中国艺术歌曲创作之我见

My Opinion on the Composing of Chinese Art Songs

艺术歌曲（ArtSonq）是声乐创作的一种专门体裁，最初起源于19世纪的德国，当时是与民歌（FolkSonq）相对而言的，专指作曲家用精致的技巧写成的由钢琴伴奏的歌曲——史称艺术歌曲。除舒伯特、舒曼、勃拉姆斯、沃尔夫等“德奥”作曲家写过大量这类歌曲外，匈牙利、波兰、法国及俄罗斯等国的作曲家也都相继写过这类歌曲。其中，中国听众较为熟悉的有舒伯特的《小夜曲》《菩提树》《魔王》，

The history of the composition of Chinese art songs is quite short.The pioneering work is no doubt the song'the Endless River Eastward Flows'composed by Qing Zhu when he studied in Germany in 1920.Six years later,Zhao Yuanren wrote'How Much I Miss Him'.Since then,many other composers wrote excellent art songs,among them Huang Zi,Ying Shangneng,Li Weining,He Luting,Chen Tianhe,Liu Xue'an,Jiang Dingxian,Ma Sicong,Lu Huabai,Xia Zhiqiu and Ding Shande.From the very beginning, Chinese art songs featured the combination of both the means of expression in foreign art songs and the Chinese language,nation- al personality and means of expressions of people's feelings.This is one of the good traditions that those pioneering composers of Chinese art songs have handed down to us. Any art form has its own artistic characteristics and aesthetic criteria,and art song is no exception.What are the characteristics of art song then? From the perspective of its history,there are at least four points:firstly,it is the expression of personal feelings. Even if it is supposed to express the collective will,it is done through the personal experience.Secondly,the lyrics are poems with strong musicality and literariness,some of which were select- ed directly from classic poems.Thirdly,art songs are usually writ- ten for a particular voice part(for example,soprano,mezzo so- prano,baritone and bass).Fourthly,the accompaniment(especial- ly the piano,sometimes with one or two other instruments,or even an orchestra)is of great importance,as it is not accompani- ment in general sense,but rather an organic part of the whole work,integrating with the voice part.So the composer usually deals with the two parts in parallel when he composes the song. There was a famous saying in the past:'an art song is a duet of singer and pianist.'This is very true.These four fundamental charac- teristics of art songs are not pure imagination of some music theorist, but rather out of the two centuries' history of art songs,including Chi- nese art songs. In spite of the achievements in the field of art song composition for the past 20 years or so,the situation is not satisfactory in compar- ison with other genres.The major problems are as follows: 1)Lack of works.There are too few composers to write art songs,and too few high quality art songs.In some music colleges and academies,teachers and students would write a few art songs when they are going to participate in relevant competitions,and nor- mally few people would care about writing them.The reason is both objective in terms of economic benefits,and subjective as composition of art songs is often neglected. 2)Understanding of the genre is misleading so that it affects the composition of art songs proper.Art song composition,strictly speak- ing,is a process in which voice and piano parts are composed at the same time in parallel,not a process of melody first,then piano part. At least at the same time when you are writing the melody,you should have already thought about the accompaniment.Unfortunately,many of today's so-called'art songs'are just melody plus accompaniment, sometimes very bad accompaniment. 3)The greatest difference between vocal music composition and instrumental music composition lies in two aspects:one is that vocal music works use the'singing throat'(together with accompaniment)to express music,which requires the composer to understand and make good use of the features and functions of the throat.It is just like you need to have basic knowledge of instrumentation when composing works for orchestra.And in fact,the singing throat is far more compli- cated than an instrument.Second is that vocal music works mostly combine with written languages,which are connected with national tra- ditions,customs,character,personality and temperament of various na- tions.I personally believe that our mother tongue is the language that has the richest characteristics and means of expression in the world. Hence our composers should study it,master it by learning at least the four tones,syllables,intonation,mood and logic accent.The reason I wrote these words about the singing throat and language is because this is of utmost importance to the composing of good art songs.As the composer of the song'How Much I Miss Him',Zhao Yuanren is a great master of language.I find that those who wish to write good art songs but fail to reach the higher level of art song creation,often are weak at mastering the singing throat or short of language research. 4)The issue of innovation in art song composition.In my opinion, any art genre,including art song,should be free from being un- changeable.Exploration and innovation should be carried out in such terms as subject matter,composing technique and musical language, in order to meet the increasing demands of the people for aesthetic appreciation.It should be admitted that the Chinese art songs have developed so slowly partly because of the out-of-date composing concepts,techniques and musical languages.In this sense,they can hardly rival the lyric songs.