Professor Sun Guozhong of Shanghai Conservatory of Music
"Cooking Tea by Hand", by Ye Xiaogang, People's Music Publishing House, published in March 2021, 241 pages, 68.00 yuan
When it comes to Ye Xiaogang, people often think of Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong and Guo Wenjing, who are known as the "four talents" of the 77th grade of the Central Conservatory of Music. In fact, among the composition students in their year, there were also several who were also quite outstanding: Chen Qigang, a disciple of Messian, a generation of western music masters in the twentieth century, Zhou Long and Chen Yi, who broke through the world in the American music industry, and Liu Sola, who crossed the border between the music world and the literary world...
The emergence of the Chinese academic school "New Wave Music" represented by the "Four Talents" in the 1980s (what scholars call the "rising generation") can be described as an inevitable product of an era. The historical process of Chinese music has chosen this group of lucky tide makers, and these young composers who dare to think and dare to do and dare to fight in the wind and waves have not lived up to this great era, and they have strongly promoted the development of China's "art music" with their own unique styles of music creation, while also making the world music scene realize the uniqueness and importance of contemporary Chinese music creation.
Ye Xiaogang's creative fields are extensive, including symphony, chamber music, opera, dance drama, film and television music and other genres, and there are many excellent works. If there is one word to describe Ye Xiaogang's music, it is dashing. Ye Xiaogang was handsome in appearance, with a long stature, elegant in conversation, and quite dashing. I always believe that an artist's creation has a lot to do with his character and cultivation, and that literature (music) is like his person, which is also evident in Ye Xiaogang's creation. Listening to Ye Xiaogang's works, you can clearly feel his distinctive artistic style, exquisite composition skills, and clear musical discourse. Whether it is a symphony of artistic philosophies or a more grounded film and television soundtrack, there is a kind of soothing atmosphere and exquisite timelessness that comes from the bones. It is this kind of poetic and intellectual musical psychic that makes me "look at Ye Xiaogang's creation differently".
Previously, I knew Ye Xiaogang mainly through his musical works, and it was not until I read many of his articles published on his Personal WeChat public account a few years ago that I learned that this famous composer is also a master of articles. The People's Music Publishing House's recently published "Cooking Tea by Hand" is Ye Xiaogang's first collection of essays officially published, and some of the articles are selected from his public account tweets that are widely acclaimed in the WeChat circle of friends (some articles have been deleted and revised).
The content of "Cooking Tea by Hand" is quite rich, reminiscing about people's memories, commenting on music and art, traveling with talk, no matter what kind of speech object it is for, the author can always use clear narrative and elegant brushstrokes to bring readers into a warm situation. Reading Ye Xiaogang's text, I have a sense of intimacy, as a peer, I have the same experience and closeness to the situation of the times and many social and cultural phenomena that he has experienced and is happy to talk about. Of course, this spiritual identity generated through words is achieved by "reading pleasure". The reason why Ye Xiaogang's articles are loved by so many people is first of all because his words are good-looking and readable. I have always thought that the Xiaochang of the article is the first, and it is much more important than the "beauty" of the text. Of course, the real "literary style" actually includes the calm tone of the writing and the refreshing writing. In Ye Xiaogang's article, I saw a clean and smooth style.
In this collection, the most fascinating are several articles by the author who recall people's memories, of which "Mother's Face" is particularly moving. Ye Xiaogang was born in an artistic family, his father Ye Chunzhi was a composer and music theorist, his aunt Ye Lucy was an actress, and his mother also studied vocal music when she was young, and had a good artistic accomplishment and appreciation. Growing up in such a family, Ye Xiaogang had the good fortune of being favored by the goddess of art earlier. In fact, when Ye Xiaogang was learning to play music and playing the piano as a teenager, his family had already experienced hardships, and the original hundreds of records in the family were scattered elsewhere. In order to let her son hear the recordings of some music masters, his mother, who never asked for anyone, pulled down her face for the first time in the world and asked Chen Jiangong, an old friend in Hong Kong, to send a few classical music records to Shanghai. Sadly, the eager mother waited not for the record she wanted, but for a notice from customs - "The original goods sent from Hong Kong are returned"! Anyone can imagine the mother's inner pain and resentment after receiving this notice. Ye Xiaogang's recollection and description of this seem calm, but we can feel the inner tension carried by this family "musical event" from his words:
My mother crawled in front of the sewing machine all night and woven a whole bed cover in the darkness. I think my mother's embroidery must have stirred up the sad melody in the D major of Rachmaninoff's Variations on the Theme of Paganini. Many years later, I came home and played Chopin's Third Piano Etude, which I played for my mother. Each time she was silent, her eyes looking into the distance beyond the window. The memories of that year are accompanied by surging emotional waves.
This article also has Ye Xiaogang's memories of his father, although the author only describes his father as a "supporting role" of his mother here, but reading the relevant texts (and the article "Life is not as good as drama (II)") evokes my deep nostalgia for Mr. Ye Chunzhi. Mr. Ye Chunzhi is a teacher I admire very much, humble and low-key, easy-going. Not only did I attend Mr. Ye's "Aesthetics of Music" when I was a graduate student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, but I also often consulted and chatted with him privately. I visited his apartment on South Shaanxi Road several times, where I also met Master Ye. I remember that Master Ye was always smiling and greeting, and after a few words of greeting, she left to do things in other houses, and never participated in Mr. Ye's conversation with me. Mr. Ip is knowledgeable and happy to communicate with juniors, and as a student, I have benefited a lot, especially in the English translation he gave me a lot of advice. Shangyin students know that Mr. Ye is versatile and has a high level of composition, music theory, music aesthetics and modern music research, and music literature translation. Mr. Ye has a wealth of experience, has seen the world, and he came to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music after experiencing many hardships in life, so his years of working at the Shangyin Music Research Institute should still be relatively pleasant. I clearly remember a "highlight moment" in Mr. Ye's upper tone, that is, after he composed music for the sensational films "Burning yuanmingyuan" and "Hanging Curtains to Listen to the Government", he gave a special lecture on film music creation in the composition department, and the 201st classroom of the South Building was crowded with teachers and students, and the atmosphere was very warm.
Ye Xiaogang
Regarding Mr. Ye Chunzhi's character and personality, there is one more thing that I will never forget. It was in the late 1980s, and the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House planned to compile an International Dictionary of Modern Art, and asked Mr. Ye to be the editor-in-chief of the music branch of the dictionary. Mr. Ye invited Yang Liqing, Zhao Xiaosheng, Qian Yiping, and Yang Yandi to write with me. At that time, Yang Yandi and I were just master's students, and it was natural to feel honored and happy to receive such a writing invitation. Mr. Ye first organized us to agree on the dictionary entries, and when all the entries were determined, he said to us: "Although each of you picks the entries you like to write, you have finished picking, and I will write the rest." "What a broad mind and a deep spirit! Mr. Ye's noble character and vigorous promotion of future generations, I will always remember.
The Conservatory of Music is a place with a story, the music itself is fascinating, and most of the people who study and engage in this art are quite interesting. Therefore, there are many literary works on the subject of music academies and non-fiction writing that narrates them. Ye Xiaogang's classmate Liu Sola's novella "You Have No Choice", published in 1985, is a masterpiece and has a huge impact. When this novel was published, it caused a sensation in the country and shook the literary world, and recently I read it again, and I was still touched inside. In the nearly forty years since the advent of "You Have No Choice", no literary work depicting the conservatory or describing the musical life can surpass Liu Sola's novel, because the writer in it depicts a group of young people dealing with music in the period of China's social transformation with the rebellious posture and non-mainstream narrative method of "turning out to be born" (Wang Meng's evaluation), which is both realistic and absurd, and the strong avant-garde momentum is enough to shake the literary taste and musical understanding of an era. Permeated with it is the spirit of reflection that highlights the style of the times.
Ye Xiaogang's "Anecdotes of the Conservatory of Music" belongs to non-fiction writing, which is a completely different approach, but it is equally fascinating. For many years, China has been said to be the "Nine Conservatories of Music", and in recent years, the newly established Zhejiang Conservatory of Music and the Harbin Conservatory of Music have joined. Among the eleven independent music conservatories, there is no doubt that the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music are the strongest and most influential. Everyone in the circle knows that the "competition" between these two famous Chinese music schools has never stopped, which is naturally a good thing, and there is competition to develop. Interestingly, both schools are interested in each other's "anecdotes." This kind of "anecdotes" are rich in content and "versions", and they accompany the growth of successive generations of music students, which can be described as an integral part of the good memories of their learning careers. Ye Xiaogang is very powerful, and he is very familiar with the "anecdotes" of these two schools, and his narration is extremely vivid and interesting, as if there is no second person in the domestic music circle who has this ability.
Ye Xiaogang's unique ability to "tell books" benefits from his personal growth environment and learning and work experience. Before going to the Central Conservatory of Music in 1977, Ye Xiaogang had been living in Shanghai, and the family's musical influence and the "circle of friends" of the elders gave him the opportunity to feel and know some of the predecessors of the Shanghai music industry and their art very early. Ye Xiaogang's memories of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shanghai music industry are quite warm, and the kind and simple narrative conveys the musical beauty in the author's youth memory. He mentioned that several young academic singers who showed their talents in the 1960s were so brilliant: "Jin Xiaocai's voice is flexible, and her "Song of Female Members" is sung to the point of becoming a household name; Hu Yiwen has a broad breath, and a song "High Jinggangshan" is sung in a majestic way, and the radio has been broadcast for a long time." The one who left the deepest impression on the teenager Ye Xiaogang was Liu Ruo'e: "The first time I heard her sing, I was only ten years old, and I was surprised to see Qing Yang Wanxi, as bright as Haoyue, singing "Brighter Than the Sun", the words Are Crystal... Mr. Liu may not have imagined how I, who was only a teenager at the time, listened to her 78-rerel record over and over again, and her beautiful voice evoked a child's distant dreams. Ye Xiaogang also praised the non-academic Zhu Fengbo's singing performance. It is worth mentioning that his Zhu Fengbo is not a vocal music big name that later became popular all over the country, but a young singer who just left the architecture department of Tongji University and switched to the Shanghai Opera House. This is the situation when the author was a child at the Huashan Road Small Theater in Shanghai's West District (the exclusive theater of the Shanghai Opera House) and saw Zhu Fengbo singing the opera "Honghu Red Guards" in the opera "Small Songs Are Difficult to Sing": "She struck a green shirt, hit the porcelain plate with her hand, smiled, sang and performed, and had an excellent sense of music. Her vocal art is unique, combining true and false voices, breathing, charming, and difficult to surpass for a long time. ”
From 1977 to the Central Conservatory of Music, and then stayed on to teach, Ye Xiaogang has been there for more than forty years, and he is too familiar with the school. His narration of the "anecdotes" of the Central Conservatory of Music is less pure musical reminiscence than the previous "Shangyin", and the pen and ink are all used in the comments on the central tone "people" and "things", and its depiction can be called a wonderful "central sound panorama", especially the description of several famous professors of the predecessors is very three-dimensional. Mr. Zhao Songguang, who invented the "Yin Wing Yang Cai, Yang Wing Yin Cai" Zhao harmony system, was talented and creative, but "academically isolated and helpless, resolutely went to Guangzhou to become the dean of the Xinghai Conservatory of Music, creating a new academic style". Professor Yang Ruhuai, a master in the field of music analysis, quoted the scriptures in class and was passionate, "The lecture hall is the tall world where his academic galloping." Outside the classroom, Professor Yang was rather low-key and understanding: "One day he hurried to class with a lecture note, and suddenly saw a pair of passionate students kissing passionately on the stairs — two now famous conductors and composers — Professor Yang stopped after half a second of embarrassment, and crept around to another staircase and strode towards the classroom." That's a good story. ”
The most vivid image of Ye Xiaogang's Central Voice predecessor is Professor G. Many years ago, I met Professor G while studying in the United States. That time, I was entrusted by Professor Zhong Zilin to accompany Professor G, who was visiting the western United States, to visit the University of California, Los Angeles, where I was studying for my doctorate. Professor G is very famous, and when I first met, I was a little restrained, but as soon as we talked, I felt that she had both everyone's demeanor and amiable, and it was easy to communicate. Professor G is a native of Tianjin, and I was deeply impressed by her cheerful and atmospheric personality. Reading Ye Xiaogang's playful words, you can feel that he is familiar with Professor G, and when he respects him, he does not forget to ridicule, and the funny is full of true feelings:
Professor G is a big name, teaching cattle, but mu xiu in the forest, the wind will destroy it. Some scolded her for "hanging the curtain and listening to the government", and some scolded "those who follow the G will prosper, and those who oppose the G will die". Legend has it that the G thing is often a "national event" for the Conservatory of Music. The older you get, the more stingy you are, and at the age of eighty or ninety, you still charge into the battle, and scolding is useless. I often call her "Dean G", or simply call her "lack of great virtue" in Tianjin dialect. I once played with her at the mahjong table, and as soon as she shot it, she carried the "big seven pairs", absolutely.
I have always been interested in texts and related literature such as "Composers on Music and Musicians", because the composers who are the "once creators" of musical works have their own irreplaceable professional vision and unique examination of the words of the music art itself and the comments of their peers. The first thing I was attracted to Ye Xiaogang's writing was to read several of his articles on Western composers. These articles he wrote are neither academic papers on the direction of musicology research, nor are they musicians of the nature of "music appreciation" textbooks, but a fairly free theory of casual sex. Without the "normative" constraints of research writing, nor the "all-encompassing" of textbook style, authors are able to express their understanding and evaluation of composers they are interested in. This kind of personalized writing, which is far from the "high-headed sermon" and the generalistic routine, allows us to see Ye Xiaogang's artistic acumen and insight of the "composer's theory".
Ye Xiaogang's comments to Bach resonated strongly with me. No one in the music circle does not revere Bach, and the profundity of Bach's music deserves a lifetime of awe. No one can deny the divine revelation in Bach's music, but this musician who has served many courts and churches in Germany for his life has a spirit of accession that understands the meaning of life. It is this kind of civilian life posture and creative understanding that makes Bach's music exude a touching human light. This is Ye Xiaogang's "So Says Bach", and the interpretation of the musical vocabulary is linked to the composer's artistic lyrical humanistic observation:
His fast-moving melodic lines, which swept through people's hearts like a breeze, inspired people's countless imaginations and rebellious spirits in the conformity; his solemn slow plate made people feel the finiteness of life, and his sighs made people feel glorious and reverent; and his most breath-stirring musical structure made people feel the harmony of the universe and the boundlessness of the heart. Bach should feel heavy, yet his music is the most relaxed, confident and exciting ever made by mankind. This is Bach's music.
In addition to Bach, Ye Xiaogang's comments on Mendelssohn, Chopin, Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss are equally wonderful, with "golden sentences" and interesting meanings. A few excerpts must be taken here to share with the philharmonics:
The most moving thing about Mendelssohn's music is that his romantic passion is very delicately encased in the proper form. So pure, so radiant, so healthy, without a trace of evil thoughts, it really embodies a wise civilization.
Chopin was not the arrogant darling of romantic Parisian high society, but a brilliant and rigorous master of creation. As an aural art, music has an impeccable structure to overflow the world, which is the hard truth of Chopin's works to this day.
With the slightest sense of the polyphonic interweaving of Siegfried's Pastoral, his (Wagner's) grand inner world seems to open a slightly visible door to the world, and his speculative power soars to a new level of philosophical significance in uninterrupted pleasure. The Siegfried Pastoral is a relic of the love of the wise, but it is more clear that the composer is the majestic ruler of art.
In "Cooking Tea by Hand", what I most appreciate is the "big axis" of the whole book, "Entering the Capital", and reading this article on the art of Peking Opera makes me have the joy of meeting and knowing the sound. Most of the people of our generation who are engaged in the art of music are interested in Peking Opera, because the Peking Opera model opera of that era is the "guide" that introduced us to music. There were no Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, much less Mahler, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, and the singing sections in peking opera model plays and the accompaniment of orchestras with orchestral instruments were the musical readings of many "musical teenagers" and "literary youth". It is said that Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong and Guo Wenjing's initial musical practice was to play the piano in the Peking Opera model performances of local literary and art groups. It can be said that the Peking Opera model play and its musical creation are a deeply imprinted "artistic complex" for the post-50s and post-60s generation of musicians. For example, Tang Muhai, who is now a major conductor, still misses the model play, remembers that at the beginning of the new century, he conducted the Central Orchestra to perform the revolutionary symphony music "Sha Jiabang", and a few years ago he conducted the Shanghai Orchestra to perform the revolutionary symphony music "Wise Tiger Mountain".
Ye Xiaogang's familiarity with Peking Opera and the artistic appreciation of the "fan" of the experts made my eyes light up and I sincerely praised it. This 4,000-word "Entering Beijing" is not very long, but the content is very rich, and the words reveal the author's sincere love for Peking Opera and the efforts he has made in the study of this art. From Tan Xinpei, the great king of the Lingjie World, who "argues that the city is called Tian'er" to the supreme realm displayed by the Yu Shuyan School of a generation of grandmasters, from the distinctive performing arts of the "Four Famous Dans" to the "learning" and achievements of the Peking Opera music reform, the author is full of confidence, talks about it, has a clear meaning, and is full of fun. In the jargon of the Peking Opera scene (Peking Opera band and players), that is what he said was "all on the guy's point". It is worth noting that in this historical and theoretical Peking Opera rambling, Ye Xiaogang has a "special love" for Li Lifang and has a very high evaluation, which I fully agree with. When it comes to Peking Opera model plays, in addition to the unforgettable character images with the imprint of the times in the play, people will naturally think of the role-players of these characters, Li Lifang, Liu Changyu, Qi Shufang, Hong Xuefei, Li Bingshu, and Yang Chunxia, who have all been well-known Peking Opera actresses, brilliant and far-reaching. If you only talk about the singing performance of these actors, Li Lifang is undoubtedly the leader and deserves to be the "chief". Li Lifang's voice conditions are very good, the vocal range is wide, and the sound quality is pure, which is exactly what Li Yuanxing said about "Grandmaster Appreciation Rice". More importantly, Li Lifang "can sing", she knows how to sing the artistic effect she wants to achieve according to the content of the singing segment and the specific "music design". In order to write this article, I recently listened carefully to all the singing segments of Li Lifang in the Peking Opera "Harbor" and deeply admired the superb level and unique charm of her singing art. I believe that Li Lifang's unique breath control, timbre change, flower cavity technology and the use of cavity are a very precious vocal art heritage, which should not only be studied and carried forward in the Peking Opera circle, but also worthy of appreciation and reference by teachers and students of the national vocal music major in the music industry.
Peking Opera "Harbor" has long faded from people's sight due to its special plot content and ideological orientation, but the musical achievements of this Modern Peking Opera should not be ignored and avoided. In my opinion, among the first five Peking Opera model plays, "Harbor" has the highest artistic achievements in terms of Peking Opera music reform and innovation. In particular, the singing design of the heroine Fang Haizhen, played by Li Lifang, can be called the best of modern opera music in Peking Opera. I am particularly interested in two important singing passages by Fang Haizhen: "Perusing the Communiqué of the Plenary Session" and "Mao Zedong Thought Transmitted by the East Wind". The "Xipi Wide Plate" created by the former can be described as the magic stroke of the whole drama music, which pushes the expression of the scattered "tight and slow singing" in traditional Peking Opera to the extreme with a lyrical rhyme of more musical character; the latter's "spinning method" and xing cavity boldly borrow the musical expression of Xiaosheng singing, which adds an unprecedented brilliant color to the musical construction and singing art of Danjiao. Ye Xiaogang said that "Li Lifang sang a philosopher-style lofty vision, and the music is enough to pass on to the world", I think the reason why she can achieve such a high artistic achievement, in addition to her own singing and performance talent, is inseparable from the creative music creation tailored for her singing art.
For the composer Ye Xiaogang, our artistic expectations are of course the high-quality musical works he constantly contributes, and after reading the beautiful collection of essays "Cooking Tea with Plain Hands", people who like his music naturally have a kind of "text expectation". I believe that Ye Xiaogang, who composes music and writes so dashingly, will not let us down.
Editor-in-Charge: Ding Xiongfei
Proofreader: Liu Wei