Research On Circle Thinking In Eds' Music Structure

As one of the most excellent representatives in the contemporary western serious music world, English composer Thomas Ades has won a large number of international awards including the 2000 Grawemeyer Award for Asyla(the largest international prize for composition) which is awarded to the youngest winners. His creation highlights the dialectical understanding of traditional and modern composition techniques, as well as expounds on the combination of rationality and sensibility to a great extent. Besides,his unique creation is a great majority practices that develop circular thought acting on elements and Polyphonic organization of musical structure. Taking String Quartet Arcadia, which is one of his early representatives, as the research object, this article studies the characteristics of the circular thought in Ades’ works, innovative techniques such as interval cycle, variable speed rhythm cycle and tone cycle, and the application of circular thought in the micro texture of musical structure and macro form structure.Through this study, the author hopes to reveal the important practical significance of circular thought in the mid- to late 20 th century.