Month: April 2024

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Luo Zhongrong (1924.12.12-2021.9.2) was a distinguished composer, theorist, professor, and doctoral supervisor at the China Conservatory of Music. He was also a recipient of the Lifetime Honor Medal of the 4th China Music Golden Bell Awards. Born in Santai County, Sichuan Province, Luo began his musical studies in 1942 at the Sichuan Provincial Art School in Chengdu, majoring in violin and composition. In 1944, he transferred to the National Shanghai Conservatory of Music to continue his violin studies and also studied composition under Professor Tan Xiaolin.

Luo composed his first work, the song “Shan Na Bian Yo Hao Di Fang,” in 1947, which quickly became popular across the country. This marked his gradual shift from violin performance to composition. Two years later, he studied counterpoint under Ding Shande and taught himself composition. In 1951, Luo moved to Beijing to work in the composition group of the Central Orchestra. In 1958, he composed his first symphonic work, “Overture to the Completion Ceremony of the Thirteen Tombs Reservoir,” followed by his “First Symphony” in 1958-59. Both works, conducted by the renowned Chinese conductor Li Delun and performed by the Central Orchestra Symphony Orchestra in Beijing, achieved great success.

During the Cultural Revolution, Luo, despite being politically persecuted, composed the famous symphonic chorus “Shajiabang.” His works are known for their vibrant colors and conciseness, and even during his detainment for 2 years, Luo persisted in studying Hindemith’s “The Craft of Musical Composition,” eventually developing his unique theory of “pentatonic twelve-tone row.”

In 1985, Luo became a professor in the composition department of the China Conservatory of Music and received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), leading to a visit to West Berlin for creative work and other musical activities. He also held a concert of his works there. In 1988, he attended the historically significant “Cross-Strait Composers Symposium” in New York. In 2004, Luo was awarded the Lifetime Honor Award of the China Music Golden Bell Awards. He passed away on September 2, 2021, at the age of 97.

His art song “Crossing the River to Pick Lotus Flowers” is Luo’s first twelve-tone work, based on a popular ancient poem from the late Eastern Han Dynasty (late 2nd to early 3rd century AD), later included in Xiao Tong’s “Anthology of Zhaoming.” The poem, a quintessential example of ancient five-character (five words per line) poetry, is known for its vivid and natural language and depiction of life. In “Crossing the River to Pick Lotus Flowers,” Luo structured the music into a binary form, enhancing the unity of the work. He designed a tone row according to the requirements of twelve-tone technique to express the poem’s remote and serene imagery. The tone row, initially presented in its original form in the introduction, is a partially tonal but overall atonal. Pentatonic influence is seen in the integration of intervals found in the pentatonic scale, and avoidance of dissonant intervals like minor seconds and augmented fourths, reflecting . Throughout the song, the tone row is used in various forms, such as retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion, corresponding to the “introduction,” “development,” “turn,” and “conclusion” of the poem.

In this art song, Luo’s vocal melody writing closely links the melodic direction with the lyrics and language, using both Chinese and Western melodic techniques to express phonetic sounds and convey the meanings of words. He does not pursue vocal techniques for their own sake but maintains the melodic characteristics and lyrical function of the voice. The song’s first line, “Crossing the river to pick lotus flowers,” presents a dynamic scene with a meandering descending sequence, while “The orchid marsh is full of fragrant grass” develops upward from the starting F# by a perfect fourth, bringing brightness to the music. The subsequent lines, such as “Picking them to leave to whom” and “My thoughts are with one who is far away,” use various melodic treatments to express the poem’s emotions, from the initial sadness to the final deep sigh of longing in “Sorrowful until old age.”

Here is a video link to the work: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1AB4y1A7go?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Sang Tong (1923-2011), born Zhu Jingqing in Shanghai, was a renowned Chinese music educator, composer, and music theorist. He served as the president and professor of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Sang began his musical education in 1941 at the then National Music Conservatory (later Shanghai Conservatory), studying composition under the German composer Wolfgang Fraenkel, but paused his studies in 1943. In 1946, he continued his studies at the conservatory under Jewish Austrian composer Julius Schloss and attended classes taught by composer Tan Xiaolin. In 1947, Sang composed the violin piece “Night Scene” and the piano piece “In That Distant Place,” which were among the earliest attempts by Chinese composers to employ atonal composition techniques. He also collaborated with Qu Xixian on the film music for “Nightclub” and “Sunny Days,” conducting the recordings himself.

At the height of the Civil War in 1948 with increasing instability in Shanghai, he moved to Northern Jiangsu and changed his name to Sang Tong to hide from Kuomintang, as he had taken part in Communist resistance against it during his youth. From the autumn of 1949, Sang Tong taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music for an extended period, serving as the head of the composition department, professor, vice-president, and president. In 1950, he composed the cello piece “Fantasia,” which was premiered in 1951 by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. The piece, performed by cellist Wang Lei at the World Festival of Youth and Students and later in Japan, the United States, and other places, has become part of the cello teaching repertoire in music schools.

Sang Tong’s writings include “Six Lectures on Harmony,” “The Theory and Application of Harmony,” “A Discussion on the Structure of Pentatonic Harmony,” and “An Introduction to Polytonal Writing Techniques.” He passed away on July 24, 2011, in Huadong Hospital in Shanghai at the age of 88.

One of his representative works, “Seven Piano Pieces on Inner Mongolian Folk Song Themes,” was composed in 1953, based on the melodies of Inner Mongolian folk songs. The pieces vividly portray Inner Mongolian people through poetic and picturesque musical expressions. The first piece, “Elegy,” is based on the folk songs “Sai Hen [塞很]” and “Dingker Zhabu [丁克尔扎布],” starting with a recitative style to convey the final words of a hero and ending with a solemn mass chorus of mourning. (Note: Several of these folk songs with titles that are proper names are known through their Chinese names, the hanyu pinyin transliteration of which is provided alongside the Chinese characters. We would appreciate the input of readers with knowledge of Mongolian on its transliteration using the Latin alphabet.) The second piece, “Friendship,” celebrates sincere and eternal friendship through the folk songs “Mandong Tonglage [满冻通拉格]” and “Four Seas.” The third piece, “Homesickness,” adapts the rhythm of the folk song “Xing’an Ridge” to express the deep longing for home and family. The fourth piece, “Prairie Love Song,” uses the folk song “Little Lover” in a variation treatment to depict the tender and passionate emotions of young lovers. The fifth piece, “Children’s Dance,” portrays the innocent and lively image of dancing children, based on the folk songs “Dinglangbin [丁朗彬]” and “Bengbo Cai [崩博菜].” The sixth piece, “Sorrow,” is a transformation of the folk song “Homesick,” expressing a mournful and plaintive mood. The seventh piece, “Dance,” is a lively and bold dance piece based on the folk song “Modegeng Anga [莫德格昂嘎],” creatively adapted to showcase the vibrant energy of the music. This work received a bronze medal at the 1957 World Festival of Youth and Students and has been recognized for its distinctive portrayal of Inner Mongolian folk music.

Here is a video link to Sang Tong’s music: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13b4y1R7dj?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Chou Wen-chung (Zhou Wenzhong) (1923.7.28–2019.10.25) is a renowned Chinese-American composer. A world-famous composer, he was a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vice Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, and the Director of the doctoral program in composition. His major works include “Landscapes,” “The Willows Are New,” “How Many Flowers Fall,” “Meditation,” “Wild Grass,” “Fishing Song,” “Metamorphosis,” “Eagle Valley,” “Mountain Torrents,” and “Floating Clouds.”

Chou Wen-chung was born on June 29, 1923, in Yantai, China, and grew up in Shanghai. He was a leading figure in twentieth-century electronic music and a close disciple of the famous French-American composer Edgard Varèse. Initially, he received a scholarship to study architecture at Yale University, but his lifelong passion for music led him to abandon the scholarship and switch to composition studies at the New England Conservatory of Music just one week after arriving at Yale.

In 1949, Chou moved to New York and met Edgard Varèse, under whom he began to study composition and later became a close friend. After Varèse’s death, Chou took on the responsibility of managing Varèse’s musical legacy, including editing Varèse’s works and completing his unfinished pieces.

In 1954, his orchestral work “How Many Flowers Fall” won numerous awards, including the Rockefeller Prize for the Arts, commissions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1964, Chou Wen-chung joined the faculty of the composition department at Columbia University, where his students included Chinary Ung, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Sheng Zongliang, and Tan Dun, all of whom became world-renowned composers.

In 1978, Chou Wen-chung founded the Sino-American Arts Center, tirelessly promoting international artistic exchanges for decades and making significant contributions to cultural exchanges between China and the United States. At his recommendation, the complete guqin piece “Flowing Water” was sent into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. From 1984 to 1991, Chou Wen-chung served as the first director of the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia University and as a visiting professor at Nankai University.

In 2007, the Xinghai Conservatory of Music appointed Chou Wen-chung as an honorary professor, and in November 2018, held the “Chou Wen-chung Music Research Center Establishment Ceremony and Chou Wen-chung International Music Academic Symposium.” On the night of October 25, 2019 (Beijing time), Chou Wen-chung passed away at his home in the United States at the age of 96.

“The Willows Are New” (1957) is one of Chou Wen-chung’s early representative works and the first piece in which he used Western instruments to imitate the Chinese guqin. The music is based on the famous guqin piece “Yangguan Sandie,” with the piano imitating the mood of guqin music, marking an important exploration in the formation of Chou’s artistic style.

“Yangguan Sandie” was composed in the Tang dynasty based on Wang Wei’s “Sending Yuan Er to Anxi,” which describes a scene of departure with well-matched verses, beautiful phrases, and a distant mood. This is a quatrain from the poem: “The morning rain in Weicheng moistens the light dust; the guesthouse is green with new willow colors. I urge you to drink another cup of wine; there are no old friends when you leave Yangguan heading to the west.”

To maximize the unique beauty of guqin music, Chou Wen-chung used the piano to imitate the vibration of single notes in guqin music, creating sound effects through harmonic colors and delimited ranges. The original melody appears in different ranges through variations, forming contrasts in timbre, and the continuous low resonance throughout the piece, enhanced by the pedal, perfectly interprets the ancient “Chinese style” with Western musical vocabulary.

In “The Willows Are New,” Chou Wen-chung varies the melody of “Yangguan Sandie” in terms of structure, space, and time. The structure is variation form, with each variation in “The Willows Are New” corresponding to that in “Yangguan Sandie.”

“The Willows Are New” ingeniously adapts the original ornamental notes into melodies that develop horizontally in seconds and harmonically in ninths. The continuous appearance of minor second ornamental intervals vividly displays the “sliding” effect unique to guqin music; the minor ninth imitates the dissonant, melancholic color produced by fingers sliding on guqin strings; the diminished fifth interval imitates the “mo” technique of the guqin; the augmented octave and double augmented octave imitate the open and harmonic sounds of the guqin, respectively; the persistent use of minor ninth intervals in the bass part creates a deep and rich atmosphere, evoking a sense of “sorrowful separation.”

Video link:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bZ4y1Q7dg?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Zhu Jianer (1922.10.18—2017.8.15) was a renowned Chinese composer and musician, best known for his composition “Symphony No. 10, Op. 42” (1998). Born as Zhu Rongshi in Anhui, Jiang County, Zhu Jian’er developed an interest in music during his middle school years in Shanghai, teaching himself to play the piano and other instruments. In the late 1930s, he studied harmony with Qian Renkang and button accordion at Shi Renwang’s training class. In 1945, he went to the North Jiangsu Liberated Area and worked on music composition with the Middle Jiangsu Military District Frontline Troupe and the Huadong Military District Cultural Troupe.

After the 1947 Laiwu battle, his song “Da De Hao” became widely popular among the liberated area’s military and civilians. Between 1949 and 1953, he composed music for various films including “The Earth Shines Again” and “Storm at Sea” while working at film studios in Shanghai and Beijing, and Central News and Documentary Film Studios. In 1955, Zhu went to the Soviet Union to study composition at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. His piano preludes “Telling You” and “Running Water,” composed during this period, demonstrated refined musicality and a meticulous touch. His piano solo “Narrative Poem” and “Theme and Variations” showed tight logical development and rich harmonic techniques.

Zhu’s first orchestral work, “Festival Overture,” premiered in Moscow in 1959 and was archived by the Soviet Union’s National Radio. Upon returning to China in 1960, he became a full-time composer at the Shanghai Experimental Opera House. In the following years, he focused on smaller vocal works, with songs like “Taking Over Lei Feng’s Gun” and “Singing a Mountain Song to the Party” gaining widespread popularity.

Starting in 1975, Zhu worked with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. His string ensemble “Nostalgia” (1978) was his first attempt at addressing tragic themes in symphonic music. “Symphonic Fantasia – A Tribute to the Martyrs for Truth,” completed in 1980, was inspired by the tragic execution of Zhang Zhixin (a dissident during the Cultural Revolution) and won an excellence award at the first National Symphony Music Work Awards in 1981.

Zhu Jian’er passed away on August 15, 2017, at the age of 95. In accordance with his wishes, no memorial service was held, and his body was donated to medical research.

“Symphony No. 10 ‘Jiang Xue'” (1998) is one of Zhu Jian’er’s most notable works, blending the ancient Chinese guqin piece “Meihua San Nong” and the Tang Dynasty poem “Jiang Xue” by Liu Zongyuan with Western symphonic elements. This symphony, which incorporates traditional Chinese melodies and instruments, is a testament to Zhu Jian’er’s innovative approach to combining Chinese and Western musical traditions.

In this symphony, Zhu Jian’er ingeniously uses China’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage, using Chinese operatic style in the recitation of ancient poetry (of the guqin piece) within the symphonic context, thereby merging the orchestra with the guqin. The performance by Shang Changrong perfectly captures the Chinese spirit of Zhu Jian’er’s symphony. The work is structured to showcase different aspects of the poem, with Shang Changrong employing various singing styles from Peking opera to convey the poet’s sentiments, from the frustration of unfulfilled talent to the lofty and transcendent character of the poet.

You can watch a performance of Zhu Jian’er’s “Symphony No. 10 ‘Jiang Xue'” at this link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1RE411J7JN?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Yuen Ren Chao (Zhao Yuanren) (November 3, 1892 – February 24, 1982) was a renowned scholar, linguist, and musician born in Tianjin, China. He was a descendant of the famous Qing Dynasty poet Zhao Yi. Chao studied mathematics at Cornell University in the United States, where he also took courses in physics and music. He later pursued philosophy at Harvard University, where he studied formal music composition and theory with notable professors such as E.B. Hill and W.R. Spaulding. Chao received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1918 and also studied composition, harmony, and piano with various American musicians.

In 1920, Chao returned to China and taught mathematics, physics, and psychology at Tsinghua School (later Tsinghua University). He went back to the United States in 1921 to study linguistics at Harvard University and taught Chinese and philosophy there. In 1925, Chao was appointed as a tutor at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Tsinghua, becoming one of the “Four Great Tutors of Tsinghua” at the age of 33. He also served as the head of the school’s music committee and co-founded the “Qin Yun Ge Sheng Research Society” for music.

In March 1928, Chao joined the newly established Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica, where he was appointed as a researcher and head of the linguistics group. He conducted extensive dialect surveys across various regions in China, collecting folk songs, traditional opera, and storytelling music. Chao was one of the earliest composers in modern Chinese history to systematically investigate and collect folk songs in the field and use that as material for composition.

In 1938, Chao was invited to teach at the University of Hawaii and later settled in the United States, where he taught at several universities, including Yale, Harvard, and the University of California, Berkeley. He was elected president of the American Oriental Society in 1960 and continued his academic research and writing after retiring in 1962.

Chao passed away on February 24, 1982, in Massachusetts, USA, at the age of 90.

One of his notable choral works is “Haiyun” (海韵), based on Xu Zhimo’s modern poem which expresses the spirit of the May Fourth Movement. Chao chose “Haiyun” for its expression of the scientific ideas of the new era and the colloquial language of the poem (as opposed to literary classical Chinese), which reflected the culture of the new era. Chao’s choral works are rich in musical imagery, with themes in “Haiyun” representing the sea waves, the maiden, and the poet, each expressed differently.

The piano accompaniment in “Haiyun” serves as an independent part, depicting sea waves and the maiden’s dance with strong rhythmic patterns. The structure of the work is multilayered, with six parts: prelude, sections one, two, and three, a contrasting section, and ending. Each part contains four subsections: chorus (poet), soprano solo (maiden), chorus (narrative), and dance (interlude).

The work employs a variation form, with careful arrangement of themes, tonality, rhythm, meter, and dynamics to vividly express different themes. The complex and changing tonality, intricate piano accompaniment, and dramatic contrasts in the music create a sense of urgency and tension, culminating in a climax that vividly portrays the poet’s sorrow.

You can watch a performance of Yuen Ren Chao’s “Haiyun” at the following link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nb411b7dm?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3

By Mao Mengdan and Min Lingkang

This post is part of a series on 100 modern conservatory-trained Chinese composers from 1912 onwards who wrote symphonic, ensemble, and solo instrumental music using Western instruments, as well as choral and solo vocal music, adopting Western tonality or avant-garde techniques. They are regarded as key historical figures in and drivers of modern Chinese music history.

Li Huanzhi (January 12, 1919 – March 19, 2000) was a Chinese composer, conductor, and music theorist born in Hong Kong, with ancestral roots in Jinjiang, Fujian (now part of Quanzhou City, Jinjiang). He graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Arts and was known for his compositions such as “Spring Festival Overture,” “Symphonic Poem on the Song of Shaanbei,” “Symphony of Vicissitudes,” film music for “Early Spring in February,” and “Selected Songs of Li Huanzhi.”

Li spent his early years in Xiamen, where he was exposed to folk music from Guangdong and Fujian, as well as hymns and organ music from Christian churches. He attended Xiamen Double Ten Middle School, where he participated in the choir and brass band, fostering his interest in music.

In 1935, Li composed music for Guo Moruo’s poem “Pastoral Elegy,” marking his entry into the world of music. The following spring, he enrolled in the National Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, studying harmony under Xiao Youmei.

In August 1938, Li arrived in Yan’an and joined the music department of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts. In November of the same year, he became a member of the Chinese Communist Party. After graduating, he continued to study composition and conducting under Xian Xinghai and remained at the academy as a teacher.

During the Anti-Japanese Invasion War, Li was involved in anti-Japanese invasion literary and artistic activities in Hong Kong as a member of the peripheral organization of the Communist Party, the Anti-War Youth Society. He co-created anti-Japanese invasion songs with poets such as Pu Feng, including “Xiamen Self-Singing” and “Defend the Motherland.” After the victory of the war, Li left Yan’an for Zhangjiakou and became the head of the music department at the North China United University’s College of Arts and Literature.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Li served as the head of the music work group at the Central Conservatory of Music, the director of the Central Song and Dance Art Troupe, and held various positions such as executive director, secretary, and vice-chairman of the Chinese Musicians Association. He also served as the director of the composition committee of the Music Association and the editor-in-chief of “Music Composition” magazine.

In 1960, Li became the head of the Central National Orchestra. He continued to create passionately, producing numerous works throughout his life. In 1981, as the chief representative of Chinese composers, he attended the Asian Composers Conference and Music Festival in Hong Kong, where his guzheng concerto “Miluo River Fantasia” was premiered to acclaim. Li also delivered a report on “An Overview of Contemporary Chinese Music Composition” at the conference.

Despite battling late-stage cancer and deafness in both ears, Li persevered to complete his last work, the single-movement Chinese orchestral piece “Poem of the Earth,” in 1999. Li Huanzhi passed away on March 19, 2000, in Beijing at the age of 81.

“Spring Festival Overture” is one of Li Huanzhi’s most famous works, originally composed as the first movement of the “Spring Festival Suite.” The piece, initially scored for a Western symphony orchestra with a set of Chinese percussion instruments, showcases Chinese musical themes using Western compositional and orchestration techniques. The “Spring Festival Suite” consists of four movements: “Overture – Da Yangge,” “Love Song,” “Pan Song,” and “Finale – Lantern Festival.”

The suite was inspired by Li Huanzhi’s years in Shaanbei, where he became intimately familiar with the music of the region. The creation of “Spring Festival Suite” was prompted by a collaboration with dancer Dai Ailian in 1953 to collect and research musical material in Shaanbei’s rural areas for a dance work titled “Spring Festival.” Although the collaboration did not materialize, Li used the collected materials to compose the suite.

The structure of “Spring Festival Overture” follows a modified ternary form with an introduction that includes two themes. The overall structure is: Introduction – A – Transition – B – A’. In terms of tonality, the composer employed traditional Chinese pentatonic scales, such as the G do-mode (gong mode) for the first section and the G so-mode (zhi mode) for the second section.

Melodically, the piece extensively uses folk music material, such as the melody in the second section of the overture, which is derived from the Shaanxi folk song “In February.” The orchestration combines Western symphonic instruments with Chinese percussion instruments, creating a blend of Eastern and Western musical elements.

You can watch a performance of Li Huanzhi’s “Spring Festival Overture” at the following link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1eE411979R?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=4681f0684a5c74dd125d397ca5882ba3