Dongxue Luqi
Song Yellow River Phase I 1999.
Just as the world lamented that it was hard to get a ticket for symphonic music and complained that it was difficult to rehearse new symphonic works, the composer Bao Yuankai's "Yanhuang Customs" had another fate. This work has been widely broadcast at home and abroad since its premiere in June 199 1, and received rave reviews. It has been staged by many symphony orchestras at home and abroad in many cities and regions around the world, and various versions of this work have been published on CD. Now "Yanhuang Style" not only won the China Golden Bell Award for Music, but also some of its tracks were included in the textbook "Music Appreciation in Ordinary High Schools" by the Ministry of Education (formerly the State Education Commission), and some of the tracks of this work were also selected into the music textbooks of primary schools and junior high schools in some cities. It is conceivable that when teenagers of different ages grow up with the "Yanhuang custom" day by day, "Yanhuang custom" not only plays a far-reaching role in the vastness of space, but also in the persistence of time.
( 1)
Since the beginning of last century, with the introduction of symphonic music, a foreign music form, China composers began to explore this new field. For decades, due to the differences in social and historical conditions, composers' knowledge composition and aesthetic pursuit, they have chosen different fusion points and breakthrough points between Chinese and western music, but it is their long-cherished wish to create symphonic music with China style. To sum up, their creations are nothing more than the following ideas: first, they are enriched and deepened with the multi-voice techniques of symphonies based on national and folk tones; The second is to extract the most distinctive "cells" from national music and let them play freely; The third is to grasp the spirit likeness of China's style in the internal organization of sound structure and the aesthetic characteristics of creative conception. It turns out that these ideas have their own functions and emphases, thus forming the "ecological balance" of China's symphonic music creation. They only have a high level of creation, but they don't have a high level of creation. They may all have made some masterpieces handed down from generation to generation. However, due to the different emphasis and opinions of composers in different periods and the different appreciation level of the audience, especially the influence of "trendy" music in recent years, this "balance" may be tilted to some extent. Many people have this idea in their minds: "twelve-tone technique, sequential music, atonality and incomprehensibility = innovation, modernity, advanced and advanced;" Traditional techniques, tonality, melody and understanding = conservative, outdated, backward and low-level. "
Under such a concept, taking national music as creative material and imitating national tone and charm naturally became an outdated trick and was left behind.
On the contrary, other composers remembered the old adage that "it is easier to draw ghosts than people", and found it difficult to reconstruct the long-existing national melody with the language of symphonic music, which not only lost the traditional charm of China, but also failed to meet the interests of modern people. Because "limited by the simplest material", "composers are usually required to master more skilled and superb writing skills." (2) For this reason, they would rather walk in front of the treasure house of folk music and explore a new territory.
It should be said that the scarcity of symphonic music works appealing to both refined and popular tastes in recent years has something to do with the above two ideological trends. It is in this context that Bao Yuankai plunged into the ocean of China folk songs, neither dismissing "easy" nor fearing its "difficulty", and calmly presented his new symphonic music work "Yanhuang Style-24 Orchestral Music of China Han Folk Songs".
In the history of modern music in China, there have been many symphonic music works with the theme of folk songs, such as He Lvting's Senjidema, Kyle's Northern Shaanxi Suite and Li Huanzhi's Spring Festival Overture. It can be said that folk songs are not only an inexhaustible source of materials for China composers, but also a bridge for China people who are used to listening to a single melody to understand and accept symphonic music. It is precisely because of these kind folk songs that symphonic music, a multi-voice exotic form, can take root and blossom in China.
Bao Yuankai's "Yanhuang style" can be said to be the continuation and inheritance of similar works of modern predecessors. It is an attempt and exploration to use and display the national orchestral music of Han folk songs more comprehensively and systematically. It consists of 24 folk songs selected from Hebei, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Shanxi provinces (plus * * * 3650 songs as the central part of the structure). The diversity of its folk songs (including all Han folk songs such as folk songs, minor songs and songs) and the richness of its modes (gong, Shang, Zheng and Yu) are unprecedented, which is no different from the tour of Han folk songs led by the symphony orchestra.
In fact, Bao Yuankai's "Yanhuang Customs" is different from the previous creation based on folk songs. The latter pays more attention to "please come in", that is, "how to make the symphony orchestra popular and nationalized." ③ The former is more interested in "going out", that is, taking symphonic music as a bridge to push China music to the world. To be exact, Yanhuang Style is not a work with folk songs as its theme, but a work aimed at showing Han folk songs. This subtle change in creative motivation is a reaffirmation of the value of China musicians' own national music in their exploration and reflection, and it is the product of Bao Yuankai's "suddenly looking back" after various creative practices.
For decades, Chinese and western music have not really communicated on an equal footing. China thinks that music is "backward" and "simple", and it is still in the primary stage of European music development. This idea is quite marketable. The magic shadow of "European music center theory" lingers in western China. China composers shape their works according to the "example" of western music; Western musicians know little about China's music. On the one hand, they regard the pure China folk songs as the plagiarism of European music, on the other hand, they create China music that is completely unlike China's music.
Bao Yuankai is a thoughtful composer. He appreciated Bartok's view that folk songs have the same value as Bach's fugue and Mozart's sonata, and realized that China traditional music has unique charm and rich accumulation that western professional music can't match. These splendid musical heritages, which have not been alienated by modern civilization, are ancient and have eternal vitality, and show us a vast world of artistic creation. ⑤ The rich Han folk songs in China will bring new vitality to professional music creation. Years of creative practice have made Bao Yuankai realize that when we haven't fully grasped the laws of Han folk songs and fully explored their aesthetic connotation, the "genes" we extracted from them are often not their essence, and it is impossible to "graft" excellent new works. Instead of letting those "national imitation" works spread, it is better to show the original Han folk songs to people. He is full of confidence in the unique charm of China's music. Therefore, in "Yanhuang Style", he asked western musical instruments to imitate the sliding, rubbing and vibrato of China folk songs as much as possible; Join Chinese musical instruments such as banhu, suona and sanxian; The melody of more than 20 original folk songs has not moved a bit, and even several variations of Blue Flower are sung according to the bars of folk songs. His purpose is clear, that is, to let people hear the original China music. It is the change of concept from "making foreign things serve China" to "making China serve foreign things" that makes Yanhuang Customs surpass its previous similar works not only in quantity, but also in essence.
(2)
But when Bao Yuankai emphasized the "purity" of folk songs, he did not narrow the meaning of "purity". He realized that the music of all nationalities in the world not only has different personalities, but also has similarities. Today, with the increasingly close communication between human beings and the shrinking of the earth, it is not only reasonable but also inevitable to integrate the music of all ethnic groups. To measure the music value of any nation, we should not only look at the difference between it and other national music, but also look at the degree to which it can accept external factors and be accepted by foreign music. Therefore, closed and self-appreciating music far from international communication will eventually be far away from the world and the times. Only national music, which carries national high-quality genes into international music exchange and can be accepted and respected by other nationalities, can become the cornerstone of participating in the construction of human music building. This may be an important reason why Bao Yuankai finally chose China Han folk songs and western symphonic music.
Undeniably, Han folk songs, as the most distinctive form of China music, are the most precious wealth left by our ancestors. However, due to the isolation of geographical conditions and traffic restrictions, the skills and achievements implied in Han folk songs are often scattered. Word-of-mouth way, so that local folk songs in a limited space for a long time to fend for themselves. In this case, it is very important to properly collect, sort out and preserve folk songs (such as the ongoing "China Folk Song Integration" work) and take it as a permanent reference for our development of contemporary music. However, we should also note that when the spread of modern music is mostly transferred from the folk to the concert hall, people's appreciation taste will inevitably change, and it is impossible to sing pure folk songs as a universal way of performance and appreciation, which will undoubtedly greatly limit the inheritance scope of folk songs. Therefore, the combination of Han folk songs, which can best represent China's musical spirit, and symphonic music, which is the mature mainstream art form in the world, will undoubtedly break the closed state of China folk songs, expand its influence in the world and play an irreplaceable role.
As a combination of Chinese and western music, it is natural to compare and analyze the characteristics of Chinese and western music. Bao Yuankai thinks that the melody is beautiful and the monosyllabic connotation is rich, which is the most distinctive attribute of China's music and the incomparable place of western music. The rich harmony foundation and systematic multi-voice creation experience that western music is good at are the weakest links of China's music. He can't accept the practice of absolutizing the relativity of music value. It seems that because monosyllabic music is the essential attribute of China's music, it is doomed that China's music can only go along the road of monosyllabic music forever. He believes that there are many reasons why China's traditional music has embarked on the road of monosyllabic prevalence in history. This is not only the result of the poor soil of multi-voice music in social practice, but also the product of musical aesthetic thoughts such as Confucianism and Taoism and the closed and conservative cultural and psychological model. Therefore, in today's society, when the economy, politics, culture and aesthetics have undergone fundamental changes, especially when we have a large number of multi-voice music practices and produced a large number of excellent multi-voice music works, and there are more and more listeners who are not satisfied with enjoying monosyllabic music, it is not only pedantic, but also unworkable to treat national aesthetic habits rigidly and regard monosyllabic music as an absolute aesthetic standard.
At first glance, Bao Yuankai's musical values seem to be somewhat contradictory: single tone is magical and multi-tone is not bad. How? In fact, this just reflects Bao Yuankai's unique and dialectical view of Chinese and Western integration. Overall equality does not mean that there are no local advantages and disadvantages, nor does it mean that there is no need to learn from each other. He once said: "What I mean by integration is the integration of black and white, but it is not gray;" It is the fusion of donkey and horse, but it is not a mule. I demand that my works have both this and that, but I must not obliterate the characteristics of both. It puts together "elements" with different properties, but only makes them merge, not in chemistry ... it is the coexistence of "Tai Chi" and "Infinite". " ⑥ Obviously, Yanhuang Style is based on such an integrated viewpoint. It did not sacrifice the melody beauty of China's music for the fullness of multi-voice language; Nor did it win the perfection of folk songs by giving up multi-voice thinking as a bargaining chip. It not only maintains the melody, momentum and even singing characteristics of traditional monosyllabic folk songs, but also fully demonstrates the rich multi-voice expressive force of the orchestra. The pure beauty of a single voice and the complexity of multiple voices are convincingly and perfectly unified in the same work.
Perhaps, many composition "techniques" in "Yanhuang Style" were not initiated by Bao Yuankai, but were carefully selected and skillfully combined. This choice and combination should not only be based on the content and emotion of music; It is based on diversity, avoiding similarities, and on the condition of not destroying China's artistic interest. In Bao Yuankai's works, traditional skills glow with fresh vitality; "Western" means full of "China" sentiment. For example, in order to highlight the linear thinking of China's music, Yanhuang style uses polyphonic texture writing extensively, including strict five-degree imitation in Chinese Cabbage, strict eight-degree imitation in Walking West and extended time eight-degree imitation in Running Water. More often, due to the limitation of folk melody, the contrasting polyphonic parts and free and lax imitation are adopted. Even the harmony texture is polyphonic by means of pause, sustain, consonant and overtone in different beat positions of each voice. From the perspective of longitudinal harmony structure, Bao Yuankai does not reject the principle of three-dimensional structure based on the principle of object vibration overtone, but also pays attention to weakening the "foreign" flavor through transposition chords, high overlapping chords and non-three-dimensional overlapping chords, making the sound more colorful. From the perspective of horizontal harmonic progression, the whole song is mainly composed of two or three degrees of weak progress, supplemented by four degrees of strong progress, which is smooth and colorful. In addition, the bi-tonal harmony structure also appears from time to time in this work, either because the simplicity of melody provides the possibility for the diversity of harmony configuration, or because the melody is different from the tonic in Gongdiao, resulting in the overlap of bi-tonality (for example, when does Sophora japonica bloom? These techniques have undoubtedly played an important role in enriching the acoustic color of folk songs.
The emphasis of China's style is also reflected in the tone sandhi technique of Yanhuang style. Throughout the whole song, each of the 24 partials has a tone sandhi, but none of them adopts the traditional western functional tone sandhi. They are either the mode conversion of the melody itself (such as the alternation of feather palace in Embroidered Pocket and the alternation of feather merchants in Watching Yangko) or the mode opposition of colors between paragraphs (such as the three-tone sandhi in Yangliuqing, the two-tone sandhi in Couples Funny, and the three-tone sandhi in Running Water). What's more, it is the tone sandhi formed by the homonym at the end of the previous paragraph and the beginning of the latter paragraph (that is, "fish bites the tail"), because the two tones are the same tone but different modes. Also, because the tone levels of the first and last tones are different before and after tone sandhi, there are many possibilities for the second, third and fourth tone sandhi (for example, the second tone sandhi in Jasmine, the fourth tone sandhi in No Rain Flower and the fourth tone sandhi in Embroidered Pouch), among which the second-year feather tone switch is the most frequent (except Jasmine) ). This kind of transposition technique, which exists in Chinese folk music (such as the folk music "Rivers"), not only greatly enriches the tonal changes and color contrast of the melody, but also highlights the linear thinking of the continuous development of China music, which is full of the charm of China music.
(3)
True feelings are the ultimate pursuit of Bao Yuankai's music creation for decades. He attaches importance to creative skills, studies a new technology and imitates a new sound, which often keeps him awake at night. But that's because he knows that the emotion of music can only be reflected in his deployment and application of various forms of elements. For the needs of musical emotion, he dares to use the most "avant-garde" technique; And for the same purpose, he did not hesitate to cut off any redundant means. Taking China folk songs as its performance content this time not only determines that the techniques used by Bao Yuankai can't go beyond the scope of tonal music, but also determines that his own feelings and creative personality can only be expressed in the definition of folk songs and the interpretation of folk songs by orchestral music. This not only brought convenience to Bao Yuankai, but also added constraints to him.
Folk songs are an art form created through auditory memory and oral communication. Their lyrics and tunes have been polished and refined by generations of ordinary people and unknown artists, which contain rich social values and immortal artistic charm, so they are often the most concentrated expression of a nation's history, folk customs, temperament and emotions. Feng Menglong of Ming Dynasty said: "There are fake poems and songs in the world, and there are no fake folk songs." It reveals that the charm of folk songs lies in its nature of "respecting nature and attaching importance to truth" and in the fact that it condenses the true feelings of joy and blood and tears. Because of this, people regard folk songs not only as the research value of music morphology, but also as an example of the perfect unity of emotion and form. In this sense, the folk songs contained in Yanhuang customs provide a real and rich emotional foundation for Bao Yuankai's creation. The joy of flowers, the banter of guessing tune, the sadness of blue flowers, the grandeur of sunrise, the concern of embroidered pockets and the open-mindedness of Jiangzhou are all sketches of the scenery, the expression of the heart, the use of scenery to entertain feelings, or the narrative in sections, which can be described as ups and downs. Bao Yuankai's creation lies in further rendering and revealing the emotions contained in these honest and simple folk songs through the palette of the orchestra. In particular, he followed the emotional tone of folk songs, was not limited by lyrics, and followed the laws of music itself, turning folk songs into exquisite and independent instrumental works, so that the emotional content and amplitude of folk songs were often creatively expanded and deepened. Chinese cabbage imitates the string voice for the fifth time, just like a dialogue between a little girl and the soul of her biological mother. The orchestral music of the Lantern Festival and the symphony of suona are just like the songs and dances of simple villagers. The affectionate conversation between violin and cello in "Going West" makes people deeply understand the connotation of "sad but sad to leave", while the whole performance of "Blue Flower" comes to an abrupt end, which makes people suddenly realize the true meaning of "there are more silent words than audio words". This kind of music will naturally not be rejected by you, because this melody has been surging in the blood of China people for many years; Of course, this kind of music won't make you feel boring, because no matter the contrast and unity of styles, the opposition and transformation of emotions, the jumping and cascading of orchestration layout, and the accumulation and disappearance of musical climax, you can always be introduced into an unexpected and reasonable artistic situation.
On the surface, Yanhuang Style only takes the region as a clue and arranges 24 singles in order. In fact, Bao Yuankai had a lot of trouble with the macro-structure and layout of his works. The genre and content of "Yanhuang Style" determine that it cannot find a home from the ready-made musical forms at home and abroad, but must build its own unique and rigorous structural style while learning from the principles of repetition, change, contrast, juxtaposition, progression and climax in Chinese and foreign musical forms. In each group of music, Bao Yuankai always arranges adagio singles at the beginning (such as Flowing Rivers, Wuxi Live and Walking West), and arranges fast-paced pop singles at the end (such as Duihua, Guessing Tune and The Sun Comes Out), which makes people feel different from China traditional music. The only exception is that at the end of the first half, Bao Yuankai ended up with a slow and sad blue flower, which is intriguing. It not only laid the overall tragic tone from Chinese Cabbage to Blue Flower in the first half, but also strengthened the connection between the second half and music through the psychological emptiness and expectation caused by this tragic atmosphere, and finally made the audience get psychological satisfaction in the happy atmosphere of "watching Yangko". The first half of Yanhuang Style is actually like two "movements" of sadness and joy.
From the arrangement and orchestration of the band, it is not difficult to find that there are only five songs in the whole work (marked by the addition of trumpet group and trombone group), which are the ends of the first and third groups in the first half and the last song of the fourth, sixth and sixth groups in the second half. Chinese musical instruments such as Sanxian, Banhu, Suona, gongs and drums are also arranged in the last group of the first half (that is, three groups and six groups), so that in the two "movements" of the first half and the second half, two arch structures of strong-weak-strong are naturally formed. Under this big framework, Bao Yuankai also pays attention to the emotional contrast and deployment between music, trying to avoid the simplification of timbre and musical thinking, so as to achieve repeated changes (for example, "Yangliuqing" completely uses plucking, while "Interesting Couples" uses the competition between the band and the piano), and finally concentrates the whole song in the same tune center (from G in "Chinese Cabbage" to G Yu in "Watching Yangko")
Yanhuang Customs has been established for more than ten years. Today, its wonderful voice still echoes in our ears from time to time, and its inspiration and thinking still linger in our hearts from time to time. It tells us that "traditional national forms are not necessarily old, and the most modern methods are not necessarily new." The key is whether we can draw new spiritual strength from the deep roots of tradition. " ⑦ It reminds us that no matter how the world changes, no matter how the skills are renovated, the pursuit of artistic realm that makes the audience sing strongly will never go out of date. It proves that the future of China composers is not only very long, but also has many successful ways. Composers can gallop their creative talents in their preferred territory and from a good angle.
Precautions:
(1) "Yuefu New Voice" 1992, pp. 4 and 3.
② Selected Papers and Letters of Bartok (version 1985), 140 pages.
(3) Selected Music Papers of Li Huanzhi (1966 Edition) 6 pages.
④ Selected Papers and Letters of Bartok (1985 edition), 30 pages.
⑤ Bao Yuankai's Chinese Style (Music Studies, No.2, 1994).
6. Hou Jun's Oriental White (1993 edition) 403 pages.
All landowners Xiang Peng Huang's "tradition is a river" (1990 edition) 33 pages.