The Preludes in Chinese Style:
Three Selected Piano Preludes from Ding Shan-de, Chen Ming-zhi and Zhang Shuai to
Exemplify the Varieties of Chinese Piano Preludes
D.M.A. DOCUMENT
Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Musical
Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Jingbei Li, D.M.A.
Graduate Program in Music
The Ohio State University
2019
D.M.A. Document Committee:
Professor Steven M. Glaser, Advisor
Dr. Arved Ashby
Dr. Edward Bak
Copyrighted by
Jingbei Li, D.M.A
2019
ABSTRACT
The piano was first introduced to China in the early part of the twentieth century.
Perhaps as a result of this short history, European-derived styles and techniques influenced
Chinese composers in developing their own compositional styles for the piano by combining
European compositional forms and techniques with Chinese materials and approaches. In this document, my focus is on Chinese piano preludes and their development. Having performed the complete Debussy Preludes Book II on my final doctoral recital, I became interested in comprehensively exploring the genre for it has been utilized by many Chinese composers. This document will take a close look in the way that three modern Chinese composers have adapted their own compositional styles to the genre.
Composers Ding Shan-de, Chen Ming-zhi, and Zhang Shuai, while prominent in their homeland, are relatively unknown outside China. The Three Piano Preludes by Ding Shan-de,
The Piano Preludes and Fugues by Chen Ming-zhi and The Three Preludes for Piano by Zhang
Shuai are three popular works which exhibit Chinese musical idioms and demonstrate the variety of approaches to the genre of the piano prelude bridging the twentieth century. How did these composers manage to combine this European musical genre with Chinese musical language? This paper will examine the solutions and compositional techniques each composer utilized. Structure, harmony, melody, and the composers’ attempts to integrate Chinese national elements into a Western art form are analyzed. It is the author’s hope that this paper will allow for greater understanding and hopefully, worldwide promotion of these works.
The study consists of six chapters. Chapter one briefly introduces the history of Chinese piano music before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. Chapter two presents a historical overview of the piano Prelude from the Baroque period to the twentieth century as well as the development of the genre in China. Chapter three provides an overview of Chinese national
i modes. Chapter four focuses on the biography of Ding Shan-de, the background of The Three
Piano Preludes, and analysis of harmony, texture, and Chinese cultural elements. Chapter five provides the biography of Chen Ming-Zhi and the background and analysis of The Piano
Preludes and Fugues, with an emphasis on structure and the innovations of using the twelve- tone approach. Chapter six introduces the biography of Zhang Shuai and the background and analysis of The Three Preludes for Piano, with discussion of the innovations of the piece with regard to musical concepts, harmony, and jazz elements. The last section is a conclusion.
Research materials include music scores, books, dissertations, and articles that are written in Chinese and English, and other major publications related to the topic. With regard to the history of Chinese piano music some materials such as “Bian, Meng 卞萌. 中国钢琴文
化之形成与发展 (The Formation and Development of Chinese Music Culture);” “Worlds of
Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples” chapter 8, edited by Jeff Todd
Titon. 6th edition, 2017 have significantly helped to form a background for my research. Other materials, especially DMA and MM dissertations, such as; You Liang-Yun, A Survey of Ding
Shan-de’s Piano Works, Jiang Hui, "Zhang Shuai's 'Three Preludes for Piano,' Performance
Research" provide some useful information of the pieces.
ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express the gratitude to all of the faculties and friends who have participated in my Doctoral Document. Most of all, I want to thank my adviser, Prof. Glaser, for his instruction and encouragement during the DMA study, as well as his patience and help in the process of preparing the document. To Dr. Ashby and Dr. Bak who served as my document committees, thank you for their time and advice. My appreciation must be delivered to my family. Their unconditional support and love is the power and energy to me. Many thanks to my dear friends Yu Qian and Qianni Yang who helped me to prepare many things during the time I was in China. Love you! A special thanks to an important friend, Chuanqi Yang, thank you for everything you’ve done for me for the five years’ graduate study. Your musicianship and thoughts can always inspire me.
iii VITA
2004…………………… Attached Middle School of Wuhan Conservatory of Music, China
2010…………………… B.M. Piano Performance, Wuhan Conservatory of Music, China
2014…………………… M.M. Piano Performance, Cleveland Institute of Music
2016-2018…………….. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Music, The Ohio State
University
Fields of Study
Major Field: Music
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ...... i Acknowledgements ...... iii Vita ...... iv Table of contents ...... v List of examples ...... vii List of table ...... x Chapter 1: Briefly Introduce the History of Chinese Piano Music Evolution ...... 1
Before the Cultural Revolution (1911-1967) ...... 2
Before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1911-1937) ...... 2
War Period (1937-1949) ...... 4
The Establishment of People’s Republic of China (1949-1967) ...... 6
The Cultural Revolution (1967-1977) ...... 8
After the Cultural Revolution (1977-) ...... 10
Chapter 2: Piano Preludes in the Western Countries and China ...... 15
Chapter 3: Introduction to Chinese Traditional Modes ...... 20
Chapter 4: Ding Shan-de and His Three Preludes for Piano, Op.3 ...... 23
An Introduction to the Composer Ding Shan-de ...... 23
Ding Shan-de’s Two Compositional Periods and His Piano Works ...... 26
Early Period ...... 26
Late Period ...... 28
The Three Preludes for Piano, Op. 3 ...... 28
The Three Preludes No. 1 ...... 29
The Three Preludes No. 2 ...... 31
The Three Preludes No. 3 ...... 33
v
Chapter 5: Chen Ming-zhi and The Piano Preludes and Fugue ...... 36
Biography ...... 36
Chan Ming-zhi’s Compositions ...... 36
The Preludes and Fugues ...... 38
Harmony ...... 39
Structure ...... 47
Texture ...... 50
National Elements ...... 52
Chapter 6: Zhang Shuai and The Three Piano Preludes ...... 54
Biography ...... 54
Compositional Philosophy ...... 55
Background About the Composition ...... 56
The Three Piano Preludes ...... 58
Formal Structure and Texture ...... 59
Harmonic Analysis ...... 61
Jazz Elements ...... 63
Conclusion ...... 69
Biliography ...... 71
vi LIST OF EXAMPLES
Example 1. The Chinese pentatonic scale...... 20
Example 2. Five core tones of the pentatonic scale...... 21
Example 3. Five basic modes...... 21
Example 4. Three heptatonic scales...... 22
Example 5a. Folk tune “Xin Tian You.” ...... 29
Example 5b. Five Basic Notes of Thematic Material ...... 30
Example 5c. Interval inversion of the theme...... 30
Example 6. G-sharp in the melody...... 30
Example 7. Appoggiatura chords in the left hand of the first prelude...... 31
Example 8. Continuous interval of fifth progression in the second prelude...... 32
Example 9. Parallel fifths ...... 32
Example 10. The parallel fifths in Debussy Piano Prelude Book 1, No.10 ...... 32
Example 11. The original tune of “Qin Tiao.” ...... 33
Example 12. The theme of the third prelude...... 34
Example 13. Tone row for no.13...... 40
Example 14. Pantonality in Prelude no. 4, mm. 1-8...... 41
Example 15. Pantonality in Prelude no. 4, mm. 21-25...... 41
Example 16. Pantonality in Prelude no. 9, mm. 51-60...... 42
Example 17. Hindemith Serie 2...... 42
Example 18. Prelude No. 1 with Hindemith’s Chord Classifications...... 43
Example 19. Prelude no. 9 with Hindemith’s Chord Classifications...... 44
Example 20. Prelude no. 13, tone row and transformations...... 45
Example 21. Use of the tone row and transformations in Prelude No. 13, mm. 1-5...... 46
Example 22. Use of inversion of the row in Prelude No. 13, mm. 17-19...... 46
vii Example 23. Exposition of the Fugue in no. 13...... 47
Example 24. Beginning of the Prelude and Fugue No.3...... 48
Example 25. Theme and Subject in Prelude and Fugue, No. 11...... 48
Example 26. Symmetrical Structure in the Fugue of No.4, mm. 56-58...... 50
Example 27. Canon in the Fugue of No. 5...... 51
Example 28. Inversion Canon in the Fugue of No. 5 ...... 51
Example 29. Prime row and Inverted Canon in the Prelude of No. 13...... 51
Example 30. Folk Tune in the Prelude of No. 2...... 52
Example 31. Drum Dance Rhythm in the Prelude of No. 2...... 52
Example 32. Jumping Fourths and Fifths in the Fugue of no. 9...... 52
Example 33. The Folk Tune of Ma Deng Diao...... 53
Example 34. Subject of the Fugue of No. 10 Incorporating Ma Deng Diao...... 53
Example 35. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” mm. 1-2. G-flat Gong mode...... 62
Example 36. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” mm. 5-7. Bitonality between G-flat Gong and C major...... 63
Example 37. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Mesto, Misterioso,” mm. 64-68. Major and minor between two hands...... 63
Example 38. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” mm. 16-21. Non-chord tones...... 64
Example 39. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” m. 38. Chromaticism in the left hand...... 64
Example 40. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” m. 40. Chromaticism and quartal harmony in both hands...... 65
viii Example 41. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” m. 49. Chromaticism in both hands...... 65
Example 42. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Mesto, Misterioso,” m.
64 and m. 80. “Mystery motive” and ascending sequences...... 65
Example 43. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Estemporale,
Impetuoso,” mm. 120-121. Chromaticism in the third prelude...... 66
Example 44. Tresillo Rhythm...... 67
Example 45. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato,
Abbandono,” mm. x-xx. Tresillo rhythm in the first prelude...... 67
Example 46. The fundamental syncopated patterns used in The Preludes ...... 67
ix LIST OF TABLE
Table 1. Key Arrangement of The Preludes and Fugues...... 39
Table 2. Hindemith Chord Classification...... 43
Table 3. Structure of the Fugues...... 49
Table 4. Sonata-Like Formal Structure of the Fugue of No.1...... 49
Table 5. Formal Structure of “Appassionato, Abbandono.” ...... 60
Table 6. Formal Structure of “Mesto, Misterioso.” ...... 60
Table 7. Formal Structure of “Estemporale, Impetuoso.” ...... 61
x CHAPTER 1
The Evolution of Chinese Piano Music
The earliest Western keyboard instrument in China can be traced back to the Qing dynasty—a clavichord or a harpsichord given as a gift by western missionaries.1 Unfortunately, this precious gift was lost during the Opium War of 1840. As a result of the war, China was forced to open five treaty ports to western powers, and many of these missionaries and merchants brought advanced medical and educational services to China.2
The modern piano began to appear in many churches and westerners’ homes— especially in Gu Lang Yu Island in Fujian province—where the majority of missionaries and merchants lived and where people had a higher standard of living.3 In the late nineteenth century, British merchants officially opened the Moutrie Music Store in Shanghai, which was the first to sell modern pianos in China. Later, they developed their own manufacturing industry to produce the instrument; they not only trained many specialists on how to build pianos, but also promoted the spread and development of the instrument in China. In the meantime, church- sponsored schools also increased the popularity of the piano by offering piano lessons as a tool for teaching music.
From 1902-1911, many Chinese students went to Japan to study music. Most chose piano as their major, such as Xiao You-mei, Wang Zhi-chao, Li Shu-tong, and Feng Hong-tu, who later became the first group of Chinese music educators. There were also students who went to Europe and the United States to study music and returned to China to promote the instrument.
1 Rong Sheng Wang, “A Study of Five Chinese Piano Pieces With a Review of the Introduction and Development of the Piano in China” (DMA diss., Ball State University. 1995), 21. 2 Rong, “Five Chinese Piano Pieces,” 22. 3 Hu Yuan-yuan, Rong He Yu Jie Jian - Zhong Guo Gang Qin Zuo Qu Jia De Chuang Zuo Yan Jiu [Blending and Learning - The Research on Chinese Composers’ Piano Works] (Beijing: China Fang Zhi Press. 2017), 5.
1 As the piano was gradually becoming more familiar to Chinese people, formal piano education began to develop. It was a difficult path which underwent several vital periods related to the war and politics. This chapter will be divided into three sections to discuss the evolution of Chinese piano music before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution. Additionally, the section covering the era preceding the Revolution will comprise three important periods: before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1911-1937), during the war itself (1937-1949), and after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949-1967).
Chinese Piano Music Before the Cultural Revolution (1911-1967)
Before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1911-1937)
Due to the abolition of the old educational system, abundant modern educational activities emerged in China in the first two decades of the twentieth century, including the development of contemporary music. During this time, the Chinese were just beginning to explore the possibilities of music for the piano. In order to develop music education, it was requisite to have formal and high-level music schools. The National Conservatory of Music in
Shanghai was the first music school in China, founded and established by Cai Yuan-pei (from the Minister of Education Department) and Dr. Xiao You-mei (the president of the National
Conservatory) in 1927. Later, universities in Beijing, Nanjing, and Guangzhou also organized music departments. This marked a new era in China’s music education.
The faculty members of the National Conservatory comprised both excellent European musicians and the first group of Chinese students to return from Western conservatories. For example, many European musicians—especially Russians such as Boris Zakharoff, Mrs. E.
Levitin, Z. Pribitkova, B. Lazareff, and S. Aksakoff—settled in Shanghai because of the 1917
Russian Revolution, and were recruited by Dr. Xiao You-mei to the faculty of the National
2 Conservatory.4 Chinese faculty included Dr. Xiao You-mei, Zhou Shu-an, Wang Rui-xian, and
Huang Zi, who studied in Japan and the United States. They taught instrumental performance— especially piano, violin, and cello. Most students majored in piano. Other fundamental courses included Western music theory, history, harmony, form, and orchestration.5
Due to cultural differences from Western musical practices and limited resources, the earliest Chinese piano compositions were limited in quantity. The majority of works imitated
Western works, in genres such as solo pieces and songs with piano accompaniment. They were composed by the first generation of musicians returning to China with compositional techniques gleaned from Western countries (including Zhao Yuan-ren, Dr. Xiao You-mei, and
Huang Zi), as well as by students of the National Conservatory. For example, Zhao Yuan-ren
(1892-1982) was a famous artist, linguist, and pioneer composer. In 1914, he composed March of Peace (和平进行曲) when he studied at Cornell University in the United States; this was regarded as the first solo piano piece by a Chinese composer. The choice of a march genre was related to the atmosphere of World War I; Zhao wanted to express his longing for peace through music. March of Peace was written in simple ternary form and used functional Western harmony. According to Zhao, “it completely belongs to the Western style.”6 In later works,
Zhao blended Chinese national flavor into his compositions, incorporating pentatonic modes and folk tunes.
Xiao You-mei (1884-1940) was another representative figure of the first generation of
Chinese piano composers, a music educator and the founder of the National Conservatory. He went to Tokyo Imperial University in Japan, Leipzig University, University of Music and
Theatre Leipzig, and Berlin University in Germany to study pedagogy, piano, voice, orchestration, conducting, and philosophy. He was the first Chinese musician to earn a doctoral
4 Rong, “Five Chinese Piano Pieces,” 32. 5 Rong, “Five Chinese Piano Pieces,” 30. 6 Hu, Rong He Yu Jie Jian, 14.
3 degree from a Western school. Besides founding the National Conservatory, another contribution of Dr. Xiao was that he authored the first book of Western music history and
Chinese music history in China. He composed a Nocturne and a Funeral March imitating
Beethoven during his student period; Rainbow And Feather Garment Dance (新霓裳羽衣舞) was a representative piano work employing national elements.
Huang Zi (1904-1938), another important musician, composer, and music educator, went to Berlin to study music theory, then entered Yale University to study piano and composition. While at Yale, he composed eight polyphonic piano pieces. His graduate work,
Reminiscence (怀旧), was regarded as the first symphony by a Chinese composer. After Huang took a teaching position at the National Conservatory, he focused on songwriting. The piano writing in his vocal works strongly influenced later composers.
1934 was an important year for Chinese piano music. Alexander Tcherepnin, a student of Rimsky-Korsakov who was invited by Dr. Xiao You-mei as an honorary professor at the
National Conservatory, proposed a composition competition for piano using both Western and
Chinese styles.7 Many young students submitted their compositions. Buffalo Boy’s Flute by He
Lu-ting won the first prize, and Professor. Tcherepnin added this piece to his concert tour program to help promote Chinese piano music. This competition has played a positive role in promoting the development of Chinese piano music since its inception. Chinese musicians have since tried to avoid simply imitating European works and began to explore ways of combining
European techniques with unique Chinese musical idioms.
War Period (1937-1949)
The Second Sino-Japanese War and the following four-year war of liberation brought a lot of difficulties for the development of the culture of Chinese piano music, including a poor
7 Rong, “Five Chinese Piano Pieces,” 39.
4 environment due to lack of resources. However, Chinese musicians, teachers, and students kept their positions and pursued music with even greater passion. Between 1938 and 1945, many schools had to move south or to other safe areas. Private institutions and universities were established which continued to advance the study of music.
Representative composers from this period consisted of the first class of students to graduate from the National Conservatory. Some went abroad for further study while others received teaching positions from different schools. Whether teaching or studying, Chinese musicians still dedicated themselves to the craft of composition. The majority of compositions in this era were vocal pieces. Only twenty-three works exist for piano from this period.
Compared with earlier composed piano music, Chinese composers experimented more with
Western genres including sonatas, concertos, character pieces, ballades, chamber works, variations, and preludes. Stylistically, due to the influence of Alexander Tcherepnin and his composition competition, composers in this period continued to explore the possibilities of combining Chinese national musical elements with Western genres.
Many outstanding works came from this time and had considerable influence on later composers. Jiang Wen-ye (1910-1983), a prominent composer, was appointed a professor at
Beiping Normal University (Now Beijing Normal University) after returning from Japan. The war period was his most productive time and his musical language reflected Chinese culture and national music styles. For example, he composed a set of character pieces called The
Peking Myriorama (北京万华集) after arriving in Beijing. The ten pieces in this set were given titles which related to the different scenery in Beijing. The ballade A Moon Night in Xun-Yang
(浔阳月夜) used the materials from the same piece played by a Chinese traditional instrument, the Pipa. The theme of Sonata No. 4, “Festival” (狂欢日) was based on the folk song Lan Hua
Hua.
5 By the end of the war, many musicians had returned to China and brought back first- hand knowledge of Western music theory and compositional techniques. Their compositions were innovative, breaking with traditional harmony. For instance, Ding Shan-de (1911-1995), a particularly important pianist and composer, studied at the Paris Conservatory and then joined the faculty (and, later, became President) of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He composed
The Three Preludes for Piano No. 3 while he was in Paris, combining French Impressionism with Chinese nationalistic elements. Another pioneer composer, Sang Tong (1923-2012), used an atonal approach in his work In That Remote Place (在那遥远的地方). The theme is tonal, derived from a folk tune whose harmony and accompaniment are atonal. These works demonstrated the continuing evolution of Chinese piano music.
The Establishment of People’s Republic of China (1949-1967)
In the year 1949, the War officially ended, and the People’s Republic of China was established. Social stability and government support provided a favorable environment for music education and composition. Schools were moved back to their original locations. Besides the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, other major conservatories were established including
Central Conservatory, Shenyang Conservatory, Tianjin Conservatory, Wuhan Conservatory,
Sichuan Conservatory, Xi’an Conservatory, and the Xinghai Conservatory.8 This growth in the number of music programs encouraged a remarkable development of piano music.
Due to a lack of experience and research, Chinese piano pedagogy in this time was in its germination period. Most conservatories modeled themselves after western conservatories, especially those in Russia—and a great many Russian musicians taught in China. The curriculums had improved and were more comprehensive than those in the first half of the
8 Shu Li, “A Study of the Piano Works of Chu Wanghua, With an Emphasis on Six Preludes” (DMA diss., University of Kansas. 2015), 5.
6 century. However, the limitation of teaching materials was a concern. The main materials used at that time included: Hanon Finger Exercises, Elementary Instruction Book for the Pianoforte by Ferdinand Beyer, Études Op. 599, 299, 740, 849 by Carl Czerny, Mozart sonatas, Beethoven sonatas, and other difficult works from the Romantic period. There were gaps in difficulty between various levels of repertoire, and a lack of Chinese teaching materials. Thus, many composers compiled materials featuring Chinese musical styles, such as Piano Etudes in
Pentatonic Modes (五声调式钢琴练习曲), Fifty Chinese Character Pieces (民歌钢琴小曲五
十首) by Li Ying-hai, and A Selected Chinese Piano Works published by the Central
Conservatory of Music. These were still a miniscule amount compared with the extensive works in the western piano repertoire. Therefore, Chinese composers were encouraged to compose and accumulate more piano works.
In only seventeen years, more than three hundred piano pieces were published in
China.9 Most of these works are small in scale, and the music reflected positive and joyful emotions of the people, as well as optimism for the country. Based on the policy of “an immediate revival of traditional Chinese music with particular emphasis on regional folk forms,” the majority of composers responded to this call by exploring regional folk material as well as musical elements from China’s national minority in their compositions.10 They adapted and digested Western genres, formal structures, and other compositional techniques while preserving Chinese national styles.
For example, two representative works are the first and second Xinjiang Dance by Ding
Shan-de. He adopted the characteristics of Uyghur music (a national minority that lives primarily in the Xinjiang province in the northwest of China). Their music is often based on
9 Zheng Yuan, “The Preliminary Study of The Creation of Chinese Piano Music in The Second Half of The 20th Century” (M.M. Diss,. Fujian Normal University. 2006), 13. 10 Chun Fan-long Grace, “A Study of Idiomatic Piano Compositions During the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China” (DMA Diss., University of North Texas, 1991), 4.
7 pentatonic or heptatonic scales with raised 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th scale degrees and lowered 7th scale degrees. Ding employed the interval of the minor second in his melody to create an exotic flavor while incorporating polyrhythms.
The Cultural Revolution (1967-1977)
1967-1977 was a dark period in China and the negative effects permeated every field.
Chinese society experienced unprecedented damage; music was no exception. Works which were not related to nationalism were forbidden, as the piano was perceived as a western instrument. Most pianists and composers were forced to retire or sent to rural areas for political re-education usually in the form of farming. A great deal of manuscripts were burned or lost, and many pianos were discarded. This political issue halted progress in the fields of Chinese composition and piano performance.
In this period, almost all compositions for the piano were transcriptions. Yin Cheng- zong (1941-), a famous pianist and composer, won the second prize in the Tchaikovsky
International Piano Competition in 1962. He was inspired from a statement by Chairman Mao.
Thus, he transcribed an aria from the Revolutionary Opera The Legend of the Red Lantern (样
板 戏 “ 红 灯 记 ”) and arranged it for piano; this work was an enormous success. Many composers followed Yin’s example and composed transcriptions.
Transcriptions may be divided into three categories: transcriptions of revolutionary operas, transcriptions of folk songs, and arrangements of tunes for Chinese traditional instruments. The revolutionary operas emerged during the Cultural Revolution, transforming the traditional Peking Operas. They told stories glorifying the leadership of Chairman Mao and the bravery of the People’s Liberation Army. Musically, the melodies featured Chinese national styles combined with Western orchestration and Western functional harmony. A few representative transcription works from this era are The Blowing North Wind from The White-
8 Haired Girl (白毛女“北风吹”)) by Yin Cheng-zong, and the piano suite The Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军) by Du Ming-xin. These pieces borrowed melodies directly from the operas, and the piano writing imitated different instruments to create an orchestral sound.
The second category of transcription was folk music. Composers continued to explore the use of regional folk tunes as before. These became popular materials that were frequently transcribed and arranged. For example, Huang An-lun’s Thirty Pieces in Saibei Folk Style (塞
北小曲 30 首) was composed during his time farming in the Saibei area. The themes were taken from tunes he collected from the farmers and used Chinese traditional musical elements such as the heptatonic modes (Chinese traditional modes consisting of seven tones). Four
Shanbei Folk Songs (四首陕北民歌) by Wang Jian-zhong took the melodies from four Shanbei folk songs. The melodies and rhythms where unchanged in the piano, but Jian-zhong used thematic transformation to develop the music.
Works for Chinese traditional instruments—accumulated over thousands of years— were substantial and valuable sources for piano compositions. Chinese traditional instruments consist of several types: (a) silk instruments (stringed instruments either played with bows or struck and plucked) including Guzheng, Guqin, Yangqin, Erhu; (b) woodwind-like instruments made from bamboo such as the Dizi, a Chinese flute; (c) wood instruments such as Bangzi and
Zhuban; and (d) medal instruments such as chimes.
Piano compositions based on Chinese traditional instruments were popular at that time and have maintained their popularity today. The original melodies remained while the composer added accompaniment and more voices to create richer sonorities. In addition, these pieces are freer in formal structure, imitating the techniques and sound effects of traditional instruments. For example, Music at Sunset (夕阳箫鼓) by Li Ying-hai used many ornaments,
9 repeated notes, and appoggiatura to mimic the rotation of the fingers in playing the Pipa.11
Hundreds of Birds Homage to The Phoenix (百鸟朝凤) by Wang Jian-zhong is a Suona work
(a double-reed woodwind instrument). In the original piece, Suona players can imitate many types of bird sounds. In the keyboard writing, Wang utilized semitones, tremolo, trill, grace notes, and non-chord tones to depict the different sounds of birds.
After the Cultural Revolution (1977-)
After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese piano music exhibited a flourishing phenomenon. The musicians who suffered unfair treatment during the revolution returned to work. Music schools resumed normal classes, especially involving western theory and history as well as instrumental lessons. Under the Reform and Open policy, Chinese composers distanced themselves from the style of “folk tunes with old-fashioned harmonization.” Instead, they actively researched, practiced, and explored distinctive styles, genres, and innovative compositional techniques. Small-scale character pieces and program music dominated the musical landscape before the 1980s. After the Cultural Revolution, many larger-scale compositions such as piano concertos, two-piano works, and suites emerged. The quantity of piano compositions increased significantly in this period.
Importantly, composers from the older and younger generations represented different musical concepts and demonstrated two main styles. Older generations tended to deeply research traditional harmony and explore its possibilities. For instance, Liao Sheng-jing brought innovative ideas to traditional Chinese harmony. In his Twenty Four Piano Preludes
Based on the Solar Terms, he combined two heptatonic scales which have the same tonic to
11 Hu, Rong He Yu Jie Jian, 174.
10 create a new scale. Based on this method, Liao could generate twenty new scales.12 This innovative system provided many resources for those composers who insisted on traditional harmony.
The younger generation preferred to experiment with contemporary techniques such as atonal and serial (twelve-tone) music, while incorporating their own musical concepts. The piano solo piece Duo Ye by Chen Yi is an outstanding atonal composition based on a type of dance from the Guangxi province in China. Chen based his melodic material on two tunes in this piece: one is the Duo Ye dance, another one is from Peking Opera,13 integrating modal and atonal pitches.14 In addition, Chen applied other Western techniques including polymodality, improvisational tempos, frequently changing meters, and combining elements of sonata, variation, and rhapsody forms.15 Another example is Chen Ming-zhi’s Piano Preludes and
Fugues which combined pentatonic modes and twelve-tone techniques.
After the 1980s, Chinese piano music grew rapidly—not only in composition and education—but also in research and other related activities. Many musicians and scholars made efforts to systematically perform in-depth research on Chinese piano literature. They collected and analyzed repertoires and published. Plenty of books, journals, recordings, and scores recorded the evolution of Chinese piano music such as: Bian Meng’s The Formation and
Development of Chinese Piano Culture (1996); the journal The Piano Arts published from
1996; and a set of books A Century of Piano Solo Works by Chinese Composers published by
Shanghai Music Publishing House beginning in 2015.
12 Ren Yuan. “Zhong Guo Feng Qing, Si Ji Yin Hua - Liao Sheng-jing
11 Following the end of the Chinese Civil War, some young Chinese pianists began to win prizes in international competitions. One of the very first was Fou Ts’ong (傅聪)，who moved from Shanghai to Warsaw to study in 1953 and was a prize winner at the 1953 Chopin
International Piano Competition. Later, Liu Shi-kun, Yin Cheng-zong, and Li Ming-qiang won top prizes in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition and the Chopin International
Piano Competition. After the 1980s, piano performance reached an even-higher level, and several excellent young pianists became international stars (such as Lang Lang, Li Yun-di, and
Wang Yuja). They became successful models for younger generations with similar aspirations.
Moreover, in order to promote piano music, China held many competitions such as the Golden
Bell Award and the China International Piano Competition, attracting participants from other countries.
Taking an overview of the development of Chinese music history, it underwent a series of importations and nationalist unifications, from the “classical Chinese” consolidations during the Tang Dynasty to increasing diversifications under the influence of politics and cultural policies. This history likely generalized the opposing dynamics of conflict and national unification.
The conflict may be reflected in three aspects: the policy of Secluding the Country from the Outside World and the Opium War of 1840; the Cultural Revolution and Open and Reform
Policy; and Western instruments and Chinese musical concepts. First of all, there are two timelines of society change – before and after 1840, before and after the Cultural Revolution.
Before 1840, China was enveloped in the policy of Seclude the Country from the Outside
World by the Qing government. People only played traditional instruments and there was minimal international influence. After 1840, China was forced to open to the world and
European musical resources were be introduced to Chinese people. A similar situation occurred during the Cultural Revolution. European-derived traditions and instruments were shut out.
12 Fortunately, after the revolution until now, Chinese culture and society has been well- connected to the world and musical style, for sure, has rapidly developed.
Another conflict is Western instrument versus Chinese musical concepts. As a Western instrument, the piano was totally unfamiliar to China at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The harmonic system, sound production, temperament, and the approach to the keyboard were dissimilar to Chinese traditional instruments. This, therefore, caused many conflicts between this western instrument and our five thousand years of musical culture. Chinese musical culture might be best represented in a few concepts: patriotism, national style and aesthetic consciousness.
Firstly, patriotism is a political concept which frequently applies to Chinese music.
Thousands of years ago, ancient people composed music to praise the beautiful motherland and the governors. During the Cultural Revolution, music was used as a tool to praise the leader, the government, society and policies as well as express the feeling of grief when the country was in danger. For example, opera became a political tool used for praising the government and the army. The famous piano concerto Yellow River was composed to encourage Chinese people to fight their enemies, and to show the creative power of a musical collective.
A Chinese national style has existed and developed around five thousand years using elements such as traditional harmonic system, folk tunes and traditional instrumental works handed down from generation to generation. It is generally homophony featuring melody with accompaniment. Aesthetically, the Chinese prefer a feeling of completeness. Composers usually convey this idea by writing consonant harmony. For example, the Chinese pentatonic scales omit the fourth and seventh scale degree due to the dissonant sound. In addition, the musical structure sometimes reflects an aesthetic consciousness for architectures, such as the symmetrical structure applied in Chen Ming-zhi’s Preludes and Fugues.
13 The opposite of conflict in Chinese musical culture is the idea of Unification. China is an immense country that consists of fifty-six nationalities (fifty-five minorities). The concept of seeking common points while reserving differences is an underlying policy in modern China.
For the society and the culture, it could be understood as maintaining stability and prosperity while maintaining one’s belief and customs, respectively. For music, the commonality might lose its importance because people are more inclusive of music and it is a more implicit way to express personal concepts. Therefore, the unification in music represents the combination of the musical elements and cultural concepts from different nationalities with composers’ musical concepts.
Thus, how to fit Chinese musical culture into compositions intended for the piano is a challenge for Chinese composers. For the past century, they have learned from European-based sources to comprehensively master this instrument including history, education, technical approach to the instrument, performance practices, and so on. Meanwhile, Chinese musicians devoted themselves to add their own musical language and culture to this instrument by using traditional techniques. Indeed, they succeeded admirably.
14 CHAPTER 2
Piano Preludes in Western Countries and in China
The prelude, one of the oldest genres of keyboard music, appeared in the fifteenth century. It was played on the organ and used to introduce vocal music in church; it was also used to check whether an instrument was in tune and evaluate the quality of its tone.16 The music was improvisatory and the texture consisted of sustained chords or florid passages. From the sixteenth to seventeenth century, composers continued to develop the genre of the keyboard prelude. The music was still improvisatory in quality, featuring diverse textures; for example, a single prelude may contain polyphonic, contrapuntal, unmeasured, sequential patterns, and contrasting passages of light imitation against sections of antiphony between groups of voices. 17 In the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, some of the representative composers in this genre were Girolamo Frescobaldi and Giovanni Gabrieli of Italy, Jan
Pieterszoon Sweelinck of Germany, and William Byrd from England. Their early choral preludes for organ had enormous influence on later composers.
In the Baroque period, J.S. Bach redefined the prelude’s formal structure, range of styles, harmony, and texture. He wrote many choral preludes such as the Great Eighteen
Chorale Preludes, the Schübler Chorales (transcribed from his early cantata), and the Little
Organ Book (which contains forty-six short chorale preludes). These preludes were characterized by larger-scale sectional structures, as well as by the use of cantus firmus, canons, and decorative choral melodies. The prelude also appeared in some of his English Suites and
Partitas before the Allemande, as an introduction. The pinnacle of the prelude during this period was The Well-Tempered Clavier. The preludes and fugues covered twenty-four major
16 David Ledbetter and Howard Ferguson. “Prelude.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music online. Oxford University Press, accessed April 9th, 2019. 17 Ledbetter and Ferguson, “Prelude.”
15 and minor keys from C major to B minor in chromatic order. The preludes in this set have a stricter polyphonic and contrapuntal formal structure.
In the Romantic period, there was a resurgence of the music of the late Renaissance and the Baroque periods. Some genres and forms became popular once more, such as the prelude.
Many great works in this genre appeared, including Mendelssohn’s Six Preludes and Fugues for piano op.35, Franck’s Prélude, Choral et Fugue for Piano, Liszt’s Prelude and Fugue on
B–A–C–H, Brahms’s Two Preludes and Fugues for Organ, and Chopin’s Twenty-Four
Preludes, Op.28, which was directly influenced by Bach’s music.18 The Chopin Preludes contain pieces in all the major and minor keys, ordered by the circle of fifths. Additionally, each prelude stands out as an independent character piece with a particular mood due to differences in length and virtuosity between movements.
The prelude was also a popular genre in the twentieth century for many composers such as Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and Scriabin. Debussy, Shostakovich, and
Rachmaninoff each wrote sets of twenty-four preludes inspired by Chopin’s earlier work.
Rachmaninoff’s Preludes Op. 23 and Op. 32 covered twenty-four keys. Shostakovich’s
Twenty-Four Preludes, Op. 34 followed Chopin’s ordering of keys by circle of fifths.
Specifically, Debussy’s preludes are divided into two books, and each prelude was given a descriptive title befitting its musical content. In addition, Shostakovich composed twenty-four
Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 which followed J.S. Bach’s tradition. Other outstanding preludes during this time include Scriabin’s 90 piano preludes, Olivier Messiaen’s set of eight piano preludes, and Kabalevsky’s Twenty-four Preludes Op. 38, Six Preludes and Fugues Op. 61,
Four Preludes Op. 5, and Four Preludes Op. 20.19
18 Ledbetter and Ferguson, “Prelude.” 19 Li, “Chu Wanghua,” 12.
16 The prelude is considered as one of the earliest Western genres of piano music in China.
Chinese composers were drawn to this genre because of its freer formal structure, emphasis on a single motivic idea, and relatively short length. The canonic piano preludes by European masters strongly influenced Chinese composers, especially in formal structure and harmony.
For example, some preludes followed the J.S. Bach tradition which have paired fugues. Some
Chinese composers applied special key arrangements to the preludes as Chopin and Bach did.
Some preludes are given titles as in Debussy’s preludes.
The earliest preludes were composed in the 1930s and 1940s by Chen Tian-he and Ding
Shan-de and are considered experimental works exploring Chinese national elements blended with Western compositional techniques. Chen Tian-he’s Piano Prelude won the second prize in Alexander Tcherepnin’s composition competition. This prelude uses an ABA form and is based on the Yu mode (Chinese traditional pentatonic mode) in C-sharp. The outer sections employed a rhythm from Chinese folk dance. Harmonically, Chen combined a pentatonic mode with a Western major scale on the same tonic. Ding Shan-de’s The Three Piano Preludes was also a remarkable work which incorporated elements of French Impressionism.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the piano prelude remained popular. During this time, most preludes were given programmatic titles and composed as independent works following
Debussy’s tradition. For example, Chu Wang-hua’s Six Preludes are titled: Bamboo in the
Wind, Sound of Valley, On the Banks of the River, Berceuse, Elegie, and Memorial.20 The musical subjects were closely related to the titles. Other outstanding works included Zhu Gong- yi’s Piano Prelude Creek, and Zhu Jian-er’s two Preludes Telling You and The Flowing Water.
They can also be performed as independent character pieces. Influenced by J.S. Bach, preludes were also paired with fugues, such as Chen Ming-zhi’s Two Prelude and Fugue. Rao Yu-Yan’s
Prelude and Fugue, Prelude and Fugue-Poem.
20 Li, “Chu Wanghua,” 14.
17 During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the prelude was given less emphasis; only a few compositions appeared in this genre, which became very precious. For instance, Huang An-lun composed Two Piano Preludes, Op.5 which represented his impressive harmonic language and keyboard writing using Western harmonic progressions combined with national-style melodies. The two preludes are written in C Major and C minor with frequent modulations. Moreover, he employed many non-chordal tones and a great deal of chromaticism. Meanwhile, the keyboard writing is highly orchestral, using the full range of the keyboard, multiple voices, thick chords, and contrary motion to create richer colors of sound.
The two preludes exhibit the romantic a style in harmony or keyboard writing that might reflect
Chopin’s and Rachmaninoff’s preludes. Another significant work was Chen Ming-zhi’s
Preludes and Fugues. He started this set in the 1950s, but only two were published before the
Cultural Revolution. During this time, he continued to compose for this set without publishing any of them.
After 1980, a large number of preludes emerged utilizing a variety of harmonic languages such as Chinese traditional harmonization, neo-classicism form, and atonal and serial techniques.21 Some preludes Luo Zhong-rong’s Five Preludes and Fugues were based on five traditional pentatonic modes: Gong, Shang, Jue, Zhi, and Yu (as discussed in Chapter
3). In addition, Zhong-rong also gave two of the preludes descriptive titles: the first prelude was given the title “Little Horn” and the third one was named “Barcarolle.” Other Hill, composed by Wang Li-san, was a significant prelude which combined elements of a traditional tonal system, neo-classism, the visual art of ancient China, and other folk elements.22 The work also represented the influence of Béla Bartók (in its use of multi-key juxtaposition)23 and Igor
21 Li, “Chu Wanghua,” 13. 22 Rongjie Xu, “Innovation and Tradition in Lisan Wang’s Piano Suite Other Hill: An Interdisciplinary Analysis” (DMA Diss., The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska, 2010), 14. 23 Xu, “Innovation and Tradition,” 19.
18 Stravinsky (in its extensive use of ostinato and inconsonant tone clusters).24 After the Three
Preludes in 1948, Ding Shan-de composed two other notable sets of preludes: Four Little Piano
Preludes and Fugues Op.29 in 1988 and Six Preludes Op. 34 in 1989. Notably, the Four Little
Piano Preludes and Fugues Op.29 used pitch class techniques.
Other extraordinary preludes included Chen Ming-zhi’s serialist Prelude and Fugues;
Liao Sheng-jing’s Twenty Four Piano Preludes based on solar terms which followed
Debussy’s tradition of giving each of his twenty four preludes a title; Zhang Shuai’s The Three
Preludes for Piano combining national styles with jazz; Chu Wang-Hua’s Prelude and Toccata and Prelude for Left Hand representing innovative form; Cui Wen-yu’s Prelude for Piano and
Two Flutes; Guo Wen-jing’s piano prelude The Canyon, No.1; Gu Qiu-yun’s Piano Prelude;
Xu Meng-dong’s Prelude and Fugue “Cha Hong” and “Song Gu Shi;” Ma Jian-ping’s Piano
Prelude, and so on.
As a Western genre, the prelude was adapted and widely used by Chinese composers from the beginning of the twentieth century. Initially, the compositions reflected the influence of previous preludes by the European masters. Later, Chinese composers gradually found their own styles in terms of unique musical concepts, national flavor, cultural idioms, and innovative harmonic languages created by combining European and Chinese scales and chordal vocabularies. These Chinese preludes are considered a vital part of Chinese piano music, demonstrating immense value for study and performance.
24 Xu, “Innovation and Tradition,” 24.
19 CHAPTER 3
Introduction to Chinese Traditional Modes
Although piano music has only existed in China for the past century, Chinese traditional music has a long history spanning thousands of years. Accordingly, traditional music in China developed its own system of music theory that is still in use today. Composers still use traditional modes in many types of music, especially compositions for Chinese traditional instruments, folk songs, and some piano music. While most people in the West associate the pentatonic scale with Chinese music. National scales and modes are the most important parts of the Chinese music theory system. The works which I will discuss in this document all use national modes, thus, I will now give a brief overview of Chinese music theory.
There are two types of national modes frequently used: wusheng mode (five tones) and qisheng mode (seven tones). They respectively correspond to the pentatonic scale and heptatonic scale in the West. Commonly, the Chinese pentatonic scales consist of five core tones which based on a universe of twelve perfect fifths (see Example 1).25 They are named
Gong (宫), Shang (商), Jue (角), Zhi (徵), and Yu (羽; see Example 2). The fourth and seventh scale degrees are omitted.26 Title Example 1. The Chinese pentatonic scale. Composer
25 Jeremy Day-O’Connell, “Pentatonic,” Grove Music Online. 26 Li, “Chu Wanghua,” 17.
20 Example 2. Five core tones of the pentatonic scale.
These five core tones can serve as the tonic, forming five basic modes: C Gong mode,
D Shang mode, E Jue mode, G Zhi mode, and A Yu mode (see Example 2). Any pitch can be applied to these modes as tonic which as same as Western major and minor scales or church modes.
Example 3. Five basic modes.
The heptatonic scales are built upon the pentatonic scale plus four exchange tones
(Bianyin). They are the perfect fourth qingjiao (清角), augmented fourth bianzhi (变徵), minor seventh run (闰), and major seventh biangong (变宫) pitches of a scale: “These are considered borrowed pitches from closely related keys and are treated as ornamental functions within a
21 pentatonic framework.”27 The use of these borrowed notes can generate three heptatonic scales
(by adding two exchange tones)—the yayue scale (bianzhi and biangong), qingyue scale
(qingjue and biangong), and yanyue scale (qingjue and run; see Example 4).
Example 4. Three heptatonic scales.
27 Ho Lu-Ting and Han Kuo-huang, “On Chinese Scales and National Modes,” Asian Music 14.1 (1982): 136.
22 CHAPTER 4
Ding Shan-de and His Three Preludes for Piano, Op.3
An Introduction to the Composer Ding Shan-de
Ding Shan-de (1911-1995)28 was known as a concert pianist, composer, and music educator. He was also recognized as a pioneer: the first Chinese pianist to play a solo recital in
China. Ding’s life spanned most of the twentieth century, and he lived through many turbulent periods. Under these difficult circumstances, Ding maintained his devotion to his musical career. He composed fifty-nine works in many genres, including twenty-six Chinese songs, eighteen piano pieces, six transcriptions of folk songs, five symphonies, four instrumental ensembles, one violin sonata, and one choral work. He was one of the foremost composers who conveyed Chinese national musical ideas through the piano. Composing for the piano was a thread that ran through his entire life, a span of forty-seven years from his first piano piece
“Spring Trip Suite” Op.1 in 1945 until “Three Piano Pieces on Chinese Folk Song” Op. 36 in
1992.
Ding Shan-de was born in Kunshan, a small city in the Jiangsu Province, in 1911.
Before his exposure to Western music, he had taught himself several Chinese traditional instruments. Therefore, due to early exposure, national music was deeply rooted in Ding’s heart and influenced his compositions through his life. At the age of seventeen, Ding was admitted to the National Conservatory in Shanghai. In the beginning, his major interest was the pipa, a
Chinese four-stringed instrument similar to the lute. Piano became his secondary instrument; he studied with Professor Boris Zahkaroff (who was a classmate of Sergei Prokofiev and a former professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory). In addition, Ding studied composition
28 In this dissertation, all Chinese names are presented with the last name first, followed by the first name. Therefore, Ding is the last name.
23 and music theory with Huang Zi29 and Wolfgang Frankel.30 Later, he changed his major to piano.31 With hard work, his playing progressed rapidly, and he was invited to perform on the radio.
Ding’s career as a pianist came to its first peak on May 11th, 1935. He held his graduation recital in Shanghai, which was regarded as the first solo piano recital in China. The program consisted of Beethoven’s Sonata in C Sharp minor, Op. 27 no. 2 “Moonlight Sonata,”
Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, Debussy’s Arabesque, Chopin’s Piano Etude, Op. 10 no. 9 and Polonaise Op. 53, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 6, and the first movement of Grieg’s
Piano Concerto in A minor. 32 It is worth mentioning that Ding also performed Chinese composer He Lu-Ting’s Buffalo Boy’s Flute—the first public performance of a Chinese composer’s work. After this successful recital, Ding gave more performances in Shanghai,
Beijing, and Tianjin. In addition, he became a piano professor in the Hebei Women’s College in Tianjin the same year.
In 1937, the year the Second Sino-Japanese War began, Ding accepted an invitation from the president of National Conservatory (Xiao You-mei) to teach piano. However, due to political reasons, Ding left this position and founded a private music school with other Chinese musicians—the Shanghai Music Institute. The institute was in operation for eight years and established three majors: piano, violin, and voice. Ding was the only piano instructor and most of the students were piano majors.33 During this time, Ding trained many talented students who
29 Huang Zi (1904-1938) was a Chinese pioneer composer and music educator in the early twentieth century. He graduated from Oberlin College and Yale University. In 1929, Huang was appointed as a composition teacher at National University. Many famous composers were his students. 30 Wolfgang Frankel (1897-1983) was a Jewish composer was born in Berlin. He was a student of Arnold Schönberg. From 1941 to 1947, he taught composition at National University. 31 Ke Wei. “The Patriotism in Ding Shan-de’s Piano Set Three Preludes for Piano” (M.M. diss, Fujian Normal University, 2015), 1. 32 Hu, Rong He Yu Jie Jian, 96. 33 Hu, Rong He Yu Jie Jian, 90.
24 became leading pianists and influential educators later in China, including Zhou Guang-Ren and Zhu Gong-Yi.
In the transitional period of Chinese history from 1945-1949, Ding decided to study abroad along with other musicians such as Li Jia-Lu and Wu Yue-Yi. He entered The
Conservatoire de Paris and studied composition with Toni Aubin and counterpoint with Noël
Gallon. The different music style and advanced compositional concepts opened a new world for Ding. He experienced French music by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Gabriel Fauré, and others. The harmonic language, the treatment on the piano, and the sound effects were quite different and fresh to Ding. This collision between Chinese and French musical styles strongly influenced Ding’s compositional language. The Three Preludes for Piano, Op.3 was composed during this time, reflecting many stylistic features of Impressionism.
In 1949, Ding returned to China and became a music educator and later chairman of the
Shanghai Conservatory. As the most prestigious musician and composer at that time, Ding taught many important courses in piano and composition. In the meantime, he continued composing. However, given the limitations of the political situation, the new techniques and concepts that Ding learned in France were hard to employ in his current writing. Most of time, he wrote music eulogizing the Communist Party (praising the soldiers and so on). Besides teaching and composing, Ding also participated in some significant musical events; for example, he adjudicated the Schumann International Competition in 1956, the sixth Chopin
International Piano Competition in 1960, and the Queen Elizabeth Competition in 1964.34
During the ten-year Cultural Revolution, Ding suffered cruel and unfair treatment (like many highly-educated people, especially those who studied abroad). He was forced to stop teaching and retire from the Conservatory. Additionally, the Communist Party burned most of
34 You Liang-Yun, “A Survey of Ding Shan-de’s Piano Works.” (DMA diss., University of Houston, 2004), 43.
25 his manuscripts. Ding stopped composing completely during this period. One year after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Ding resumed composing. Three years later, he returned to the
Shanghai Conservatory to continue his teaching. In 1984, Ding decided to retire and focus on composing until his death in 1995.
Ding Shan-de’s Two Compositional Periods and His Piano Works
Even though Ding was a successful concert pianist, he felt unsatisfied with playing only one Chinese piece in his early concerts in 1935-1937. Therefore, Ding began his compositional journey when he accepted a position at the National University:
The excitement of doing a concert tour did not last a long time, because I always play westerner’s compositions. I often think about why Chinese people cannot compose works that can represent Chinese musical style as well as high quality like those Classical masterpieces. Finally, I made the decision to study composition, with an unremitting effort to reach my goal.35
When considering the timeline of Ding’s compositions, there was a large gap of twenty- seven years between 1958-1984. This break led to a vital transformation of his compositional style.36 Accordingly, his compositional career can be divided into two periods: 1945-1958 and
1984-1992. In the following sections, I will discuss Ding’s compositional style by introducing some of his piano works.
Early Period (1945-1958)
35 Zhou Qi-Xun, “Ding Shan-De Gang Qin Yin Yue Yan Jiu [The Research on Ding Shan-de’s Piano Music]” (M.M. diss., Huanan Normal University), 2003: “演奏的生涯并没有使我兴奋多久，因为 弹来弹去都是外国人的作品，我常常想，为什么中国人不能写出表现中国民族风格又具有世界 水平的音乐作品来呢？我下了决心，学习作曲，用不懈的奋斗来实现自己的音乐理想，” —— 《东方的旋律——中国著名作曲家丁善德的音乐生涯》 序 36 Qin Chuan, Zhong Guo Gang Qin Yin Yue de
26 Under the instruction of Huang Zi, Ding mastered the fundamentals of composition. He was able to use the piano to convey his musical ideas through the use of basic formal structures and harmonies. Stylistically, Ding’s early compositions were strongly associated with Chinese national musical styles, using folk elements and traditional harmonic languages.
However, his works also showed strong influences from nineteenth-century
Romanticism. His first work Spring Trip Suite for Piano, Op.1 (1945) and the following work
Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 2 (1946) represented those stylistic features. For instance, he used Western forms—the sonata and the suite. Furthermore, he began to explore the possibilities of combining Chinese musical styles with Western techniques. The harmony is built on pentatonic modes; however, the use of semitones, parallel chromatic progressions, modulations, and vi7 chords weakens the effect of pentatonicism, enhancing the functional harmony. These approaches were rarely seen at that time in China.
During his two years at the Paris Conservatory, Ding composed two works—the Three
Preludes for Piano Op.3, and Variations on a Theme of Chinese Folk Song (1948). It is obvious that he had started to break from traditional harmony while maintaining pentatonicism in the melody. The manner of blending French Impressionism into Chinese folk music is highly innovative. These two became representative works in the Chinese piano literature, after He
Lu-Ting’s Buffalo Boy’s Flute.
In the decade after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Ding published four more compositions: First Xinjiang Dance, Op. 6 (1950), Children’s Suite—Happy
Holiday, Op. 9 (1953), Second Xinjiang Dance, Op. 11 (1955), and Toccata, Op. 13 (1958).
These pieces express positive, lively emotions, showing the happiness of the people at that time as well as reflecting the composer’s confidence and hope for his country. Compared with previous works, Ding’s compositional techniques were more mature. Moreover, he could express his musical concepts more freely. He was not only more innovative in his harmonic
27 language, but also more virtuosic and complex in his keyboard writing, particularly in the
Xinjiang Dance and the Toccata. For example, Ding applied minor seconds, augmented fourths, major sevenths, and polyrhythms to create more intense colors in the two Xinjiang
Dances. The Toccata is a composition with demanding technical difficulty. In general, Ding’s early compositions are largely Nationalist and Romantic.
Late Period (1984-1992)
From the 1980s, most of Ding’s compositions also focus on piano. He preferred to write absolute music rather than character pieces, with an emphasis on expression, spiritual transmission, and a depiction of life. For example, his Piano Trio in C Major and Piano
Concerto in B flat Major represented the precise structure, harmony, and clear thematic development of European classical music. In addition, Ding experimented with many types of
Western forms and genres, such as the Etude, Scherzo, Sonatina, Prelude and Fugue, and
Rondo. Ding’s harmonic language had more sonority, creativity, and boldness. For instance, most of his works have no clear tonal center. Four Little Preludes and Fugues, Op.29 (1988) even explored serialism. Despite these innovations, the key element in all his compositions remained the Chinese National character.
The Three Preludes for Piano, Op. 3
The Three Preludes for Piano, Op.3 was the first work which Ding completed while under the instruction of Toni Aubin in 1948 in Paris. This work has a significant status in
Chinese music history, considered one of the earliest piano preludes written by a Chinese composer. Even though this work is short (approximately 10 minutes), it demonstrated the earliest hybridization of Chinese national elements and European devices. In this set, Ding directly utilizes Chinese folk tunes. This is the first composition where he attempted to
28 incorporate Impressionistic mannerisms. As indicated by Ding, this work is the turning point of his compositional style:
When I arrived in Paris, Professor Aubin introduced Debussy, Ravel and Fauré’s works to me…he wanted me to get rid of traditional harmonization and absorb new elements. Professor Aubin asked me to use different techniques. I accepted his advice when I composed The Preludes. In the meantime, the notion of maintaining national characteristics and tunes cannot be changed.37
The Three Preludes No. 1
The first prelude Andante sostenuto is only ten measures. The whole piece is developed from a theme that is based on the Shanbei folk tune “Xiao Lu” (little path). The tune belongs to a type of folk music called “Xin Tian You,” usually transmitted orally in the Shanbei area of Shanxi province and Inner Mongolia in China. Musical characteristics include the use of fourths and fifths (see Example 5a). The length of the melody can be short or long, usually featuring an inversion of melodic intervals. This prelude is written in A Shang mode (A, B, D,
E, G). The basic thematic material of the piece was based on five notes “G, A, B, D, E” featuring two intervals of the fourth and fifth respectively (see Example 5b). In m. 1, the last two notes of an ascending fourth become a descending fifth in m. 2, exhibiting interval inversion (Example 5c). Later the material transforms into decorated figuration in m. 5.
Example 5a. Folk tune “Xin Tian You.”
37 Su Xia, “Shi Lun Ding Shan-de Zhong Qing Nian Shi Qi de Gang Qin Yin Yue,” [“Discussion about Ding Shan-de’s Piano Music During His Middle-aged”] in Ding Shan-de Ji Qi Yin Yue Zuo Pin. [Ding Shan-de and His Compositions] ed. Dai Peng-Hai (Shanghai: Shanghai Music Press, 1993), 40: “我到法国后，奥班教授介绍我看德彪西、拉威尔、福列的作品，...... 要我摆脱传统的和声手 法，吸取新的成分。奥班教授也要我运用新的手法和技巧。我在写作三首序曲时都考虑了这些 意见。同时，‘要有民族风格，要用民族音调’这一想法仍然不变。”
29 Title Example 5b. Five Basic Notes of Thematic Material Composer 3 2 2 3 3 2 3 Title Example 5c. Interval inversion of the theme.
7 Composer 2 3 2 In mm. 6-10, the five melodic notes became “G-sharp, A, B, D, E” (see Example 6).
The appearance of the G-sharp in the melody breaks from the pentatonic harmony, perhaps an experiment combining the two harmonic systems. The G-sharp can be considered a Pianyin
(non-chord tone) in A Shang mode. In a western system, it is the leading tone of the A minor scale. Whether in a Chinese or western system, the G-sharp creates an unstable color.
Example 6. G-sharp in the melody.
It is worth mentioning that the left hand is characterized by an ostinato composed of repeated appoggiatura chords, imitating a voice echoing on the mountain. The first chord consists of a tritone (C, F sharp) and a semitone, and surprisingly moves to a diminished chord
(see Example 7). This writing does not follow any conventional harmonic progression in
Chinese music, creating intensity and tonal ambiguity. Moreover, this innovation along with the pentatonic melody generates an exotic sound effect. In addition, the unconventional ending stopping on the diminished chord without resolution is bold (see Example 6). This unstable
30 harmony appropriately represents Ding’s anxiousness and concern for his homeland during the war period.
Example 7. Appoggiatura chords in the left hand of the first prelude.
The Three Preludes No. 2
The second prelude Andantino cantabile is also a short piece totaling only eleven measures. It takes about 2 minutes to perform. The texture features a simple melody based on the five basic notes of B Shang mode (B, C-sharp, E, F, A). As seen in the score, what is fascinating about this prelude is the use of the interval of a fifth in the accompaniment figure
(see Example 8). More importantly, in mm 6-8, Ding used a parallel fifth progression. In the
Chinese harmonic system, parallel fifths or octaves are rare, and are sometimes forbidden in music written in traditional modes. This is because these intervals cause deviation from the musical direction, and a loss of the sense of resolution and stability. Therefore, Ding broke from tradition by using parallel fifths. Notably, the top notes of the fifths also outline the melody (see Example 9). Parallel fifths are, however, regarded as a common application in
Impressionistic music; as shown in works by representative composers such as Debussy (see
Example 10).
31 Example 8. Continuous interval of fifth progression in the second prelude.
Example 9. Parallel fifths
Example 10. The parallel fifths in Debussy Piano Prelude Book 1, No.10
32 The Three Preludes No. 3
In the third prelude Allegretto con anima, Ding explored more contemporary techniques regarding harmony, texture, and rhythm. According to Ding, he directly quoted the tune from a type of Chinese opera called Kun Qu (see Example 11):
I used the tune “Qin Tiao” from Kun Qu Yu Zhan Ji in the Third Prelude. This tune, from my hometown, is familiar to me. The accompanying pattern features dissonance, non-chord tone and shifting semitone to express my fluctuating and disturbed feeling.38
Example 11. The original tune of “Qin Tiao.”39
This prelude is in ternary form with a coda: A section mm. 1-6; B section mm. 7-14;
A’ section mm. 15-18; coda mm. 19-23. The thematic material and texture of this prelude is relatively simple. The theme keeps the lyrical characteristic of the original tune.
Simultaneously, the accompaniment features broken chords. The repeated melody and continuing accompaniment leave a lasting impression on the audience; however, this repetition loses its sense of tension. Therefore, in the harmonic language, Ding incorporates many elements to make the music more interesting.
The prelude is written in G flat Major, and the theme is based on the G flat Gong mode
(G flat, A flat, B flat, D flat, E flat). In the B section from mm. 7-14, the music modulates a half step up to G Major and G Gong mode. For the accompaniment, Ding applied a rich,
38 Su Xia, “Shi Lun Ding Shan-de Zhong Qing Nian Shi Qi de Gang Qin Yin Yue,” [“Discussion about Ding Shan-de’s Piano Music During His Middle-aged”] in Ding Shan-de Ji Qi Yin Yue Zuo Pin. [Ding Shan-de and His Compositions], ed. Dai Peng-Hai (Shanghai: Shanghai Music Press, 1993), 40: “第三首序曲用了昆曲《玉簪记》中 “琴挑 “折的曲调，这是我从小在家乡熟知的音调。伴 奏音型用不协和音，变音和半音移动手法，表现心潮起伏。” 39 You Liang-Yun, “A Survey of Ding Shan-de’s Piano Works.” (DMA diss., University of Houston, 2004), 30.
33 dissonant sonority through the incorporation of chromaticism, augmented fourths, major sevenths, and minor ninths in the form of broken arpeggios (see Example 12).40
Example 12. The theme of the third prelude.
An unusual element which immediately draws a performer’s attention is the meter. In this piece, Ding utilized compound meter and polymeter, such as 4/2 in the right hand, 24/8 in the left hand; he inverts these meters in the middle section. This innovative approach was uncommon among Chinese piano compositions for that time.
Ding Shan-de was a pioneer composer who made remarkable contributions to Chinese piano composition and education. The Three Preludes for Piano is regarded as a milestone work in Chinese compositions. Not only is it one of the earliest preludes written by a Chinese composer, but it also achieved a rare combination of a national style with Western technique.
40 Su, “Shi Lun Ding Shan,” 28.
34 The national traits represented include use of pentatonic modes, folk tunes, and imitation of traditional instruments. Western devices include tonal harmony, dissonance, compound meter, and Impressionistic elements such as the parallel fifth. These creations strongly influenced future Chinese piano compositions.
35 CHAPTER 5
Chen Ming-zhi and The Preludes and Fugue
Biography
Chen Ming-zhi (1925-2009) was an important composer, pedagogue, and theorist who served as the chair of the composition and conducting department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Chen worked in many styles and genres throughout his career, such as solo instrumental pieces, symphonies, and vocal pieces. However, his most notable contribution was to the composition and promotion of polyphonic forms such as the fugue. Chen dedicated himself to researching, exploring, and practicing contrapuntal music, and he was regarded as the “Chinese Polyphony Master.”
Chen Ming-zhi was born in a small city in the Henan province in 1925. At an early age, he was fascinated with the Yu opera (one of China's famous national opera forms), but he did not receive any musical training until the age of sixteen. Chen’s first teacher, Professor Li
Yong-gang, saw his potential and encouraged him to study music. In 1946, Chen entered the
National Conservatory (Shanghai Conservatory of Music), where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Professor Tan Xiao-lin and Professor Deng Er-jing. Meanwhile, he focused on composition and fugal writing under the instruction of Professor Ding Shan-de. Chen laid a solid foundation for composition through doing plenty of theory exercise which Professor Ding brought from France.41 After graduating from the National Conservatory in 1951, Chen earned a teaching position at the Conservatory.
Chan Ming-zhi’s Compositions
41 Hua Lin, “Chen Ming-zhi,” in Chen Ming-zhi Yin Yue Lun Wen Xuan [A Selection of Dissertations About Chen Ming-zhi], ed. Ni Rui-lin (Shanghai: Shanghai Music Publishing House 2005), 2.
36 During his college years, Chen composed many songs relating to political events without publishing them, including “Song Jun Liang” (送军粮) and “Nong Min Xiao Chang”
(农民小唱). “Non Min Xiao Chang” was performed by the band of the World Festival of Youth and Students held in Berlin in 1951.42 After college, Chen composed many works in different genres and musical forms, such as film music for Di Xia Shao Xian Dui (地下少先队) and Tie
Shu Kai Hua (铁树开花), choral works such as “Zhong Tian Wei Ge Ming” (种田为革命), and his symphony “Feng Lei Song” (风雷颂).
During the Cultural Revolution, Chen composed several cello pieces: “Zhi Nong Jun
Dui Jin Shan Lai” (支农军队进山来), “Xiang Jiang Zhi Ge” (湘江之歌), “Cao Yuan Zan Ge”
(草原之歌), “Huan Le Wu Qu” (欢乐舞曲), and “Ban Che” (板车). These works were popular at that time and illustrated his innovation, featuring unique compositional concepts. Chen incorporated playing techniques reminiscent of the pipa and morin khuur (Chinese traditional instruments) such as trills and portamento. An American cellist named Eugene Carr promoted these pieces by performing them in over one hundred concerts.43
The most extraordinary compositions by Chen Ming-zhi are his piano pieces; in particular, his fugues are considered milestones in Chinese piano music. Chen collected all his fugal pieces and compiled them into three sets: A Collection of Little Fugues, A Collection of
Fugues, and The Preludes and Fugues. The three sets not only inherited contrapuntal methods from Western polyphonic music, but also developed and blended them with Chinese musical elements.
A Collection of Little Fugues contains pieces from the 1950s and 1960s by Chen. It is divided into three parts. The first part includes seven pieces: “Playing Silk Ball,” “The Folk
42 Lin, “Chen Ming-zhi,” 3. 43 Lin, “Chen Ming-zhi,” 3.
37 Dance of Da Lian Xiang,” “Drawing Models,” “Pleasant Working,” “Pastoral For The Prairie,”
“Reed Pipe,” and “Dance Music.” The second part consists of four pieces: “Flute Piece,”
“Conversation,” “Song,” and “Chasing.” The last part contains five pieces: “Folk Song,” “Pour
Out,” “Scherzo,” “Barcarolle,” and “Playing and Singing.” The music was based on folk tunes and was written to be accessible to beginners, to introduce the idea of polyphonic music.
A Collection of Fugues includes twelve pieces and was composed during the Cultural
Revolution. The pieces originally were not given titles. However, due to political pressures,
Chen eventually gave general titles for each piece. They are: “Introduction and Fugue,” “Little
Variations,” “Melody,” “Invention,” “Scherzo,” “Little Invention,” “Little Fugue,” “Little
Variations,” “Invention,” “Little Toccata,” “Passacaglia,” and “Toccata.” The level of difficulty is usually compared to Bach’s Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions.
The last set, The Preludes and Fugues, is regarded as a momentous work in the Chinese piano literature. It is the first large set of preludes and fugues written in China following the traditions of Western masters, but it also uses Chinese traditional elements. It will be analyzed in detail in the following sections. Besides the three sets, Chen also wrote many piano works.
Most were polyphonic pieces such as Eight Character Pieces (1982), Four Character Pieces
(1983), Canon and Fugue (1993), Four Polyphonic Pieces (1993), and Piano Trio (2003).
The Preludes and Fugues
The Preludes and Fugues are remarkable compositions: Chen Ming-zhi spent about forty years composing these pieces, finally publishing the set in September of 2009. This is the most influential polyphonic work in the Chinese piano repertoire. Chinese music is dominated by a single melody with accompaniment. Polyphonic compositions of this scope were rarely heard in China before Chen. Chen began composing the set in the 1950s, and only published two of the pieces in 1959. Even in the Cultural Revolution period when all composers had to
38 abandon Western musical elements and focus on national music, he still insisted on working on this set without publishing it. The full set consists of thirteen preludes and fugues. Three were given a title: No. 2 “Folk Song and Dance” (山歌与村舞), No. 5 “Canonic Fugue” (卡农
式赋格), and No. 10 “The Spring” (新春). Chen applied traditional approaches from fugal writing, including harmony and structure. Meanwhile, he used Chinese musical elements such as Chinese traditional modes. Most importantly, Chen used twelve-tone techniques which were unprecedented in China at the time. In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the harmony, structure, and national elements of the works and describe their performance practice.
Harmony
The harmonic language of The Preludes and Fugues is highly innovative and diverse.
This set includes Western functional harmony, serialism, and Chinese traditional modes; the first twelve Preludes and Fugues were written in Chinese traditional modes. Some of them combine these modes with Western major and minor keys. In the final Prelude and Fugue of the set, however, Chen employed twelve-tone technique.
Key Arrangement
Unlike the arrangement of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin’s Preludes, or Paul
Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis, the order of The Preludes and Fugues was carefully designed but did not follow any harmonic pattern (see Table 1). Interestingly, the twelve tones used in No.
13 derive from the tonal centers of the first twelve preludes and fugues: B, A, D, C, F, G, A♭,
F#, B♭, E, E♭, and D♭ (see Example 13).
Table 1. Key Arrangement of The Preludes and Fugues.
Key no. 1 B minor/B Yu mode no. 2 A minor/A Yu mode no. 3 D Yu mode
39 no. 4 C Zhi mode no. 5 F Major no. 6 G Major/G Yayue Zhi mode no. 7 A-flat Gong mode no. 8 F-sharp minor/F-sharp Yu mode no. 9 B-flat Zhi mode no. 10 E Jue mode no. 11 E-flat Major/E-flat Gong mode no. 12 D-flat Major/D-flat Gong mode no. 13 Twelve-tone
Example 13. Tone row for no.13.
Another special treatment in the key arrangement is that some of the preludes and fugues are not written in the same key even when they share the same tonic. They are No. 2, 5,
7 and 9. For No. 2, the prelude starts in G Zhi mode, then modulates to G Jue, B Yu, G sharp
Jue, D flat Gong and ends in A Yu mode, and the fugue shifts between A minor and A major.
The prelude of No. 5 stays on the tonic F in an unclear mode, and the fugue is in F major with a flat second scale degree. The prelude and fugue of No. 7 are written in A-flat Gong mode and
A flat Yayue mode, respectively. The prelude of No. 9 is in B flat Gong mode, and the fugue is in the B-flat Zhi mode.
Pantonality
A vital harmonic technique used by many composers in the twentieth century, pantonality is also frequently applied throughout The Preludes and Fugues. It is the extension of tonal language which wavers among a number of tonal centers, and cannot be defined as merely atonal, bitonal, polytonal, nor serial.44 In this set, every prelude and fugue seen has a
44 William Drabkin, “Pantonality,” Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20835
40 particular tonal center with a clear key signature. However, beyond the final chords for each prelude and fugue, it is difficult to identify the harmony when listening. The tonality shifts rapidly, creating an unstable harmony. For example, in mm. 1- 8 and mm. 21-25 of the fourth prelude, the key shifts in almost every measure (see Examples 14 and 15).
Example 14. Pantonality in Prelude no. 4, mm. 1-8.
Example 15. Pantonality in Prelude no. 4, mm. 21-25.
The prelude of no. 9 also uses pantonality. In mm. 51-60, the two hands play in different keys while the musical texture continues to waver to different keys independently of one another (see Example 16).
41 Example 16. Pantonality in Prelude no. 9, mm. 51-60.45
Hindemith Chord Classification
Paul Hindemith invented a unique theoretical system in his Unterweisung im Tonsatz
(The Craft of Musical Composition). The principle of the theory was arranging the melodic and harmonic relationships of pitches.46 Based on a harmonic series and combination of tones,
Hindemith generated two series. The Chord Classification is referred to as the Serie 2 (see
Example 17).
Example 17. Hindemith Serie 2.
The Chord Classification consists of two sections; the chords in the A section that do not contain tritones and those in the B section that do contains tritones. In addition, each section is subdivided into three groups based on the chord’s root or inverted position. (see Table 2).
45 Wu Run-hua, “A Research on Chen Ming-zhi’s Preludes and Fugues” (MM diss., Wuhan Conservatory of Music, 2006), 18-19. 46 Giselher Schubert, “Paul Hindemith.”
42 Table 2. Hindemith Chord Classification.
A (does not contain tritones) I. Major and minor triads only (no second or seventh) III. Contains seconds and sevenths V. Augmented triads B (contains tritones) II. Tritones, Minor Sevenths, Perfect Fifth, Major Third IV. Tritones, Minor Second VI. Tritones, Diminished Triad, Diminished Seventh
Chen utilized Hindemith’s Chord Classification in several of his Preludes and Fugues.
For instance, in the prelude No.1, the entire piece features chordal writing, and many of the chords are based on Hindemith’s Group III of the A section and Group II of the B section.
Some chords contain the root in the bass (III1) while others have the root above the bass (III2).
Abundant tritones, seconds, and sevenths create the tension in the music (see Example 18).
Example 18. Prelude No. 1 with Hindemith’s Chord Classifications.
43 Another example of the use of this system is in the prelude of no. 9, using the Chord
Classification Group III of the A section (see Example 19).
Example 19. Prelude no. 9 with Hindemith’s Chord Classifications.
Twelve-Tone
In the last prelude and fugue, No.13, Chen applied twelve-tone techniques. Although he experimented with this approach in his Eight Character Pieces, this is the first composition that completely uses this technique. It is a challenge in fugal writing because the fugue relies on tonal relationships between the subject and its answers, and serialism explicitly avoids such tonal implications. Chen used the design of a serial tone row to structure this prelude and fugue but also blended it with elements of tonality, including the pentatonic scale. Accordingly, this
44 work does not sound completely atonal or tonal; the blend gives it a more pantonal sound.47
This final prelude and fugue is based on the prime row and three transformations of the twelve- tone series (see Example 20).
Example 20. Prelude no. 13, tone row and transformations.48
The tone row contains many seconds and thirds which form two pentatonic scales.
Therefore, the row implies a strong Chinese style and singing quality despite conforming to the discipline of serialism. In the beginning of the prelude in mm. 1-3, the main theme appears in the middle voice which uses the original version while the top and bass voices use retrograde version (see Example 21). Mm. 4-5 use retrograde of the row running through all voices. In mm. 17-19, the theme appears in the top voice in inversion (see Example 22).
47 Chen Ming-zhi, “Wo De
45 Example 21. Use of the tone row and transformations in Prelude No. 13, mm. 1-5.
Example 22. Use of inversion of the row in Prelude No. 13, mm. 17-19.
As mentioned above, using twelve-tone technique in fugue writing is a challenge.
However, in this fugue, Chen treated the subject and answer in a unique way. While the answer to the fugal subject usually occurs on the dominant or subdominant of the tonic, Chen bases each entrance solely or an intervallic relationship. The entrance notes of each voice of the fugue are: B-G-E-D-A-B-E-D-G. Taking out the repeat notes, this motive outlines a pentatonic scale—specifically, G Gong Mode (G-A-B-D-E). It also adapts an idea from a Chinese poetic form in which the first word of every line can form another acrostic-style sentence.49 In the exposition of the fugue, the subject uses the original version of the tone row, and the answers use retrograde inversion of the tone row (see Example 23).
49 Chen Ming-zhi, “Wo De
46 Example 23. Exposition of the Fugue in no. 13.
Structure
The structure of The Preludes and Fugues demonstrates Chen’s innovative approach to form. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Paul Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis are unified by the arrangement of the keys for each piece, but the preludes and fugues can also be played as independent pieces. However, in Chen’s Preludes and Fugues, each prelude and fugue are connected—the measure numbering is continuous across the set. Additionally, the preludes and fugues are all notated to be played attacca; only Nos. 8 and 11 have double bar lines between the prelude and fugue. These seemingly-small notational elements nonetheless suggest that
Chen conceives of a continuous performance of all thirteen pieces in the set. It illustrates that the musical conception within the prelude and fugue is unitive:
I set the composition as Preludes and Fugues mainly because I respect the tradition. Actually, this work should be called Form of Contrast and Combination…because the
47 preludes and fugues in this set are indivisible. We cannot play them separately. They feature unity.50
Another factor that illustrates this sense of unity is that the subjects of some fugues are directly derived from the paired preludes. For instance, in No. 3, the first five notes of the fugue subject are the same as its prelude, and the material in the subject of the fugue in No. 11 also derives from its prelude (see Examples 24 and 24).
Example 24. Beginning of the Prelude and Fugue No.3.
Example 25. Theme and Subject in Prelude and Fugue, No. 11.
Structure of the Fugues
The formal structure of the fugues is diverse, including two-part, three-part, rondo-like and sonata-like forms (see Table 3). In the full set, three fugues are written in a two-part
50 Chen, “Wo De
48 structure where the length of the two sections are almost equal. I will discuss this in greater detail below, under texture (symmetry). The most common structure in the set is tripartite; most of the fugues are written in a three-part structure, with an exposition beginning on the tonal center. The middle entrance usually modulates to a related key (or keys, sometimes quite remote), and the concluding section returns to the tonic.
Table 3. Structure of the Fugues.
Fugue Two-part structure no. 4, no 10, no. 12 Three-part structure no. 2, no. 3, no. 5, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 11, no. 13 Rondo-like structure no. 6 Sonata-like structure no. 1
The fugue of No. 6 is written in a rondo-like form (A-B-A-B-A-B-A-C-A-A). It only has two voices, and the subject (in G) and answer (in D) alternately occur three times each. In mm. 77-81, the subject (inverted) remains on G while the answer (inverted) goes to the C. In the ending, both the subject and answer return to the tonic key of G. No. 1 is a double fugue written in a sonata-like formal structure. It contains two themes; one is from mm. 1-39 in a commanding character, and the second occurs in mm. 56-60, with a cantabile quality.
Table 4. Sonata-Like Formal Structure of the Fugue of No.1.
Sectio Exposition “Larghetto,” Development “Andante,” Recapitulation n mm. 33-53 mm. 56-78 mm. 79-95 Mater T1 Tra T1 Trans T2 Tra T2 Tran T2 Tra T1/T Tra T1/ ial ns ns s ns 2 ns T2 Meas 33 39 44 54 56 62 65 69 71 75 79 83 85 ure
49 Texture: Symmetry
In Chinese culture, balance and symmetry have been considered an essential aesthetic since ancient times. The Chinese people are fond of symmetrical structures whether in architecture, poetry, or music. In The Preludes and Fugues, Chen emphasized this beauty in symmetry by using it in his musical structures. For example, the fugue of No.4 features a symmetrical structure in mm. 56-58. The second beat of m. 57 is the center; the later material mirrors what comes before (see Example 26). In addition, m. 57 is the center point of the whole fugue: the A section and the B section each contain 12.5 measures, respectively. The subject in the second half of the fugue is then treated in inversion.51
Example 26. Symmetrical Structure in the Fugue of No.4, mm. 56-58.52
Texture: Canon
Canon is a common technique in fugue writing which is also widely used in this set.
For example, the fugue of No. 5 features canonic writing: in mm. 31-50, the right hand answers in exact four measures repetition later and one octave (see Example 27). In mm. 51-74, the subject occurs in an inverted version and the right hand also follows the pattern in m. 55 (see
Example 28).
51 Wu Run-hua, “A Research on Chen Ming-zhi’s Preludes and Fugues,” (M.M. diss., Wuhan Conservatory of Music, 2006), 14. 52 Wu, “Chen Ming-zhi’s Preludes and Fugues,” 14.
50 Example 27. Canon in the Fugue of No. 5.
Example 28. Inversion Canon in the Fugue of No. 5
The prelude of No. 13 also uses canon. At the end of the prelude, the left hand plays the original version and the right hand follows the inverted version (see Example 29).
Example 29. Prime row and Inverted Canon in the Prelude of No. 13.
51 National Elements
Even though The Preludes and Fugues was a contemporary work and Chen utilized plenty of Western compositional techniques, several Chinese national elements were preserved in this work. Besides the traditional modes, Chen also used folk tune themes and imitated gestures and techniques of traditional instruments. The second prelude and fugue in the set was named Folk Song and Dance because the theme in the prelude was from a folk tune, and the fugue features a dance rhythm which imitates the drum (see Examples 30 and 31).
Example 30. Folk Tune in the Prelude of No. 2.
Example 31. Drum Dance Rhythm in the Prelude of No. 2.
The fugue of No. 9 uses Fei Ge, a type of folk song from Miao Zu (a national minority in China). The lively musical character and jumping fourths and fifths of Fei Ge are represented in the music (see Example 32).
Example 32. Jumping Fourths and Fifths in the Fugue of no. 9.
52 The material of the theme in No. 10’s Fugue is also from a type of folk song: Ma Deng
Diao which comes from Zhe Jing province (see Examples 33 and 34).
Example 33. The Folk Tune of Ma Deng Diao.
Example 34. Subject of the Fugue of No. 10 Incorporating Ma Deng Diao.
The Preludes and Fugues is the first polyphonic composition written by a Chinese composer in the tradition of J.S. Bach. It is also the first work in Chinese piano repertoire that combined western techniques such as twelve-tone, Hindemith Chord Classification, and
Chinese national styles. Chen Ming-zhi conveyed his unique musical concept by employing many special treatments through this work, including key arrangement, harmonic collision, and texture to blend the Chinese and western musical cultures together.
53 CHAPTER 6
Zhang Shuai and The Three Piano Preludes
Biography
Zhang Shuai, a leading young composer in China, began teaching composition as a professor at the China Central Conservatory of Music when he was only twenty-nine years old.
He was awarded several prizes in prestigious competitions, including the Chinese Golden Bell
Award in both 2002 and 2003 and the China Ministry of Culture New Composer Prize in 2003.
Unlike older composers (who tend to focus on one music style or one instrument), Zhang Shuai works in several diverse styles and genres. For example, he has written solo piano works, concertos for violin and oboe, instrumental ensembles, music for dance and film, songs, orchestral suites, and so on. His music is highly innovative in musical concepts. Furthermore, he combines Chinese musical elements with Western compositional techniques, creating a style that is unique as well as artistically satisfying.
Zhang Shuai was born into a musical family in Shenyang (the capital of the Liaoning province) in 1979 and began to study piano at an early age. In 1997, he was admitted to the
Shenyang Conservatory of Music (SCOM) and studied composition with Professor Fan
Zheming and Professor Cao Jiayun. He continued his graduate studies at the Central
Conservatory of Music (CCOM) where he earned a masters and a doctoral degree in 2008.
Zhang Shuai’s compositional career thus far can be divided into three stages.
The first period was from high school to college during which he was exploring his possibilities, seeking a style to represent Chinese music in the 1990s and reflect the ideas of the younger generation. He experimented with short piano works and songs in this period; he did not publish them. At the Shenyang Conservatory of Music, Zhang Shuai received a very professional and strict training from his professors and was required to compose a new work
54 every week for three months. He accumulated a lot of experience and many outstanding works came from this period. 2002 to 2008 is considered the second period—while he was in graduate school gradually building his reputation. His Three Piano Preludes were awarded a Golden
Bell Award in 2002, which led him to the first peak in his professional career. In the following year, the musical poem Beyond the Waterfall for violin and piano again won a Golden Bell.
After that, Zhang Shuai focused more on orchestral and ensemble works. He developed his own style, and his works were frequently performed in China. After graduating from CCOM,
Zhang Shuai entered a third stage of composition. He expanded his music to explore more diverse styles and genres such as film music, music for TV dramas, and dance. Zhang Shuai remains an active composer who insists on creating music with his own unique musical language.
Compositional Philosophy
Zhang Shuai has his own compositional philosophy which makes his music special, influential, and popular. However, early in his career, he did not realize what he genuinely wanted to write. Like many other musicians, he had received traditional musical training, listening to and practicing classical as well as Chinese music. After he entered college, his professors encouraged him to explore innovative ideas rather than simply following tradition.
In order to find his own path, Zhang Shuai started to listen to jazz, musical drama, pop music, and rock. As a result of these new influences, he borrowed elements from different masterpieces and imitated other composers’ techniques. Eventually, he formed his own compositional philosophy.
Zhang Shuai insists that his music must reflect his life, his generation, the times he lives in, and the culture he experiences. According to Zhang Shuai, music is the best tool to express the true thoughts of a composer: “The Chinese traditional folk tunes derived from a few decades
55 ago are incredibly beautiful, but they are very far from us. We cannot imitate or write something similar to these because they are not from our own true experiences.”53 He believes the ideas and materials that come from his own life and the generation he belongs to are special, and more relevant. In addition to this philosophical underpinning, melody is a vital element in
Zhang Shuai’s compositions. He prefers to write melodies and harmonies which the listener can follow. His music is very accessible and allows his listeners to appreciate his creations.
Finally, his music is not restricted to particular formal structures, styles, genres, or periods. For
Zhang Shuai, music is freedom, and the spirit and ideas are most important.
Background About the Composition
The Trend of Music Development in China
In the twentieth century, Western music became more rational and perhaps more mechanical. Richard Wagner was perhaps the last to explore the harmonic possibilities of tonal music. Beginning with Arnold Schoenberg in the early twentieth century, the majority of music in the West began to focus on calculation and formalism without melody, traditional harmony, and keys—these abstract elements were not derived from life anymore, nor treated as a way to express human emotion and nature. During this period, many Chinese composers composed atonal music setting Chinese folk themes in a new musical language. Although these works are still considered momentous works in Chinese music history, they are still difficult for people to accept and disseminate.
Under these circumstances, Chinese composers reconsidered the meaning of music and the value of these works. Based on Zhang Shuai’s opinion, “the composers of young generation should not forget about the origin of music as well as masterpieces from those masters.
However, it is time for change, but change is not doing an extreme thing. Music is a common
53 Zhuang Shuai, message from WeChat.
56 language to communicate with all the people and it should not abandon harmony and melody.”54 Therefore, the Three Piano Preludes meet Zhang Shuai’s requirement that new music must be understandable to the listener.
New Romanticism
In the late 1970s, there was a musical style called New Romanticism originating in the
United Kingdom. I have learned from Zhang Shuai that the Three Piano Preludes were strongly influenced by this style. New Romanticism was characterized by “fashion boutiques such as
Kahn and Bell in Birmingham and PX in London”55 which were very flamboyant. Musically,
New Romanticism may be considered as an extension of Neo-Romanticism, which refers to
“the composer's return to tonality as a structural and expressive element.”56 However, genres, types, and structures in the New Romantic movement are more diverse. For instance, this style was not confined to the concert hall, but was also broadcasted on television and recorded for film. Furthermore, it focused on not only classical music but on many other types such as pop music and jazz. John Corigliano’s film score to The Red Violin and the music of Aaron Jay
Kernis can be described as New Romanticism. Their music is tonal, featuring clear melodies and functional harmony, but it also incorporates contemporary elements such as loose formal structures and abundant dissonance.
Influences of Zhang Shuai’s Mentors and Other Composers
The Three Piano Preludes was also deeply influenced by Zhang Shuai’s teachers—
Professor Fan Zhe-ming and Professor Cao Jia-yun. He was studying with them when he composed this work. Like many other Chinese composers, these two professors’ compositions
54 Zhuang Shuai, message from WeChat. 55 Laura Borrelli Persson, "Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes Talks New Wave, David Bowie, and Hedi Slimane’s Saint Laurent", Vogue (11 September 2015), retrieved 7 December 2018. 56 Grove Music Online.
57 feature traditional Chinese styles emphasizing melody and a generous supply of folk elements.
Zhang Shuai’s teachers helped to lay a strong foundation in Chinese traditional music. We hear many Chinese musical idioms in this piece. In addition to his teachers, Shuai deeply admires the music of Ye Xiao-gang and Tan Dun. Xiao-gang and Dun are among the first group of composers that combined Western contemporary music elements and Chinese traditional music into their compositions. Their works and musical concepts were very impressive to Zhang
Shuai, and he was inspired to find a path to create different music—a style that can represent the young Chinese composers. This became his priority when he drafted the Preludes.
Personal Interests
When he drafted the Three Piano Preludes, Zhang Shuai was fascinated by jazz and spent a large amount of time listening to and researching the genre. His fascination with jazz began during his college years. As a Chinese composer, however, he thought that his music might lose its national spirit if the jazz elements had too much influence. Accordingly, he combined Chinese traditional scales and modes with jazz harmonies and rhythms in his Three
Piano Preludes. This combination sounded very fresh to Chinese audiences and the composition became a huge success.
The Three Piano Preludes
The Three Piano Preludes was composed in 1998 when Zhang Shuai was a sophomore at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music. It was premiered by the composer at the compositional competition at SCOM in 2000. Preludes was awarded the Golden Bell in 2002 and was chosen as required repertoire in the second round of piano division in this competition (it contains four rounds). Moreover, it was included in A Century of Piano Solo Works By Chinese Composers published by Shanghai Music Publishing House (1913-2013). The Preludes is the most
58 successful piano work of Zhang Shuai and it is one of the most frequently performed Chinese contemporary pieces.
The Preludes is about nine minutes long, and consists of three preludes: the first, marked “Appassionato, Abbandono” lasts around three minutes; the second, “Mesto,
Misterioso” is four minutes long; and the third, “Estemporale, Impetuoso” lasts two minutes.
Zhang Shuai wanted The Preludes to convey the spirit of the younger generation, and so each prelude presents different mindsets of young people. The first piece shows their creativity and restlessness; the second piece reflects the mysterious emotion of those shy adolescents who are in a relationship; and the last expresses the excitement, impulsivity, and energy of young people.57
As an experimental composer, Zhang Shuai has no strict rules or musical styles that he follows. His compositional process is highly creative but still represents characteristics of
Chinese music. Therefore, we hear many styles combined. Firstly, the piece is nationalistic, expressed through Chinese traditional modes and folk tune-like melodies. Secondly, the work uses a Western art form (the prelude) and its structure, as well as polyphony and chromaticism to differentiate the piece from other traditional Chinese works. Lastly, jazz elements such as improvisation are implied in this piece. All the above characteristics imbue the piece with a unique identity.
Formal Structure and Texture
The Three Preludes are all written in ternary form. Even though Zhang Shuai uses a single material or motive in each piece, he applied numerous transformations to the material,
57 Wang Yuan, “The Content of the Work: Zhang Shuai”s Three Piano Preludes” (M.M. diss, Nanjing Arts Institute, 2011), 11.
59 in all the sections. The following is a diagram of the formal structure of the first movement
(see Table 5).
Table 5. Formal Structure of “Appassionato, Abbandono.”
A mm. 1-28 a1 mm. 1-4 a2 mm. 5-16 a3 mm. 17-22 a4 mm. 23-28 B mm. 29-43 A’ mm. 44-63 a4’ mm. 44-49 a5 mm. 50-63
The first four measures serve as an introduction to the principal motive of this piece.
Based on Zhang, the two phrases with rubato tempo express that young people always have questions for their life. From measure 5 to measure 28, the music suddenly switches to a passionate mood, demonstrating a sense of rebellion. The left hand keeps an energetic accompaniment while the right hand continually develops the motive utilizing octaves and adding a middle voice. Notably, this octave motive (mm. 23-26) is an inversion of the opening motive. The middle section continues developing the motivic materials but enters in piano with a playful character. The motive is unceasingly changed by reconstructing the fragments with different rhythms. The A’ section returns directly to the last section of A, which is the most exciting part. The music builds to a climax, ending with the use of contrary motion in mm. 60-
61. The first prelude ends with four strong chords.
The second movement is attached to the first and is also in ternary form (see Table 6).
Table 6. Formal Structure of “Mesto, Misterioso.”
A mm. 64-78 a1 mm. 64-72 a2 mm. 73-78 B mm. 79-100 A’ mm. 101-119 a1’ mm. 101-112 a3 mm. 113-119
An ascending figure combining semitone and an interval of a sixth in the first measure is the central motive of this piece. Zhang Shuai calls this “mystery motive,” suggesting that it conveys the mysterious feeling of young people in a relationship. The following materials are the alternate chords played by both hands throughout the piece; this accompaniment also
60 expresses an ambiguous relationship between two people. In mm. 73-77, the left hand features a pentatonic-like melody which imitates a man’s voice. The B section consists of four sequential ascending lines based on modulating the original motive. After a decorative figure in m. 99, the music returns to its calm but mysterious atmosphere. The coda still used the mystery motivic materials. Interestingly, Zhang Shuai use of rhythmic augmentation from quarter notes to sixteenth notes with crescendo to create an attacca effect to the next prelude
(see Table 7).
Table 7. Formal Structure of “Estemporale, Impetuoso.”
A mm. 120-152 a1 mm. 64-72 a2 mm. 73-78 a3 mm. 141-152 B mm. 153-187 A’ mm. 188-208 a1’ mm. 188-197 a3 mm. 198-208
Rhythmic drive is the crucial characteristic in this prelude, which depicts the enthusiasm and energy of the younger generation. Another key element is the use of chromaticism in both hands. In addition, the materials from the first and second preludes are transformed in this prelude. For example, measures 122-123 and 126-127 are based on the
“mystery motive” from the second prelude. The accents in the right hand in mm. 124-126 and the rhythm of the left hand recall the accompaniment material in the first prelude. The material in the B section develops the same ideas from the A section. In mm. 157-160, the melody in the right hand is developed from the left hand. Notably, this third prelude incorporates elements of the Xinjiang style. The Xinjiang province is in the northwest of China, and the traditional music of the province is generally based on the qisheng and wusheng scales, with sharped 1st,
2nd, 4th, 5th and flat 7th scale degrees. The return of the A section continues the sense of impulsive restlessness, with lower octaves and glissandi in the left hand bringing the piece to an exciting end.
Harmonic Analysis
61 The harmonic language in The Preludes is unique in the entire prelude literature. Zhang
Shuai avoids the approach of using traditional Chinese songs and transcriptions of folk melodies, as many older composers did. According to Zhang, in this set, he wanted to create a conflicted quality in the harmony to convey contradictory emotions. He applied bitonality, alternating major and minor chords, and the combination of national modes and jazz. As a result, the work not only represents Chinese traditional style, but also an effective hybrid style incorporating Western musical elements.
Bitonality
The first prelude has no stationary tonal center. The music sounds eccentric, featuring a combination of Chinese traditional modes and Western major and minor scales. The use of bitonality demonstrates Shuai’s desire to represent conflict. In the four-measure introduction, the right-hand melody is written in G flat Gong mode, which immediately depicts a Chinese style (see Example 35). The highly-chromatic accompaniment of the left hand occurs in m. 5, based on C major (see Example 36). This special bitonality produces a novel harmony for listener. Although the left hand shifts to a tonal center G and E flat, the right hand remains in the G flat Gong mode for the entire piece. Title Example 35. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” mm. 1-2. G-flat Gong mode. Composer
62 hsio Example 36. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” mm. 5-7. Bitonality between G-flat Gong and C major.
The second prelude creates conflict through a dissonant tension between major and minor chords. Two hands play major and minor chords, both simultaneously and alternating, to depict the mysterious personality (see Example 37).
Example 37. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludeshsio (Publisher Name), “Mesto, Misterioso,” mm. 64-68. Major and minor between two hands.
9 E♭M B♭m B♭m FM Jazz6 Elements
Non-chord tones Shuai’s use of jazz elements represents another innovative concept in Chinese piano music. For instance, in mm.17-20, the B-flat dominant chord and the C half-diminished chord in the middle voice contain non-chord tones, such as E natural (representing a lowered fifth or a raised eleventh scale degree) and C sharp (representing a raised ninth degree). The approach of using these non-chord tones is widely used in jazz music.
63 hsio
Example 3 8. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” mm. 16 -21. Non-chord tones.
Chromaticism10
Another prominent harmonic characteristic is the use of chromaticism, especially in the hsio first and third preludes. In the former, as seen in the score, the left hand features chromaticism throughout the piece (see Example 39). Apart from the G flat Gong mode, the right hand also utilizes chromatic harmony, especially in mm. 40 and 49 (see Examples 40 and 41). The ascending chromatic line features quartal harmony built on interval of a fourth, creating a sense of instability and ambiguity (see Example 40). Example 39. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” m. 38. Chromaticism in the left hand.
64 hsio
Example 40. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” m. 40. Chromaticism and quartal harmony in both hands. hsio
Example 41. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” m. 49. Chromaticism in both hands.
5 5 The second prelude is also hard to distinguish the tonal center because of the use of chromaticism. The “mystery motive” and the ascending lines in the right hand features abundant semitones (see Example 42).
Example 42. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Mesto, Misterioso,” m. 64 and m. 80. “Mystery motive” and ascending hsiosequences.
9 E♭M B♭m
B♭m FM
6
65 hsio
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 cresc.
The last prelude features the most obvious use of chromaticism in the whole set in terms
7 of the motive and its accompaniment. The hidden chromatic melody in the right hand is doubled with the left hand, and the materials in the rest of this piece are based on this chromatic melody (see Example 43). Example 43. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludeshsio (Publisher Name), “Estemporale, Impetuoso,” mm. 120-121. Chromaticism in the third prelude.
Tresillo Rhythm The characteristic rhythm used in Three Preludes is highly associated with jazz—a pattern called “tresillo” which is frequently applied throughout this piece, especially in the first prelude. The tresillo rhythm was invented by Caribbean people who were “descendants of
Haitians and Cubans and had immigrated to the city (New Orleans) in the 19th century.”58
When Jelly Roll Morton, a professional jazz musician, spoke of the “Spanish tinge” present in jazz, he had in mind rhythmic patterns like the tresillo (see Example 44).59 In the middle voice of the first prelude, Zhang Shuai applied this rhythm to add jazz flavor (see Example 45).
58 “Jazz.” Grove Music Online, 4. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/45011 59 “Jazz,” 4.
66 hsio Tresillo
Example 44. Tresillo Rhythm.
Example 45. Zhang Shuai, Three Piano Preludes (Publisher Name), “Appassionato, Abbandono,” mm. x-xx. Tresillo rhythm in the first prelude.
cresc. Syncopation
Another ubiquitous rhythmic element is syncopation. Zhang Shuai used abundant
patterns such as dotted rhythms, rests, ties, cross-bar ties, and shifting accents to achieve a
syncopated effect, which produces a sense of restlessness and anxiousness. Shuai uses this
rhythm to depict a rebellious personality more typical of the younger generation. The following
are the typical syncopated rhythmsRhythms used in The Preludes (see Example. 46).
Example 46. The fundamental syncopated patterns used in The Preludes Title Claves Composer Voice
67 hsio
hsio
The Three Piano Preludes represent the unique style of young Chinese composers and Zhang Shuai’s compositional philosophy. Applying jazz harmony and jazz rhythm to integrate with Chinese national style in the preludes is also unprecedented.
68 Conclusion
As one of the earliest European keyboard genres imported into China, the piano prelude has remained popular with Chinese composers for over a century. These three sets of Preludes by Ding Shan-de, Chen Ming-zhi and Zhang Shuai are considered the compositions with great artistic and historical value. These Preludes not only represent the compositional concepts and achievements of these composers, but also serve as witnesses to the development of Chinese piano music. In addition, the three selected sets of Preludes well represent different styles of
Chinese music. They reflect the fusion of unification and conflicts that preserve the Chinese flavor in these compositions no matter the difference in generation or Western techniques used.
Although these works are frequently performed in China, they are less researched and studied than other Western preludes. Some research, whether written in Chinese or English, only focus on the performance practice. The historical context and the compositional style of the composers are ignored. However, knowing the Chinese culture, music history and the composers’ lives are the key factors for playing the music. For instance, for students or teachers, the more study and research regarding these pieces, the more frames of reference can be used when practicing and teaching them. This is especially true for Western pianists who are unfamiliar with Chinese music history as well as Chinese piano music.
Therefore, the preceding chapters have introduced these background information as a simple guide. Taking the Cultural Revolution as a focal point in our timeline, the three preludes were composed before, during, and after the Revolution. To create a more comprehensive and appreciative understanding of these preludes, I provided an overview of the evolution of
Chinese piano music and the history of the prelude’s development in China.
69 There are abundant piano preludes by Chinese composers which is hard to introduce in one research. For example, Chu Wang-hua’s Six Preludes and Liao Sheng-jing’s Twenty-four
Preludes in the Solar Terms are titled, and the atonal preludes Four Little Piano Preludes and
Fugues Op.29 by Ding Shan-de and so on. They are largely unfamiliar in the West. This document will hopefully serve as a platform to introduce Ding Shan-de, Chen Ming-zhi, and
Zhang Shuai and their piano preludes to the world, as well as encourage more Chinese composers and musicians to compose and play our own music.
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