Le 1er juillet 2017
de 11h30 à 12h00
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3208
Séance - Analytical Issues in Ethnomusicology
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Yan Zheng
The exploring new analytical approaches and perspectives based on new music would contribute to reinvigoration of music analysis. Contemporary Chinese music could be a part of such a project. This essay will consider contributions from traditional artistic practices to the analysis of Contemporary Chinese Music. My presentation will introduce the works of Gao Weijie (b. 1938), a Distinguished Professor of composition at China Conservatory of Music and one of the most respected composers of his generation. Gao has navigated cultural difference in especially creative and provocative ways. This essay will briefly analyse two chamber works inspired by ancient Chinese poetry: Winter Snow (2005) for piano and The Road (1996) for violin and piano. I will argue that these two works serve to illustrate the intermingling of western composition techniques and the semiotics of Chinese culture, in particular intersections with Chinese painting and poetry. Gao developed Milton Babbitt’s combinatoriality theory and Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition to arrive at techniques of “partial combinatoriality” and “non-octave repeating scales” used in his works. Analysing a few passages and examples, I will show that Gao Weijie has found inspiration from both western composers whose techniques he has developed in novel, imaginative ways and from ancient Chinese culture, painting and poetry. The two works presented are conversations with Chinese artistic culture and explorations of new ways of making music. In Gao’s art there are important clues for understanding the semiotics of Chinese culture and the potential of that culture for creating new music.
