Contemporary Composers Research Articles

THE NATIONAL AND THE UNIVERSAL IN CHEN YI’S WORKS

The article is devoted to Chen Yi, a Chinese violinist and composer living in the USA since 1986. Despite the worldwide fame, Chen Yi’s music has been little studied in Chinese and Russian musicology, except for individual works. Meanwhile, the expansion of knowledge about contemporary composers of China seems relevant for creating a general panorama of the Chinese musical culture of modern times. Many Chinese composers freely change their places of residence, tour all over the world, become honorary creative fi gures of different countries and at the same time remain dedicated to their native roots. Chen Yi’s work is an example of the commitment to the national culture, whose diverse images are embodied in the most striking modern stylistic solutions of the composer.

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The article deals with the issues of the modern piano repertoire of the outstanding composer Chu Wanhua. The author of the article dwells on the issues of combining traditions and innovations in his piano compositions. The folklore tradition occupies the most important place in his work. The author of the article says that the problem of the relationship between the composer and folklore is becoming more acute and relevant today. Also, as early as the 1960s, Chinese composers began to actively study and use modern writing techniques, such as atonality, twelve-tone technique, experimental avant-garde, etc. The rejection of the traditional foundations of the musical language, combined with at least some tangible elements of folklore material, made it possible for the listener to identify the musical content of the work. Despite the complex musical language and techniques, such works made it possible to associate them with one or another national tradition. The piano work of the Chinese contemporary composer Chu Wanhua in a special way reveals the synthesis of traditions and innovations in music.

THE NATIONAL AND THE UNIVERSAL IN CHEN YI’S WORKS

The article is devoted to Chen Yi, a Chinese violinist and composer living in the USA since 1986. Despite the worldwide fame, Chen Yi’s music has been little studied in Chinese and Russian musicology, except for individual works. Meanwhile, the expansion of knowledge about contemporary composers of China seems relevant for creating a general panorama of the Chinese musical culture of modern times. Many Chinese composers freely change their places of residence, tour all over the world, become honorary creative fi gures of different countries and at the same time remain dedicated to their native roots. Chen Yi’s work is an example of the commitment to the national culture, whose diverse images are embodied in the most striking modern stylistic solutions of the composer.

The Polystylistics of Svyatoslav Lunyov’s Paraliturgical Music

Paraliturgical music is a sophisticated expression of the composer’s pure faith, acquired through knowledge of his craft in historical and technical progress. Many examples of sacred music have come down to us from the past, and most of them were in the territory of modern Ukraine, along with works by Russian composers that are still a priority in some churches. One way to rethink this topic is to study the work of Ukrainian composers, particularly in the context of paraliturgical music. One example is the work of contemporary Ukrainian composer Svyatoslav Lunyov. While many scholarly studies have been analyzing liturgical genres and music in the liturgy in various aspects, including canonical music and the work of S. Lunyov, the question of the place of the choral symphony “Strasna Sedmytsia” in the context of paraliturgical music remains unresolved. Due to its scientific novelty, the study of Lunyov’s choral symphony in the context of Ukrainian paraliturgical music became the subject of a special musical and cultural analysis for the first time. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the spiritual revival has become more and more important. The historical path of development of church culture, which was deliberately almost destroyed at the beginning of the last century, is being rehabilitated as a result of the establishment of church-state relations. Currently, sacred music is subject to very mixed opinions among scholars, composers, church leaders, philosophers, and people of different faiths. Music based on the canonical texts that form the basis of the church rite but interpreted by contemporary composers seems impossible to introduce into the service on an everyday level. Such music is defined as “paraliturgical.” Today, there are many different examples of music of this genre, as almost all academic composers turn to.

What’s the Time? Deciphering “Meter” in Razak Abdul Aziz’s 5 Early Songs

The concept of meter in music has existed probably as old as music itself. Scholars had a variety of ways of categorizing meters in music. Recent investigations on the element of meter in contemporary art music show that scholars were more Europe-American-centric and only 10 Pantun Settings and Maria Zaitun by Razak Abdul Aziz were previously discussed academically, hence justifying the need to conduct this investigation. 5 Early Songs by Razak Abdul Aziz were written in 1980 (3 songs) and 1988 (2 songs). The researchers had chosen to conduct a systematic theoretical analysis of the chosen work using music theories proposed by Kostka et al. (2013), Kostka and Santa (2018), and Locke (2010). The analysis found that the use of the metric element is more complex in the two songs that were composed in 1988, suggesting that the 8-year gap the composer had given him time to acquire more musical materials, maturing over the years. It is hoped that this investigation would spark some interest among other scholars to conduct studies on the similar or other work(s) of Razak Abdul Aziz and possibly expand this to other Malaysian contemporary composers.

THE RECITER’S CREATIVITY IN THE CONTEXT OF REGIONAL CULTURAL CREATION (BY THE EXAMPLE OF ACTIVITY BY HONORED ARTIST OF UKRAINE RAISA RESHETNYUK)

The purpose of the article is to cover the stages of the life-stage development of the Chernihiv Philharmonic’s reciter, laureate of reciter’s national competitions, Honored Artist of Ukraine Raisa Reshetnyuk (1948–2014), understanding her contribution to the development of Chernihiv region’s culture of the ending of the 20th – the beginning of the 21th centuries. In the field of view of the author – the formation of artistic personality of Raisa Reshetnyuk as the reciter in the late 1970’s, the study of her major literary-and-musical programs “Solo for the Violin and the Clarinet” by the life and works of young P. Tychyna, “On the Wings of Song” by the circumstances of M. Kotsyubinsky’s life and work, the lyric poetry by T. Shevchenko “I’ll build the House and the Room…”, “My Sophia Rusova” (about the life feat of S. Rusova). The significant contribution of R. Reshetnyuk to the modern Shevchenkian was emphasized – the creation of a literary-and-musical work based on the poem-mystery by T. Shevchenko “The Great Cellar”, where R. Reshetnyuk was the author of the idea, performer and director. The educational orientation of literary-and-musical compositions created by R. Reshetnyuk, based on the works of authors, who lived and created in Chernihiv region (P. Tychyna, M. Kotsyubynsky, L. Glibov and others), caused their inclusion in the concert plan of the Philharmonic Lecture, headed by R. Reshetnyuk. The wide audience (schoolchildren, college and universities students, teachers etc.) regularly saw these programs. Historical-chronological, source study and logical-resumptive methods constitute the methodological basis of the work to study Raisa Reshetnyuk’s creativity, the analysis of data from periodical sources. The scientific novelty of the research is conditioned by the fact of the first research in the national theater science and the Ukrainian culturology the creativity of Raisa Reshetnyuk as the only representative of reciter art in Chernihiv region. The results of this research made it possible to draw a conclusion that R. Reshetnyuk’s many years of creative activity were closely intertwined with the socio-cultural context of the time and became an important period in the development of artistic life in Chernihiv region. Her work was aimed at forming the public perception of Chernihiv as one of the centers of national cultural formation. The educational nature of R. Reshetnyuk’s work influenced the development of the musical life of Chernihiv region at the end of 20th – beginning of the 21th centuries. This influence can be traced to the emergence of numerous examples of contemporary composer creativity by M. Demidenko, A. Tkachuk, M. Zbaratsky, V. Kotsur, M. Borsch which were written specifically for the literary-and-music programs of R. Reshetnyuk. Further study of R. Reshetnyuk’s creative activity can continue in the direction of clarifying the features of her work with literary sources, generalization of her directorial work in forming the repertoire of the Philharmonic Lecture, the study of the influence of the reciter on the development of the humanitarian space of the Chernihiv region of the late 20th – beginning of the 21th centuries, will help to form an integrated picture of the artistic life of the region.

데이비드 버어지(D. Burge)의 <고향>에 투영된 한국 문화와 음악기법 연구

This study analyzes the deep sentiments for Korea expressed in <Go-Hyang>(Ancestral Home, 1994), a piano solo piece by David Burge, a pioneer of contemporary American music in the late 20th century. In this 6-movement work, quotation of Korean folk song and imitation of the folk rhythm allude to the wartime Korea. He portrays his lifelong friendships with Koreans through frequently interrupted melodies, linear progressions and nuances of soft dynamics, while chromatic harmonies, cluster, and poly-rhythm express Burge's identity as a contemporary composer. His relationship with Korea- his 'ancestral home' in heart, and his conflict and embrace of foreign culture noted in the autobiographical novel, ｢Vanishing Spring｣, manifest as warm timbre of dissonance and imitation techniques. Created from cultural understanding and personal experience, <Go-Hyang> is a work that sublimates the embrace of conflicting cultures into music beyond the fusion of Eastern and Western music.

Industrial Techno and SID Sound Design in the Commodore 64 GameSlipstream

Slipstream is a rail shooter developed by the group Bauknecht. The soundtrack, composed by Ronny Engmann, accentuates the game’s futuristic space setting and emphasis on speed by invoking the electronic dance music style of industrial techno, which combines the taut grooves of minimal techno with the abrasive sonics of early industrial music to make for an intensification of the sound that made the club scenes of Detroit and Berlin famous. Despite the Commodore 64 being a supposedly obsolete 8-bit platform that had its manufacture stopped decades ago, contemporary composers like Engmann are compelled to use the machine for its SID (Sound Interface Device) chip, which stands apart from the sound chips of other 8-bit home computers and consoles due to its variety of waveform types, filtering capabilities, ring modulation, and oscillator sync effects. The skills that Engmann developed while exploring the affordances of this versatile chip enabled him to compose a video game soundtrack that is informed by his engagement with the Berlin techno scene from the early 1990s onward. Drawing from ethnographic interviews with Engmann and Slipstream’s programmer Stefan Mader, this article demonstrates how techno’s pivotal theme of synergistic existence of humanity with technology resonates with an ecstatic feeling of forward propulsion that characterizes Slipstream. Focusing on the musical dimension of timbre and addressing the practical issues of modern cross-platform development through an analysis of Engmann’s project files for the Commodore 64 music tool GoatTracker, this article shows that Slipstream’s soundtrack is exemplary in effectively harnessing electronic dance music as video game music.

Inštruktívna tvorba vybraných súčasných skladateľov a jej využitie v umeleckom vzdelávaní v základných umeleckých školách

Slovak piano music of 21st century composers is quite extensive, so it is important to know how to navigate through it. The versatility and genre variation in this work is rich, yet relatively unknown to the music public. This is evidenced by the fact that we hear mostly old familiar pieces at music events. Also due to this, the use of instructive piano works by contemporary composers in the pedagogical process is relatively underrepresented. Our aim is not to map all the available literature, but to highlight that which meets the criteria for use in the pedagogical process.

ВИОЛОНЧЕЛЬНЫЙ КОНЦЕРТ «LA MEMOIRE» ЧЭНЯ МУШЕНА: ПРОГРАММА И ЕЕ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ

The article is devoted to revealing the world of artistic images of the First Cello Concerto “La Memoire” (2011/2013) by the talented contemporary composer Chen Musheng (b. 1971). The prehistory of the composition is considered, connected with Chen's creative biography and his studies in Switzerland with the great master Eric Godibert, to whose memory the Concerto was dedicated. The article concerns the influence of the avant-garde ideas of Western composers on Chen Musheng's work, perceived from his teacher. It is about the manifestation of an important trend of the time — the use of European writing techniques to embody an idea in a work with Chinese roots. The peculiar genre and style content of the Concerto with the features of symphony, fantasy, instrumental requiem is emphasized. The methods of implementing the idea of the Cello Concerto were similar to those of the German-Swiss expressionist artist Paul Klee (1879–1940), who had influenced the work of Godibert and Chen Musheng. In this regard, Klee's “Pedagogical Sketches” are notable for their vivid presentation of his techniques of continuous compositional movement and the formation of form elements borrowed from the musical sphere. “The painter of music” Paul Klee was called. Chen Musheng can be called “Graphically showing the movement of images”. The associativity of the Chinese composer's thinking and his use of genre allusions make it possible to reveal the content of the Concerto and to identify some important stylistic features of his writing.

«For a long time» Алексея Ретинского: Поэтический источник как основа музыкальной композиции

The article discusses the chamber work «For a long Time (and in this length continuity abruptly)» by the contemporary composer Alexei Retinsky. The proposed work is the first attempt of scientific understanding of Alexey Retinsky's creativity in Russian musicology. The main attention is paid to the role of the poetic source of the composition — Gennady Aiga's poem «Long: the Sun» in the musical composition. The connection between the musical and poetic text is traced, which is the key to understanding the idea. The author traces the development and interaction of three thematic semantic complexes associated with the central images-ideas of G. Aiga's poem: «longitude», «silence»" and «sun».

THE ISSUES OF SURVIVAL AND INHERITANCE OF YUNNAN ETHNIC MINORITY FOLK SONGS IN CHINA

Yunnan Province is home to many of China's ethnic minorities, with 25 ethnic groups living in an area of 394,100 square kilometers. Chinese ethnic minority music is an art form created by ethnic minority groups in their daily life and widely spread among the folk. As an indispensable part of people's lives, it condenses the daily life, labor, production activities, and folk habits of all ethnic groups, and is a true portrayal of the normal life of ethnic minorities. The diversity of ethnic groups has contributed to the various styles of ethnic folk songs. The diverse ethnic folk songs serve as an important part of traditional Chinese culture. However, the development of the social economy, the acceleration of modernization, and the strong impact of foreign music culture led to the unprecedented survival crisis faced by Yunnan minority folk songs. The author will analyze the reasons that lead to the survival crisis of minority folk songs in Yunnan in terms of its self-development and social factors and put forward relevant thinking on the future development of minority folk songs, hoping to provide some references and theoretical basis for contemporary composers and researchers.

Peace and Tenderness: An Analysis on Chinese Female Contemporary Composer Leilei Tian’s Works

Peace and Tenderness: An Analysis on Chinese Female Contemporary Composer Leilei Tian’s Works

On Ao Changqun's Patriotic Feelings in His Songs

Patriotism is a complex of loving and defending one's own country. As an outstanding contemporary composer in China, Ao Changqun has created a large number of excellent music works covering symphony, chamber music, concerto, opera, dance drama and other genres, and works that highlight patriotism play an important role in his music creation. This paper introduces Professor Ao Changqun's general situation of creation, combs his songs, and explores the patriotic feelings in his songs from three aspects: love of the motherland, love of the nation, love of hometown.

From Choir to String Quartet – Sound Metamorphoses in the Composition of the Work Opt bagatele pentru cvartet de coarde by Adrian Pop

"Among the three string quartets of the Cluj composer, we have chosen to focus on the opus Opt bagatele pentru cvartet de coarde [Eight bagatelles for string quartet] (1996), awarded with the “George Enescu” Prize of the Romanian Academy, and whose ideational, thematic, and dramatic ground is a previous choral cycle of the author, Galgenlieder-Bagatellen (1987), lyrics from Galgenlieder / Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern (1905). Notwithstanding the inherent differences between the instrumental and vocal versions, the musical attitudes preserve the predilection and appetence for the vocal composition that Adrian Pop holds so dear, including through the use of certain vocal phonemes, the chromatics of the chordophones in the third bagatelle. The instrumental and chromatic refinement of the eight bagatelles confirms the essential role they play in the creation of one of the most important contemporary composers of Cluj and Romania. Keywords: Adrian Pop, bagatelle, version, transcription, rewriting, contemporary "

Professional education toward protean careers in music? Bigenerational Finnish composers’ pathways and livelihoods in changing ecosystems

Contemporary professional landscapes in classical music fields are rapidly changing and younger generations of musicians are confronting their creative careers, more often than not in connection to self-employment and freelancing. This narrative inquiry investigates the pathways and livelihoods of composers in a changing professional ecosystem through interviews with 10 bigenerational composers in Finland. The analysis is presented in three “factional stories,” in which the empirical material is crafted into “fictional form” by an anonymous first-person narrator. The stories depict how the secure, traditional careers of the older generation are found to be bound to traditional orchestras and ensembles, whereas the protean careers of the younger generation of composers involve passionate pathfinding amid pluralizing ecosystems, within but also beyond traditional contexts and through various collaborations. The younger composers are expanding significantly, or consciously distancing themselves from, the traditional model and values of a contemporary composer. Competition is found to be increasing and professional education described as too short and insufficient in its concentration on technique—this does not provide new understandings and skills beyond traditional composing craft needed for navigating the profession and securing livelihoods. Although similarities are found in the pathways of both composers’ generations, such as strong career callings and experiences of luck, the “struggle” for a composer to find a place in society is more strongly experienced by the younger generation, for which the development of an ongoing “learner identity” is required to embrace—and not resist—such a challenge. As a whole, the study provides a new understanding of composers’ pathfinding through changing ecosystems and suggests that traditional and protean music careers co-exist—even within a single person—while they can also be clearly separated from each other. The study informs higher music education programs in Western countries.

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

Smears, Laughs, and Barnyard Hokum: Early Jazz Trombone and the Problem of Novelty

Smears, Laughs, and Barnyard Hokum: Early Jazz Trombone and the Problem of Novelty

REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING COMPOSITION FOR CONFIDENCE, EQUITY AND COMMUNITY

AbstractThe increasing precarity of arts academic jobs, combined with a much needed focus on equity and decolonisation, are de-privileging and destabilising the experimental music tradition and contemporary composer identity. As a result, composition departments are pursuing a paradox: scrambling to focus on specific marketable skills while also broadening the genres taught. After teaching in a composition department, a generalised arts department and a prison college programme, I describe methods to provide skills training for students interested in different genres, even if those genres are not the specialty of a department's faculty. These include: (1) discrete ‘levels’ of creative thought, from high-level questions of art's purpose to ground-level skills training; (2) creative process assignments, in which students plan and document their way through a prompt, developing a practical discipline into which desired skills can be incorporated; and (3) formal spaces for students to learn from each other, one-on-one, getting deeper into the similarities and differences they have. The goal is to empower students not simply via marketability, but by developing a sense of vocation without tethering creativity to employment, so that students may more realistically and more potently design their own lives in music.

Unter die Lupe genommen: Kompositorische Auseinandersetzungen mit Ludwig van Beethoven seit 2010

Beethoven enjoys an astonishing presence in contemporary musical life, although two hundred years separate him from our present. His mature works are considered “the foundation of modern music” (Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen 2019). However, their continued veneration and marketing has often led to a failure to recognise their potential for innovation, which once made them the new music of their time. Like “classical music” in general, Beethoven is frequently misunderstood as a self-evident exhibit in “The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works” (Lydia Goehr 1992). The tension between enduring modernity and growing historical distance makes Beethoven a central point of reference for contemporary composers. Since his 200th anniversary in 1970, numerous compositional explorations of his music have emerged, especially in the run-up to the 250th anniversary in 2020. Using a small selection of new instrumental works from the 2010s by Hans Zender, Johannes Schöllhorn, Frank Zabel, Johannes Quint, Vito Palumbo and others, this essay examines various ways of arrangements and recompositions which reflect on, update or analyse Beethoven’s music.