Chen Tian Crane Art Song Research

Chen Tianhe（1911~1955） is a successful composer and music educator inChinese recent and modern musical history. He has been called one of the fourleading disciples of Huang Zi since he was taught by Huang Zi and learnt the truemass of musical creation from Huang Zi. He adhered to his teacher’s musicalaspiration and continued the works that his teacher didn’t finish, which displayedeminently on his artistic and musical creation.According to statistics, Chen Tianhewrote34artistic songs in his life and his works had been praised by people in his timeand left precious musical wealth for his later generations with works of multiplequantity, high quality and fine tasty. His songs can be divided into two groupsaccording to their musical forms: the songs created on the basis of classical Chinesepoetry and the songs created on the basis of Chinese modern poetry. His songs aremore concerned with praising love, describing nature and expressing personal sad andalone. As well, there are some songs that encourage people’s will to fight andenterprising spirit and songs reflect the theme of “national calamity”, so somescholars called his songs “perfect containers that can pour into his own soul”. Ingeneral, in his musical creation, Chen is strict in selecting the poetic materials.Besides, the melody and the lyrics matched with each other ideally, the harmonydisposed uniquely, the musical mode used flexibly, and the piano texture accompaniedfreshly and elegantly. Therefore, he was called the best successor of Huang Zi’sartistic musical creation.This thesis consists of the introduction, the main part of three chapters and theconclusion, analyzing Chen Tianhe’s life experience and his creation of artistic songsdeeply by using the method of literature research, music analysis and comparativeresearch, so that Chen Tianhe and his artistic musical creation can be reevaluated andthe true nature of him can be revealed. The first chapter will give an introduction ofChen Tianhe’s musical life, including the musical enlightenment in his teenage time,the initially mature stage of his musical creation, the high peak of his composition,and the difficulties and sufferings in his later creation, and then the brief and bumpy personal and musical life of Chen can be seen clearly. The second chapter is acomprehensive analysis of Chen’s artistic songs, which is also the most important partof this thesis. Above all, it will provide a brief introduction of the developing road ofChinese artistic songs in the first half of the20th century, setting Chen’s artistic songsin a certain social and historical background and determining the position of his songsaccurately. Then, the textual analysis for the lyrics of Chen’s artistic songs will bemade, by which thinking about the significant influence of Chen’s literaryaccomplishment for his artistic creation. The next part is the musical analysis of hisartistic songs, with the analysis of the Melody characteristics, mode and tonality,musical structure, and the techniques of piano accompaniment in depth as the mainpart. At last, through the case analysis by taking Chen Tianhe as an example, thethesis will compare Chen’s works with the other works composed since1919, whichcan highlights the value of Chen’s artistic songs. The third chapter is a summarizationfor the artistic value and historical significance of Chen’s artistic songs. The wholepart will focus on three aspects: first of all, it will discuss the spirit contained in hissongs. From the research of his songs, Chen’s inner world and aesthetic tendency canbe observed, and then the spiritual connotation of his songs can be concluded. Then,the value of the times reflected by his songs will be discussed. Most of his songs werecomposed during1930s and1940s, Chen’s artistic songs is characteristic of gentle,moving, fresh and elegant, which is different from those powerful songs composedand sung in the Anti-Japanese War. By the summarization of these two aspects, thehistorical meanings of Chen’s artistic songs can be concluded.The thesis mainly concentrates on analyzing Chen Tianhe’s artistic musicalcreation and its historical value, which is a meaningful activity in reevaluating Chenand his works and reflecting the true nature of Chen Tianhe in recent and modernmusical history.