this requires a lot of singers, and it is also a considerable challenge for these two singers. The opera was well received by the audience after its performance. It is these young singers who show that not only bel canto can be performed in opera, but also national singing, which is more national and conforms to national aesthetic characteristics.
Nationalization of symphonic music
When composing, composers usually use the national and folk tone materials of some stories (Suzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing) to expand, so that the dramatic images expressed in their works have more national characteristics. Because the work shows the story of a boat from Hangzhou to Beijing, the composer not only added the musical elements of Jiangnan style, but also added the musical characteristics of the Jingyun drum in the Canal ballad, and mainly used the combination of ballads and folk singing according to the four tones of Chinese, and used the lyrics properly. The musical form did not copy the style of western opera, nor did it stick to the composing techniques of China folk songs, but made many breakthroughs and innovations.
Symphony music art comes from the west. Its musical thinking, structure, especially melody feeling are very different from China's national music, so people in China hold more symphonic music? Don't understand? Attitude. In order to let symphonic music enter the cultural life of the broad masses. The creator of "Canal Ballad" took a step of exploration on the road of nationalization of symphonic music and western opera forms.
In the musical thinking of this opera, the author did not overemphasize the longitudinal harmonic thinking of western music, because the aesthetic habit of China people to music is the lateral melodic thinking. This is precisely the characteristic of China folk music, so it is more in line with the aesthetic habits of China audience for composers to learn from the creative techniques of folk music and skillfully melody the harmony of symphonies.