A Study Of The Music Score Of Kun Opera During The Late Qing Dynasty And Republican Period

This dissertation is focused on the music score of Kun Opera during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period (1840-1949). During this period, drama performance, drama writing, and the development of music score are all in a particular historical stage: the decline of Chuanqi's writing, the withering of Kun Opera's market, and the endangered situation of traditional drama.Kun Opera 's music score, nevertheless, turns out to reach its prosperity at the same time. The study in this specific field has always been neglected in the drama study. In attempting to explore the developing process, characteristic, and value of the music score during this time,this dissertation features that sets up drama history as the background and establish itself on a case study of music score from a microcosmic perspective. This dissertation will be divided into the following five aspects.First,the emerging background of Kun Opera's music score during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period. This part starts with the circumstance of Kun Opera, centers on the concept transformation of "singing without staging" and "singing with staging" as well as their association with the development of music score,reviews the features of Kun Opera's music score,classifies and briefly introduces them.Second, the study of the editing progress and functions of Kun Opera's music score during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period. This part seeks clue from preface,postscript,and appendix of the music score, that is, observes the editors, intention, and publishing process of the present music score as well as explore the theoretic values and practical functions of these music score by studying these specialized discussion in relevant documents.Third, the study of selection criteria and plays style during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period. On the one hand, this part aims to study the criteria of play selection by a detailed comparison between well-renowned plays and those plays which had been selected. On the other hand, this part also renders a dynamic interpretation of new tendency and new changes of plays selection with an analysis of popular plays and mainstream criteria of plays selection.Fourth,the study of text polishing and adaption during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period. This part is focused on "big characters" in the music score. By a comparison between original text and its adaption version,the author explores the text adaptions on structure,content, characters, and scripts; meanwhile discusses about the goal and effect of the text adaption.Fifth, the reason and revolution of the form and characteristics of Kun Opera's score recording during the late Qing dynasty and Republican period. This part mainly consists of the microcosmic study of score itself. Based on a great number of score examples, by comparing the different "Gongchi" marks of a play in different music scores,this part studies the evolution of tunes marks, instructional marks for playing, measure marks, and pronunciation marks, and analyze the recording characteristics of each music score. This part particularly discovers an exception of music variation of southern-northern music.In sum, this dissertation will explore a great quantity of documents of music score, attempt to objectively evaluate the features, functions, significance, and influences of music score during this period so as to further the works of music score organization, theoretic study, and Kun Opera's inheriting.