【Hot spot observation】
On April 8, the symphony concert of "National Style and Elegant Charm" exuding a strong Chinese style kicked off the first "Spring of Chinese Music" art festival of the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
This spring, there are quite a few symphony performances like this.
Zhengzhou, Lhasa, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou and many other cities have held symphony performances in different forms (online or offline).
When it comes to symphony, many people's first impression is "high and high", thinking that it is difficult for them to approach it.
Symphony is indeed an elegant art, but with the development of my country's art career and the popularization of art among the whole people, this elegant art has gradually moved out of the palace and came to the common people.
According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 70 or 80 symphony orchestras nationwide.
Symphony orchestras have not only become standard in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, but have also begun to appear in some county towns. Even villages such as Beidou Village, Yinglong Town, Nan'an District, Chongqing City have formed peasant wind bands.
In recent years, many orchestras have formed a relatively complete music season system, and the audience for symphony is steadily expanding.
At the same time, the symphony audience is also getting younger.
For example, among the 430,000 members of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, symphony enthusiasts account for more than one-third.
Among the audiences watching the symphony at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, 69% were under the age of 45, and the audience between the ages of 26 and 35 bought the most tickets.
With the rapid development of symphony in China, the voice of "nationalization of symphony" is getting louder and louder.
Copying foreign symphony techniques will not work
The development history of human symphony has been nearly 300 years, and it has only been about 100 years since symphony entered China.
For a long time in the past, due to the lack of orchestras, the difficulty of appreciation, and the fact that most of the works are of foreign themes, symphony has always been a relatively small music category in my country, and it has not been able to gain widespread popularity and breakthrough development.
For symphony music to develop rapidly in China, it must be localized and nationalized. As the famous composer Fu Gengchen pointed out, "It is not feasible to copy foreign symphony techniques, and our musical language should be nationalized."
In fact, since the day it was introduced to China, the symphony has begun to explore localization and nationalization.
Xiao Youmei's "Dance of New Neon Dresses and Feathers" and Huang Zi's "Nostalgia" are the representative works of this period.
However, from the 1920s to before the founding of the People's Republic of my country, the symphony works independently created by Chinese composers were immature in both technical and artistic aspects, and they had a distinct European style as a whole.
The 1950s and 1960s was a period of rapid development of my country's national symphony, and a number of outstanding composers such as Li Huanzhi and Wang Yunjie emerged, as well as outstanding works such as "The Liang Zhu" and "Spring Festival Suite".
Among them, "Liang Zhu" can be described as a landmark work of national symphony. It perfectly and harmoniously integrates the art of Chinese opera into the form of Western music. The two complement each other and achieve an amazing artistic effect.
Since the 1970s and 1980s, with the development of social economy and the increase of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, my country's symphony has made great strides to embark on a new journey of integration of nationality and internationality.
By combining modern composition techniques with Chinese national spirit, music culture, and aesthetic style, ethnic musicians have created outstanding works such as Naxi Yiqi and Impression of Taihang Mountains, opening up a new space for the nationalization of symphony.
In recent years, the music groups represented by the Central Chinese Orchestra have made bold innovations and made continuous breakthroughs, not only breaking the tradition that folk music always embellishes symphony concerts with a single form of solo, but also continuously injecting Chinese elements into symphony music, creating the "Impression Country" Classical works such as "Music", "Another Chinese Music" and "Red Makeup Chinese Music", let folk music and symphony play a harmonious sound.
Combining modern and ancient fusion of Chinese and Western
Frankly speaking, in the past 100 years, although Chinese symphony musicians have been exploring the road of localization and nationalization, they are still doing the work of "painting red" more often.
It is necessary to learn and draw lessons from foreign performance techniques and creative experience. The question is how to use it for one's own use after learning, and how to achieve localization and nationalization.
From the 100-year history of symphony in China, we can see that most of the excellent national symphony works bravely absorb the artistic essence of Chinese folk music, and can organically integrate the national spirit and national culture into the symphony performance techniques.
Therefore, to promote the localization and nationalization of symphony, the general principle should be that the creation should be combined with the actual situation in China, rooted in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, good at leveraging the language of national music, and at the same time observing the aesthetics of the Chinese audience. taste.
At the technical level, the author thinks that we can explore from the following aspects.
First, the topics can be drawn from Chinese history and traditional culture.
Whether it's "The Liang Zhu", "The Dance of New Feather Clothes", or "The Overlord Unloads Armor", they are all based on traditional Chinese stories. From the name alone, they have distinct national characteristics, which can greatly affect culture and emotion. The distance between the symphony and the local audience.
Second, in terms of structure, we can learn from our traditional ancient music.
The value of ancient scores is to music as the value of ancient books is to history.
It engraves the fleeting ancient tune in a special way, so that later generations can partially restore the original song.
The creation of national symphony can sometimes be completely "replayed".
However, the music on the ancient score is different from the modern symphony after all, so when creating a national symphony, if you use the ancient score for reference, you should take the essence and discard the deficiency.
Third, the tones, timbres and melody of Chinese folk music can be properly incorporated into the composition.
For example, when Zhu Jianer composed works such as the Second Symphony and the Tenth Symphony, he creatively used traditional Chinese musical instruments such as guzheng, guqin, gong, and suona in the symphony orchestra, and skillfully used Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera. These musical resources are very rich in Chinese cultural connotations.
The creative experience of Zhu Jian'er and others tells us that only by deeply absorbing the nourishment of Chinese traditional and folk music can we realize the deep integration of Chinese and Western music culture.
Although the above is a technical operation, it is not easy to do.
Only when a composer is proficient in the techniques of Western symphony and deeply comprehends the artistic connotation of Chinese folk music can they truly combine the modern and the ancient, integrate the Chinese and the West, and truly achieve creative transformation and innovative development.
In addition to sounding good, it also needs to enhance cultural connotation and spiritual temperament
"Sound of Heaven" should not only be pleasant to listen to, but also have cultural connotations.
To promote the nationalization of symphony, we must not only work hard on the content, form and melody of the work, but also strive to improve the cultural connotation and spiritual temperament of the work.
In recent years, many local musicians have created a lot of symphony works that tell Chinese stories, thinking that their works have been nationalized and localized.
In fact, these people's understanding of the nationalization of symphony is not comprehensive.
As the famous composer Guan Xia said in an interview with the media: "Some of the works we often hear just use folk music themes and simply repeat or change them at will. They simply use folk music materials and perform with national instruments. , a far cry from nationalization.”
The nationalization of symphony includes many contents. In addition to the melody of the music, it must have national characteristics. More importantly, through the deepening of the composer's creation, the work can exude the unique spiritual temperament of the Chinese nation from the inside out.
For this reason, in addition to mastering advanced creative techniques and rich elements of national folk music, creators also have to hone in a colorful and complex life, because the spiritual temperament of the work is like a sword and a blade, and it cannot be obtained simply by adding some materials. , but must be repeatedly quenched by fire and water.
In recent years, many orchestras have stepped up their efforts in life.
For example, the China Symphony Orchestra has established a number of collection and creation practice bases in Yunnan, Fujian, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia and other places, and often organizes composers to go to various places to collect music, creating "Impression of Hani", "Fantasia of Yi Countryside Love", "Hani Memorial Book", "Hani" A group of symphonic poems with local customs and national characteristics, such as Rhapsody of Ailao Mountain and Second Suite of "South of the Clouds".
The Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra is rooted in Wuyue and has created a large number of symphony works based on the local customs and conditions of Zhejiang, such as "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", "The Road to Tang Poems" and "Social Opera".
These creative practices express the voice of China and tell the story of China, which is a vivid portrayal of the nationalization and localization of symphony.
However, some composers are still a little impetuous. In order to quickly produce national symphony works, they take a moment to look at the scenery and create a mere formality.
Therefore, there is still a shortage of particularly excellent national symphony works.
In short, the majority of artists should rely on Chinese culture and experience, boldly absorb foreign concepts and techniques, abandon fussing and mystifying, and incorporate their own thoughts on the times, nation, destiny and human nature into their works. "the road.
(Authors: Zhang Shanshan and Liu Xiang, Lecturer at the School of Music of Linyi University and Associate Professor at the School of Letters of Linyi University respectively)