In the summer of 1908, the 48-year-old composer Mahler was diagnosed with a heart valve defect and depressed.
By then, he had completed eight symphonies. Writing his first symphony, he wanted to circumvent a classical music "spell" by composing a suite—many great composers, from Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner to Dvořák, died after writing the Ninth Symphony. He turned to the German-language Chinese poetry collection "The Flute of China" compiled by the poet Hans Bettger, and felt that the artistic conception depicted in the poems of Li Bai, Meng Haoran and Wang Wei and others was quite in line with his state of mind at that time, so he selected 7 songs from them to compose a suite, the most famous "Song of the Earth". Mahler died in 1911. Half a year after his death, "The Land of the Earth" premiered.
Exactly one hundred years later, Ye Xiaogang, professor of the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music and chairman of the Chinese Music Association, created the work of the same name, "Song of the Earth". Eastern and Western composers, based on the same Chinese Tang poetry, extended different Eastern and Western musical languages between Eastern mysticism and late European Romanticism, and in Ye Xiaogang's words, "it was like finding a common 'channel' between European culture and Chinese culture." ”
On October 14, DG Deutsche Grammophon used Dolby Atmos to record the record "Song of the Earth" immersive audio album, which was screened for the first time at the Dolby Cinema in Beijing.
Conductor Long Yu conducted the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to present two "Songs of the Earth" in a concert, sitting in the theater to watch the concert, which is a fresh and special experience for him, "It is a revolutionary tool, the sound seems to be coming from all directions, colorful, very graphic." I can capture my creative vision as a creator. Technology can give us wings and let art fly and reach a whole new level. ”
MAHLE in China
"Mahler was very popular in China, and when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I listened to Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Song of the Earth, Young Devil's Horn and other vocal suites." Ye Xiaogang recalled that in his childhood, the family was haunted almost every day by classical music from the old-fashioned record player.
He is one of the famous 78-level "Four Talents" of the Central Conservatory of Music, and together with his classmates Tan Dun, Guo Wenjing, Su Cong and others, he has created an avant-garde "Chinese music school" in the world. When he was a professor in the composition department of the Central Conservatory of Music, he still found that Mahler was one of the students' favorite composers to study.
"There are nearly 70 symphony orchestras in China, and at least half of them play Mahler regularly." Yu long said that Mahler's popularity in China is on par with composers such as Beethoven.
In 2004, As the artistic director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Yu Long commissioned Ye Xiaogang to compose "Song of the Earth", which was completed and toured Europe and the United States, and the response was enthusiastic, and it was regarded as an important event in the history of modern Chinese music.
When she first heard about the work, Marina Mahler, the founder of the MAHLE Foundation and granddaughter of MAHLE, was very fond of it, "I have no doubt that my grandfather would have loved this new work too, and he would have appreciated the idea." ”
She believes that Ye Xiaogang's creation is beautiful, bold and powerful, unlike her maternal grandfather. Mahler loved ancient Chinese poetry, and her mother grew up with ancient Chinese poetry. When my grandfather died, my mother was only 6 years old, but in Marina Mahler's memory, her mother loved China all her life, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu and Chinese poetry.
She is grateful to Yu Long for consciously allowing Eastern and Western music to meet again in this form more than a decade ago, "In today's context, 'Song of the Earth' expresses a very important theme, our natural environment, our beautiful home has been severely damaged, this work can warn the world." 」 If my grandfather had been alive, he would have spoken out for the record. He wasn't there, and I felt obligated on me to get it done.
The sadness of the West, the exaltation of the East
Creating a work of the same name as Mahler was a great challenge for Ye Xiaogang. Neither can we fall into Mahler's original way, nor can we lack novelty.
After listening to Ye Xiaogang's version of "Song of the Earth", you will remember the Peking Opera gongs and hi-hats and the long tones of the ancient chants, which are the unique essence of Chinese music. Compared with Mahler's melodicism, Ye Xiaogang's music is like an ancient Chinese landscape painting, using the change of voice and the length of the instrument to present different emotions.
The two composers, who are separated by a hundred years, have very different mentalities in the face of "Song of the Earth".
Listening to Mahler in the theater, Ye Xiaogang almost felt the composer's inner world from the delicate sound effects, "In the sixth movement of "Song of the Earth", you can hear Mahler's inner entanglement, struggle, vagaries, and the sense of fear for the future. He believes that Mahler's "Song of the Earth", from the first movement drinking bitterly on the sad earth, to the last movement saying goodbye to the earth, is a fateful and sad atmosphere, full of disillusionment.
But what Ye Xiaogang wants to express is a middle-aged man's feelings for the world that are still full of ambition. In the fifth movement he wrote, the long singing voice and the big drum that stopped abruptly wrote Li Bai's "Spring Drunken Speech".
Yu Long remembers that when he conducted the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra a few years ago to play Ye Xiaogang's "Song of the Earth", the German audience was so engrossed in the stage that they were like discovering a new world, and although the content of the poems did not change, the music was completely different from the Mahler they were familiar with.
Music is a wonderful language that most directly presents another culture. Yu Long compares the two versions of "Song of the Earth" to a diptych, the Mahler half is the European concept of life and death and love, and Ye Xiaogang's half, which has the infiltration and influence of traditional Chinese culture and philosophical thought, "Comparing these two works, we both show the differences and remind us that as citizens of the earth, we should try to understand each other, through interesting ways such as culture and music, to enhance mutual understanding." ”
Music critic Tang Ruofu described his feelings of listening to the two works with "the same origin and the same work", "They are like the upper and lower halves of a painting, half of which are in the earth, which is the spirit; half of which is in the long sky, which is light." ”