The Music Characteristics Of Chinese Contemporary Chamber Opera Life On A String And The Night Of The Banquet

Abstract: Taken two Chinese chamber operas Life on a String by Qu Xiaosong and The Night of the Banquet by Guo Wenjing as the research objects, the thesis discussed their music technique features and art characteristics from the aspects of their structure, audio technique, figuring way and so on. The writer wishes it would be a great significance to the creation of Chinese modern experimental opera.The dissertation separated two parts, and each one with three chapters.The first part discussed Life on a String. The first chapter talked on the whole structural modality and main structure power of the play from viewpoints of the drama and music. For the drama structural power, the writer analyzed the structural feature of play in play, dissertated that the plot of"snapping the string", which happened three times, were function as the drama structural power. For the music, based on the analyzed the each scene music structure as well as the whole one, it mainly discussed several themes, motifs, figures, the entirety of tempo distribution, and the timber of sanxian as typical instrument, those through the whole play as the music structural power. The second chapter was Audio Technique and Drama Expressional Way. It related to the technique issue of rhythm, metre, counterpoint. For the drama expressional way, the writer focused on the instrumental music action in the opera, such as its expressional function, the meaning of timbre, and the means of audio structure. The chapter three was The Figuring Way, which showed the drama unitary train of thought on figuring, and the human voice effecting during process of figuring.The second part was on The Night of the Banquet. And the chapter four was the Overall Structure Pattern with Primary Structural Power. The writer held that the drama structure of the opera was a kind of isomorphic contrast of two scenario lines in different tenses systems, and this way was the result of drama substance reflecting directly to its structure. The composer used some of themes and motifs from Chinese traditional music Hangong Qiuyue (A Tragedy in Palace of Han Dynasty) and others as the nucleus structural power to the whole musical structure of opera. In the end of chapter four, there were some of writer's thoughts on the relationship between the drama and music, which caused by two literature scripts during creation process of The Night of the Banquet. The chapter five separated two sections. The first one discussed the composition technique such as textural shape, rhythm with metre, harmony and polyphony, modes and tonality, all of those showed the typical Chinese monophonic music thoughts. The writer deemed that the logic audio texture shaped the technical kernel of Chinese literati music characteristic to the opera The Night of the Banquet. Started with the special function of instrumental music in the opera, the second part analyzed the instruments of pipa, percussions, strings and winds separately with their...