On Heterophony And Its Application In Western Modern Music

Heterophony widely exists in folk music, and it is a most common texture form of folk multipart music. The heterophony phenomenon is complex and it has different forms. The heterophony of different countries, regions, nationalities and styles has different features, which provides a rich illustration for the research of heterophony.The development of western professional music has never been separated from ties with folk music. It might be said that folk music is the source of creation of composers. They adopt not only folk tones, but also folk subject matter and style, absorb not only that of their own nationality, but also that of other nationalities. In the period of modern music, this tendency is becoming stronger and stronger, and more and more composers are absorbing more techniques of expression, from which the further digging and application of heterophony can be clearly seen.This thesis consists of part 1 and part 2. In part 1, with the heterophony phenomenon in folk music as basis, discussion is conducted according to heterophony. In "a discussion of heterophony and its related issues", a more detailed explanation is made to the concept of heterophony, especially a concrete explanation is made to the word "variant" involved in the concept, to provide a necessary theoretic basis for the classification of heterophony texture. In this paper, viewpoints are made clear and verification is conducted for the class of heterophony.In the chapter "The phenomenon of heterophony in folk music", a detailed review and analysis is made to the heterophony in the folk multipart music of China and a deep digging is conducted to the heterophony in foreign folk music according to the existing literature. The heterophony in folk music not only is extremely rich in its forms, but also has distinct features."The types of heterophony texture and the linguistic characteristics of music" is the central content of part 1. This thesis classifies the texture of heterophony with respect to the longitudinal and transverse changes of melody, stressing the essential characteristics of heterophony texture. In this respect, what is original is to determine what parallel motion is heterophony texture, to dig up a new heterophony texture-- development heterophony, to make a choice of using both comprehensive heterophony and composite heterophony, and to make a definite differentiation between the both.The topic of part 2 is the application of heterophony in western modern music, first "the review of the traditional period", from the time of Organum to the time of Romanticism.Next is "A discussion of the application of heterophony in western modem music". The key and difficult point of this issue is in which works of which composers heterophony is applied. After reading a lot of music scores and literature, 57 pieces of works by 21 modern music composers of 8 western countries were chosen for research, which opened up a road for the writing of the subject. The examples of music score used in this thesis were chosen on this basis. The content of this chapter includes 3 pieces of Parable for Church Performance of Benjamin Britten, the application of heterophony in Russian modern music, the application of heterophony in American modern music, and the application of heterophony in other western countries and modern music of composers.The last chapter is "the features of application of heterophony in western modern music", which summarizes the types of heterophony texture and the features of application of heterophony on the basis of content of above chapter.Through an analysis and research of the application of heterophony in western modern music, aesthetic experience was obtained, enlightenment was given for music creation and reference was provided for the application of heterophony in music creation, so as to enrich the technique of composition.