KS5 KS 5

Alan Charlton is a freelance composer and has written numerous lesson resources for Music Teacher, including material on the IB set work El Saln Mxico.

Xian Xinghai Yellow River Piano Concerto

by Alan Charlton

INTrODUcTiON
Xian Xinghais Yellow River Piano Concerto is one of the two prescribed set works for IB HL and SL for examination in 201314, the other being Prokoevs Classical Symphony. As the Yellow River Piano Concerto is a new set work and quite unusual in style and structure this resource builds on Music Teachers April 2012 resource, offering more detailed analysis of the work. Knowledge and understanding of the set works is tested in Section A of paper 1 (the listening paper). In this section, three questions are set, from which students have to answer question 3, comparing the two set works, and then choose from either question 1 or 2, which are on the respective individual works. Students have clean scores of the set works with them in the examination. Each question carries 20 marks, so the set works account for 40 out of 140 total marks for the paper at higher level and 40 out of 120 marks for standard level. IB set works tend to be selected to highlight links between different musical traditions and Xians Yellow River Piano Concerto, with its strong Chinese and European inuences and inseparable relationship to Chinese political and social concerns, is no exception. This resource will therefore approach the work from this angle, with the musical elements being explained in this context.

BAckGrOUND
China in the Twentieth Century As with its neighbour Russia, China experienced great political and social upheaval in the twentieth century that encompassed war, revolution, famine and political repression. Since the 17th century, China had been ruled by the Qing dynasty, whose vast empire included Tibet, Mongolia and Turkestan. Its power had gradually waned, with Western powers gaining considerable inuence over trade in the nineteenth century. Further weakened by the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, China became a republic in 1911-12 with the abdication of the last emperor. This gave rise to a period of instability during which rival groups sought to wrestle power from Sun Yat-sens leadership, with the Communist Party in particular becoming a growing threat. In 1925, Chiang Kai-sheks nationalist party, the Kuomintang, gained control, initiating a civil war with the communists. Then in 1931, Japan invaded, starting a gradual occupation that lasted until the end of the Second World War. During this period, Mao Zedong became the Communist leader (1934), establishing a base in Shaanxi Province, before temporarily uniting with the Kuomintang against the Japanese in 1937. After Japans defeat at the end of the Second World War, (1945), the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists resumed, with Mao declaring victory in 1949, founding the Peoples Republic of China. As Stalin had in Russia, he established an authoritarian regime and set about forcibly redistributing land from landlords to peoples communes, and developing huge infrastructure projects. The rst such economic drive (the Great Leap Forward) in 1958 had to be abandoned after it resulted in famine and millions of deaths. Political isolation, followed with growing threats from both Russia and the West. Concerned that China was increasingly becoming ruled by an intellectual elite, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution of 1966, in which intellectuals were moved out of the cities into the countryside to be re-educated by the peasants, or in other words forced to carry out hard manual labour. This period saw the closure of schools amid a climate of fear presided over by the violent groups of young men known as Red Guards. The worst period of violence ended in 1969, but

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the Cultural Revolution lasted until Maos death in 1976. After this, Deng Xiaoping assumed control, bringing with it a less repressive climate and opening the country up to the outside world. Although human rights continued to be a considerable issue, the Tiannamen Square massacre of 1989 caused worldwide outrage. Since then, China has continued to become more open, prosperous and Westernised and is now one of the leading economies and superpowers in the world. Why is the above history lesson important? Because the Yellow River Piano Concerto is inseparably linked to political events in China, in an even more extreme way than Shostakovichs works were affected by Stalinist Russia. Unlike most western classical works, it was composed by no fewer than ve people over a period of over 32 years. The original version (Yellow River Cantata) was completed by Xian Xinghai in 1939, when China was at war with Japan and still divided by civil war between the Communists and Nationalists. This music was then reworked into the Yellow River Piano Concerto (the IB set work) by four musicians in 1971 during the Cultural Revolution, when Western culture was considered dangerous and subservience to Chairman Mao and his entourage was paramount. The inuences of these two different periods can be seen very clearly in the music, so a knowledge of them is essential to it.

MUsic AND pOLiTics iN 20TH cENTUry CHiNA

The political upheaval affected the performance and creation of music in a profound way. Two main strands of music were involved, which went in and out of favour according to the politics of the time. Populist music: mass songs, e.g. political songs, workers songs Cosmopolitan music: Western classical music, e.g. Beethoven, Chopin Chinese musicians were torn between the last two of these, not least because the Communist Party frequently changed its stance on the type of music it wanted to promote. At the time of the composition of the Yellow River Cantata (1939), the Communists tolerated cosmopolitan musicians; musicians who were inuenced by Western music and who sought to emulate Western compositional techniques into their own music. However, they also wanted to use music as a means of educating the masses in Communist ideals and ultimately to attract their support. In order for this to happen, it had to be popular. Xian Xinghai, composer of the Yellow River Cantata was widely regarded as the Chinese composer who most successfully combined these two strands. When the Communists came to power in 1949, the role of music changed from being a revolutionary force to a means of maintaining order and establishing loyalty towards the regime. The party wanted to create a new type of music to mark the beginning of a new era and help to dene China as a great nation; traditional music had two many associations with Chinas past to be used. Initially, it was thought that the answer lay in combining political music (Communist songs, marches and so on) with a Western classical music-inuence technique (i.e. western-style harmonisation, instrumentation, forms, etc.). Cosmopolitan musicians, who had perhaps been musically educated in Europe, were best placed to write this sort of music as they were the most skilled. Additionally in the 1950s, cosmopolitan Chinese musicians such as the pianist Fou Tsong received great acclaim outside of China for their performances, and were thus valued by the regime, since they enhanced its inuence and prestige. At the time, China had close ties with its communist neighbour Russia, so its artistic inuence extended to Eastern Block countries such as Poland, where Fou Tsong won third prize in the Chopin Competition. However, China fell out with Russia, and this, coupled with Mao Zedongs movements of Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, led to an anti-cosmopolitan climate and the repression of intellectuals, who included musicians. During the Cultural Revolution, the heads of Chinas musical conservatoires were persecuted by the Red Guards, with for instance the Shanghai Conservatoire president He Luting, known for his championing

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of European music and criticism of mass song, having his home ransacked and being publicly beaten by Red Guards. Traditional Chinese music was also attacked. This led to a musical problem: as European music was effectively banned, many Chinese musicians were out of work, having nothing to play. There was thus a need to create new works that could be performed but which also conformed to the ideals of the regime: for a while the only works that had ofcial approval were model operas combining Beijing opera singing and western instruments, such as Yin Chengzongs The Red Lantern. It was to provide additional party-approved music that the Yellow River Piano Concerto came into being.

THE GENEsis OF YELLOw RiVEr PiANO CONcErTO

Xian Xinghai (1905 1945) Xian Xinghai composed the original incarnation of the work, called Yellow River Cantata. This was a choral work in eight movements composed from 1938 9 during the war with Japan while Xinghai was based at the Communist headquarters in Yanan. Xian had humble origins, being born into a family of boat people. After being introduced to western music and taking up the clarinet and violin during his time at a school attached to Lignan University, he went on to study at various Chinese music conservatoires, including Canton, Beijing and Shanghai. In 1930 he travelled to Paris, where he studied with the French composers Paul Dukas (Composer of The Sorcerers Apprentice) and Vincent DIndy. Living in extreme poverty, he nevertheless encountered the impressionistic musical style of Debussy and others, which must have inuenced his approach to orchestration and harmonisation. Returning to China in 1935, where he became involved in the Communist-backed National Salvation Song Movement, whose purpose was to create mass songs with political messages, designed to politicise the workers and thus gather support and inuence for the Communists. Having composed over 400 of these songs, with titles such as Battle Song of Resistance against Japan, in 1938 Xian was appointed head of the Lu Xun Arts Academy at Yanan, the Communist party headquarters. While here, he composed four cantatas, two operas and a further 600 mass songs. In 1940, Xian left for Russia to work on music for documentaries, but was unable to return to his homeland and died of pneumonia in 1945.

Yellow River Cantata Xians best known work (Chinese title Huanghe) was written to aid the war effort during the Sino-Japanese War. The Yellow River of the title is known as Huang He and is used by Xian in the work to symbolise the spirit of the Chinese people, whose rst civilisations were established on its banks. The eight movements, based on texts by Guang Weiran, are each introduced by a narrator and explore different aspects of the river. (The following summaries are based on the translations in Shan Bai, The Historical Development and a structural analysis of the Yellow River Piano Concerto, University of Pretoria, 2006). 1. Song of the Yellow River Boatmen Describes the perils of crossing of the Yellow River, incorporating a work-chant and with rapid scales and ourishes depicting the turbulence of the water 2. Ode to the Yellow River (baritone solo) Pays homage to the greatness of the Yellow River, nurturing and moulding the Chinese people into a large and powerful civilisation 3. Ballad of the Yellow River Describes how the river has been harnessed to make the land more fertile and how an enemy invasion has disrupted this and created devastation 4. Dialogue Song by the Riverside Personal accounts of exiles who have been displaced by the war (based on a Shanxi folksong) 5. Lament of the Yellow River Expresses the suffering of Chinese woman at the hands of the Japanese during the war 6. Defend the Yellow River A call to the Chinese to rise up against the Japanese

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7. Shout Aloud, Yellow River A further call to arms, exhorting the river to draw on its own natural power Xians original version of the work was composed for the scant forces he had available to him in Yanan. In addition to the narrator, choir and solo singers, his instrumentalists included a guitar, the Chinese instruments of the erhu (2 stringed violin), a dizi (bamboo ute), drums, bugles, a bass string instrument made out of an oil drum and a new percussion instrument lled with spoons. When in Russia, Xian reorchestrated the work for large orchestra, also renotating it in western 5-line staves (the original used a different form of notation used by local musicians). The work is considered to be one of the most successful fusions of Chinese music with Western harmonic, structural and instrumental practices. An important point to note was that Mao Zedong and his wife Jiang Qing attended the rst performance in Yanan, on April 13, 1939, before Xian left for Russia. Mao was so impressed that he gave the composer a present of a pen and ink and Xian was subsequently admitted to the Communist Party. Students need not study the Yellow River Cantata in detail. However, an awareness of the nature of the work and the circumstances of its composition are important, particularly the following points: it has a strong programmatic element (an ability to summarise the story is desirable here) it uses populist material based on folksongs and mass songs, which was important if it were to serve its purpose the propaganda element in the work is very prominent, especially the call to arms to resist the Japanese much of the melodic material is vocal and intended to be sung by untrained singers, so is both lyrical and simple the orchestration of the version scored for western orchestra is signicantly different to the piano concerto version. There is much use of percussion instruments, the textures are fuller and more complex, with a greater use of colour, showing the inuence of French impressionist music. This complexity is passed to the solo piano in the piano concerto version Background to the composition of Yellow River Piano Concerto Xian became something of a cult gure in China after his death, although his major works were little performed. The populist and the cosmopolitan sides to his music were both used as musical role models by both the left and the intelligentsia as the balance shifted between these two forces at different times. He was seen as representing the authentic modern Chinese musical voice, with a populist appeal rooted in Chinese folk music and work songs married to European sophistication and technique. With the banning of foreign culture during the Cultural Revolution (19661976), the revolutionary associations of Xians music presented a way for performers to bypass the censorship of Maos regime. Jiang Qing (Maos wife) had been inuential in dening new guidelines for the type of music supported under the ideals of the Cultural Revolution. She wanted peasants and workers to be at the forefront of operatic and concert performances, rather than stories about dead emperors and performances of foreign works. She was central in the creation of the Shajiabang Symphony for the Central Philharmonic (a Beijing-based orchestra and collective of musicians founded in 1956), a 1965 work based on a recent populist opera celebrating the Communist heroism during the war with Japan. Although pianos were frequently destroyed by the Red Guards during the early years of the Cultural Revolution and virtuoso pianists were imprisoned, forbidden to play or, in Yin Chengzongs case, sent to the countryside for re-education, Jiang Qing liked the instrument, having had lessons in her youth. Yin Chengzong (born 1941) had enjoyed considerable success as a piano virtuoso prior to the Cultural Revolution, studying in Russia and winning second prize in the 1962 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition and, having been sent to the countryside, attempted to rehabilitate the piano in China. In 1967, he and other members of the Central Philharmonic performed piano music from the back of a truck in Tianenmen Square and made piano arrangements of a model opera, The Red Lantern (The Red Lantern with Piano Accompaniment) which he sent to Jiang Qing. He was successful in persuading the leaders of the Cultural Revolution that the piano was an acceptable instrument for communicating their ideals and by 1969 had become something of a celebrity.

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Jiang Qing suggested that the Yellow River Cantata be reworked into a piano concerto and in 1969, oversaw the formation of a team of musicians to compose this new version of the work. In addition to Yin Chengzong, this team included three to ve other members of the Central Philharmonic: Liu Zhuang (b.1932), a pianist and composer who studied in Russia and taught at the Shanghai Conservatory Chu Wanghua (b.1941), a pianist and composer and lecturer at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing Sheng Lihong (nothing known) (perhaps also Shi Shucheng? (pianist and conductor)and Xu Fei-Sheng)? In preparation for the work, the musicians went on retreat to the caves of a former revolutionary base next to the banks of the Yellow River. Here, voluntarily emulating the Cultural Revolutions preoccupation with reeducating intellectuals, they interviewed peasants who had survived the war with Japan, listened to bamboo ute music from the Shaanxi region, studied communist literature and helped boatmen with their work. Completed in 1970, the nished work condenses the Yellow River Cantatas eight movements into four, includThe East is Red was composed in 1942 by Li Youyuan (190355) and was performed frequently at Yanan. Based on a North Shaanxi folk melody, it fell into disuse after the Revolution, but was resurrected for the Cultural Revolution, its text glorifying Mao Zedong, being ideal for this purpose.

ing a piano part greatly inuenced by composers in Yin Chengzongs repertoire, notably Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt. In deference to Maos regime, the fourth movement culminates in a climactic statement of The East is Red, the anthem of the Cultural Revolution. The concerto was immediately successful and, because so few pieces were allowed to be performed, it, together with The Red Lantern with Piano Accompaniment and the Shajiabang Symphony, was a more or less permanent feature of the Central Philharmonics programmes over the next two-three years, being played about eight times a month. After Maos death and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Yin Chengzong quickly fell out of favour, eventually emigrating to the USA in 1983. The concerto also disappeared for a while from the Chinese repertoire, although it has since been resurrected. It has become well known in the west, the rst performance there dating from 1973, and its populist appeal, together with its promotion by soloists such as Lang Lang and Daniel Epstein as well as the championship of Yin Chengzong himself, have ensured that it has been widely performed and recorded.

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MUsicAL FEATUrEs OF YELLOw RiVEr PiANO CONcErTO

Form In order to have the work cleared for performance, the composers of Yellow River Piano Concerto were careful not to use forms that resembled too closely those of Western classical music. Therefore, although there are similarities to classical forms, the structures are looser than might be found in classical concertos. The Yellow River Piano Concerto also has four rather than the traditional three movements. 1St MOVEmENt

bar nos. 116

section A

material used a (flourish) (15); b (mordents) (611); a (12 15); pno cadenza (16) c (call and response) a (2428); b (2938) c; b (4750) d (8 bar phrase), repeated 5966; b (6774) a (7580); pno cadenza (8183) e (lyrical melody derived from c) material similar to c b (104109); a (110113)

Tempo fast ( = 168) slow ( = 66) fast ( = 152) moderate ( = 84) fast ( = 144) fast ( = 152) slow ( = 52) fast ( = 144) fast ( = 144)

key D maj

1724 2538 3950 5174 7583 8492 93103 104

B A1 B1 C A2 B2 D A3

D maj D maj D maj B min C maj modulates D maj D maj D maj

Notes: loose rondo form structure, section A being the rondo theme very little modulation almost all in D major apart from bars 5183 economical use of melodic material sectional juxtaposition of cells of material, esp. call and response: based on a Chinese folk singing style known as duikou chang sectional, block-like form: note the use of different tempi to accentuate the section starts piano scales represent waves: struggle of boatmen crossing the river? based on rst movement of Yellow River Cantata

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2ND MOVEmENt

bar nos. 135 3649 5054 5559 6066

section A B C D E

material used a (melody) (116); a repeated in piano in a varied form (1735) b (new melody, derived from a), with faster L.H. acc. c (4/4 melody), with thick piano octaves/ chords d (4/4 melody), piano triplets e (melody accompanied by piano block chords); quote from March of the Volunteers (6164, hn 1) f (pentatonic descending figure)

Tempo Adagio ( = 52) piu mosso (allargando) piu mosso

key Bb maj Bb maj Bb maj G min Bb maj

= 69 = 88

6773

Coda
Notes

Bb maj

March of the Volunteers was composed in Yanan by Nie Er, a revolutionary. It was originally an anti-Japanese song but became Chinas national anthem after the revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, it was replaced by The East is Red.

mostly in B major

The opening of March of the Volunteers is used twice by horn 1/trumpet 1 in bars 614.

rhapsodic style: a freely developing melody, with new material being introduced as the movement progresses apart from the restatement of the opening 16 bar melody, only tiny snatches of material are subsequently repeated the phrase structure is unusual, with changes between 3/4 and 4/4 and, apart from bars 19 and 1725, little use of conventional question-answer phrases the orchestra mostly accompanies the piano, which plays guration based on the underlying harmony there are textures for orchestra alone: bars 115 and 6773; and for piano solo: bars 1723 and 2730

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3RD MOVEmENt

bar nos. (1)

section Intro

material used a (bamboo flute solo - pentatonic); piano solo (based on 4 notes); b (pentatonic folk melody: pno solo, 231); repeat of 2nd half of b with pno figuration (orch, 3247); codetta (orch, 4853)

Tempo free

key Eb maj

253

moderate ( = 80)

Eb maj

5472

c (4/4 9-bar melody (5463)), repeated by pno in style of pipa (6472) d (2 bar melody developed sequentially) e (new 3/4 melody on piano) f (new melody on orch, then developed in solo piano passage in 92105) g (new 3/4 melody on piano, with L.H. triplet then sq (119) figuration, then quaver triplet chords (128134))

slow ( = 44) moderate ( = 96) agitato agitato

C min - Eb maj

7381 8288 89105

bridge C D

Eb maj modulates B maj Db maj

106134

agitato

Bb min Db maj Bb min

135156

b on orch, with piano figuration; coda from 149-end

= 76

Eb maj

Notes basically in ternary form (ABA): the B section has many themes the reason it contains many themes is because it was constructed from three separate movements from the Yellow River Cantata

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4tH MOVEmENt

bar nos. 18

section Intro 1

material used The East is Red (47); pno cadenza (8)

Tempo Allegro ( = 138) Presto ( = 176) Animoso

key C maj

918

Intro 2

x (1518)

A maj

1939 4049 5071

A bridge1 A1

a (theme) b1 a: variation 1 (repeated quavers in orch, crotchet bass line in pno l.h.) a: variation 2 (running bass in octaves in pno) a: variation 3 (imitation at one bars distance) x (125132) a: variation 4 (imitation, accented chords on crotchet beats) b1 b2; x (171180) a: variation 5 (augmentation, chromatic scales from mvt 1 flourish) a: variation 6 (sq figuration in piano, dactyllic rhythm in strings) a: variation 7 (theme in dotted notes, semiquavers in violins) b3 (based on material used in bridge 1); piano solo (263270) a: variation 8 (piano triplets): a is developed to provide a link to the next section The East is Red (303326); piano repeated chords and scales in quaver triplets (303 319) and leaping chords (320326)

A maj A maj A maj

7293 94115 116132 133153 154163 164180 181196

A2 A3 bridge 2 A4 bridge 1 bridge 2 A5

A maj A maj A maj D maj D maj D maj Bb maj

197216 217237 238270 271302

A6 A7 bridge 3 A8

C maj F maj F maj then modulates Bb maj then modulates molto meno mosso ( = 56) D maj

303326

coda part 1

327366

coda part 2: A9

a in imitation; a combined with The East is Red (345360); final statement of The East is Red (361366), combined with quote from The Internationale (hn 1, b.361)

presto

D maj

367381

coda part 3

section to close the work, with piano triplet figuration.

presto ( = 84)

D maj

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Notes theme and variation form the introduction anticipates the climactic appearance of The East is Red there are nine variations on the theme two bridge passages link the variations in certain places: these contain antiphonal ideas, recalling Chinese call and response choral singing The quotations from The East is Red and of the nal phrase of the Internationale, the international anthem of socialism, were included at the request of Jiang Qing: these were essential for the work to be approved for performance by the censors The climactic appearance of The East is Red in the nal movement has the effect of transforming the concerto into a glorication of Mao Zedong; its lyrics compare Mao to the sun. The quotations have been retained after the end of the Cultural Revolution despite proposals by some musicians to remove them. Programmatic aspects of Yellow River Piano Concerto The Yellow River Piano Concerto can be placed into a tradition of programmatic works stretching back to the early 19th century. Specically, there are many examples of programmatic music about war, revolution and rivers such as those in the list below:

Beethovens Battle Symphony (1813): an early programmatic work, with musical depictions of the English defeat of Napoleons army at the Battle of Victoria in 1812. It includes the Rule Britannia, God Save the King and Malbroucks sen va-t-en guerre Tchaikovskys 1812 Overture (1880): an account of the Russian victory over the French: includes quotations of the French and Russian national anthems, and cannon effects Shostakovich Symphony no.7 in C major (Leningrad )(1941): musical depiction of the siege of the Russian city of Leningrad by the Germans during the Second World War. Composed at the height of the siege, it has strong parallels with the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Yellow River Cantata in 1939

Smetana Ma Vlast (18749): meaning my homeland. This is a set of six tone poems based on landmarks from Smetanas Bohemia. The second of these, Vltava, is the musical depiction of the River Moldau, using similar depictions of flowing water to those in Xians work.

As well as in communist China, programmatic works, particularly cantatas, were encouraged in the 1920s and 30s in another communist regime, Russia, where they were seen as an effective medium for communicating political propaganda to the masses. As Yellow River Piano Concerto was itself reworked from a programmatic cantata, it has inherited the programmatic features of that music. Its movement titles describe what the music is intended to evoke. Additionally, in the original score, there are Chinese inscriptions above certain passages of music (such as War horses are galloping, valiant ghters engage the enemy above bar 181 of movement 4), omitted in the Eulenberg score, which describe what images the music is meant to be evoking. Examples of programmatic elements in Yellow River Piano Concerto include: I, scales of opening section: used to represent waves I, call and response ideas: represent workers by imitating a form of mass song II, Quote from March of the Volunteers: perhaps used to recall the resistance against Japan, or to recall pre-Cultural Revolution glory II, water boatmans song: represents those who make their living from the river III, use of bamboo ute and musical representations of the Chinese lute and Chinese zither: recall the folk instruments of China and therefore the ancient, traditional culture of the peasants living near the Yellow River IV, main theme (b.19): military-sounding theme might represent the mobilisation of the Chinese forces to defeat with Japan or a similar militaristic idea IV, bar 181: galloping rhythm of quaver-two semiquavers to imitate galloping horses IV, quotations of The East is Red and the Internationale: used to represent the triumph of Maos Communists (see also under Communist inuences below)

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Inuences of Traditional Chinese Music While Chinese folk music was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution, as it might have generated nostalgia for the old empire, there are nonetheless many Chinese features, many of which have survived from the Yellow River Cantata, originally scored for Chinese instruments. Traditional Chinese features of the work include: pentatonicism (most of the melodic material) call and response musical ideas (from duikou chang, an antiphonal folk singing style) (e.g. I, bars 1724) metrical changes (e.g. 2/4 v 3/4) that probably come from the rhythm of the original words use of Chinese bamboo ute in III (bar 1) imitation of strumming of the guzheng (a Chinese zither) in III (piano cadenza in bar 1 and guration in bars 239) imitation of repeated notes of the yangqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer) in III, bars 6472 use of traditional North Shaanxi folksong the province in which Yanan and the Yellow River are located (The East is Red is based on a folksong from this region, Riding a White Horse) use of other melodies that are new but similar to folksong free, narrative form and free approach to melodic development phrase structure is unusual in places (e.g. 3 bar phrases in III, bars 6472) as the cantata was originally written for choir and traditional Chinese instruments, the melodic and accompaniment material is generally simple and tends to avoid chromaticsm Communist/Socialist Realist musical inuences The desire to placate the communist leadership is central to almost every aspect of the concerto: unlike in Western music, there was almost no room for concerns such as personal expression. Some of the more obvious effects of the tough censorship of the leadership of the Cultural Revolution include: quote from The East is Red IV, bars 303326: Maos anthem quote from The Internationale (last phrase) IV, bars 361366, trumpet 1/trombone 1: worldwide socialist anthem quote of March of the Volunteers (opening phrase) II, b.6164, hn 1/tpt 1: this was the Chinese national anthem prior to the Cultural Revolution, composed by Nie Er at Yanan inclusion of piano favoured by Maos wife theme of work defeat of Japanese, text of original work presumably promoted Communism/socialism idea of a programmatic nationalistic/political work follows models from Soviet Russia and China, for instance Shostakovichs Symphony no.7 in C major (Leningrad) movement titles help spread propaganda by stressing Chinese greatness and glorifying the war against Japan joint authorship: a collective of composers rather than a single composer was more in tune with communist ideology, which placed the many over the individual avoidance of Western traditional forms such as sonata form: the forms which are used (variation, ternary, etc.) are obscured so as not to draw attention to their Western origins Western inuences Although Western culture was banned during the Cultural Revolution, the model for Chinese music was a combination of party-approved Chinese elements (i.e. mass song) with techniques and instruments from the western classical tradition: in 1964 Jiang Qing had written of the superiority of western instruments over native Chinese ones National instruments still need many years of reform, why can the already developed Western instruments not be used? We should use foreign things to serve China. Furthermore, Xian had received a period of western musical training at the Paris Conservatoire, and Yin Chengzongs writing for piano was heavily inuenced by Western works in his repertoire, by Rachmaninov, Liszt and Chopin. Therefore, with the exception of melody, most of the musical features of the Yellow River Piano Concerto are Western-inuenced by nature, especially the harmonic writing, instrumentation and musical forms. General features of the work are listed below: all those not previously mentioned as Chinese inuences are in all likelihood Western inuences.

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HaRmONY chromatic passing notes: I, 7581 bass line desc. II, b.43 bass line III, b.62 IV, b.209212, 259263 bass line desc. chromatic inections: II, b.37: G sharp A in D minor chord III, 56 B natural against F min chord augmented chords: II, b.40, beat 3 added sixth chords II, b.64; III, b.17 III, b.128 added note chords dominant seventh chords III, b.22 Eb 4th inversion ninth chords I, b.16, pno Amaj 7 and b9 III, b.129 III, b.146, beat 2 major seventh: II, b.41 enharmonic moves III 7677: passes chromatically from chord of F minor 2nd inv to to B major diminished seventh III, b.100101 4 note chords (quartal harmony) of Bb, C, Eb, F III, opening up to g 1 pentatonic modal harmony: III, g 1 bar 10 use only notes Bb, C, Eb, F, G (pentatonic scale on Eb) parallel fths III, b.13 beat 2 14 beat 1; III, b.40 MELODY aND mELODIc DEVELOPmENt pentatonic scales most melodies are pentatonic, e.g. the opening melody of II. hexatonic scales IV, opening of piano cadenza uses a hexatonic scale of CDEFGA diatonic scales IV, scale just before g 1 is E major chromatic scales III, b.60, beat 3 III, b. 115, beat 3 and in following 3 bars IV, b. 187 (reference to 1st mvt?) imitation at the unison, III, b.5052 melodic sequence I, bars 5158 are repeated at a different pitch in bars 5966 IV, bars 213216 rhythmic augmentation (IV b.185193, hn) repetition of short cells I, e.g. 7174 truncation of cells I, b.23 is reduced by a beat and used in 25
(these last two features are associated with Chinese music, but can also be found in Western composers such as Ravel, Debussy and Vaughan Williams)

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RHYtHm, mEtRE aND tEmPO dotted rhythms IV, bars 217247 3/4 alternating with 2/4 IV, bars 164171 dactyllic rhythms (quaver, 2 semiquavers) (inuence of Shostakovich?) IV, bar 181 syncopated rhythms IV, b.205 groupings of 3+3+2 quavers IV, bars 910, 1314 triplets IV, bars 254258, 271295 use of many different tempi in each movement (e.g. 1st movement) use of dramatic accelerandi (I, bars 41 and 71) TEXtURE almost entirely melody-dominated homophony monophony III, bar 54, beat 2 octaves III, bar 82 beats 13; IV, most of the cadenza in bar 8 imitation III, 4853; IV, bar 94 antiphony I, 1724 and 3946 (this texture is from a call-and-response Chinese singing style known as duikou chang); IV, bars 238242 INStRUmENtatION Generally the orchestral writing is functional and conventional, with the orchestra mostly playing an accompanying role when the piano is playing. There is some use of dialogue between different instrumental groups at times (e.g. brass alternating with wind/strings in IV, 238242). Apart from the bamboo ute, the orchestra used is a standard symphony orchestra. The following techniques are used: harp glissando (I, bar 1) timpani roll (I, bar 1) cymbal roll (I, bar 75) con sord trumpets and trombones (with mutes) (III, b.55) hand-stopped horns (III, bar 58) pizzicato (cellos and basses, III, bar 64) sul G on violins (III, bar 119) divisi violins (III, bar 128) trills (IV, utes, b.259) tremolo (IV, b.259, strings) double strokes (IV, b.1518) The solo piano writing is almost entirely in a Western-inuenced virtuoso style, the piano being a Western instrument. Strong inuences are Rachmaninov, Liszt and Chopin. The only passages that could be thought to display a Chinese style of piano writing are those imitating Chinese folk instruments in the third movement. The concerto displays a wide range of virtuoso piano textures and techniques: one theory was that Yin Chengzong was trying to keep virtuoso pianists in practice until the Cultural Revolution had ended. Techniques include: rapid arpeggios in 6ths, I bar 16 different numbers of notes in each hand during rapid guration (I bar 75) rapid alternating octaves (I bar 81) and chords between the hands (I bar 83) see Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no.2, III, 10 bars before the end orid inner parts (I bar 88) and exploitation of the high register glissandi (I bar 92) thick harmonies created by streams of chords (II bar 50) frequent duplets v triplets (II bar 50)

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 excessive ornamentation (III bars 215, etc.) crossing of hands in rapid arpeggios, with L.H. playing top note (III bar 36) martellato (hammered) (III bar 54) rapid repetition of single notes (written as trem, III bars 6472) rapid guration in 10ths (III bars 8991) trills and tremolos (III bar 95) rapid contrary motion scales of chords (III bars 133134) line doubled in four octaves (IV bar 8) (see Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor bar 9) ostinato bass line in octaves (IV bar19) (see Chopin, Polonaise in Ab major op.53, E major section octaves in staccato quavers (IV bars 7292) (similar to a passage in Shostakovich Piano Concerto no.2, 1st mvt rapid repeated chords (IV bar 263) repeated chords for added resonance (IV bar 303) (see Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor, rst Grandioso section)

PrAcTicE EssAy qUEsTiONs

The critic Harold Schonberg, writing in the New York Times described the Yellow River Piano Concerto as movie music. It is a rehash of Rachmaninov, Khachaturian, late romanticism, bastardised Chinese music and Warner Brothers climaxes. Drawing from examples from the score, evaluate to what extent his criticisms are valid. To what extent did Chinese 20th century history inuence the composition of the Yellow River Piano Concerto? Use examples drawn from the score to support your answer. The Yellow River Piano Concerto can be thought of as a fusion of Chinese and European musical styles. Identify two musical elements derived from Chinese music (traditional or otherwise) and two features of European music. Demonstrate and discuss how these elements contribute to create the works overall style.

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