Turn in the new performance season to kick off Yu Long: It is the responsibility of our generation to maintain the roots of Chinese cultureFly into the homes of ordinary people
Caption: Turned in to Music Director Yu Long
“Today’s world should know more about China. This can start from Chinese culture. “Song of the Earth” can not only allow more Orientals, but also Westerners to feel and appreciate the splendor and profoundness of Chinese civilization and Chinese culture. Since the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra signed the DG label’s second record “Song of the Earth” after its global release, many overseas media including the Guardian, Financial Times, BBC Radio Three and other overseas media have successively written articles and praised DG Records. Shanghai Music Director Yu Long said frankly: “The responsibility of our generation is to maintain the roots of Chinese culture and pass it on to the world. We must have this patience and confidence.”
Tonight, Yu Long led the hand in hand in hand with soprano Guo Sen, baritone Yuan Chenye (Ye Xiaogang “Song of the Earth”), tenor Xiahou Jinxu and mezzo-soprano Zhu Huiling (Mahler “Song of the Earth”), and then Two symphonic vocal suites of the same name “Song of the Earth” will open for the 2021-22 music season. Under the leadership of Yu Long, the handover will reproduce the majestic momentum of the music in the record, the balance of the string music and the clarity of the brass, allowing the audience to feel the difference between the two composers of different cultural backgrounds and the interpretation of traditional Chinese culture. .
Gustav Mahler’s symphonic vocal tune “Song of the Earth” contains elements of Chinese Tang poetry, which uses Hans Bethge’s German translation of poems. The translation is translated. Composers have freely modified this. In fact, scholars have spent nearly a century searching for and confirming the original poem corresponding to Mahler’s text.
Yu Long, who always takes the promotion of Chinese culture as his own duty, invited the composer Ye Xiaogang to compose the original poem in 2004, creating a more faithful version of the original poem. The original version of Ye Xiaogang’s “Song of the Earth” had only four movements. After its premiere in Beijing in 2005, the composer added another two movements to form a complete work today.
On the same evening, Mahler and Ye Xiaogang performed two “Songs of the Earth”, and Yu Long thought carefully before standing on the podium. When dealing with the Mahler version, he initially tried to “sinicize” the work, but later changed his mind: “I think it must be performed as a German vocal suite. After deciding on this, I feel more free and can The feeling of German art songs is integrated into the work, expressing the understanding of poetry in a very Chinese way.”
Caption: Turned in to Music Director Yu Long
“The Chinese may seem reserved, but in fact they are very emotional.” From his own experience, Yu Long feels that the “Chinese-style” “Song of the Earth” is very necessary as a way of cross-cultural dialogue. “In the current rapid development of the world, the distance between people is alienated. Most people are immersed in their own lives and have not tried to understand other cultures. The current epidemic makes it more necessary for us to try to understand and sympathize with each other.” .
In Ye Xiaogang’s works, the emotions evoked by the music and the thoughts behind the notes are more important than the special “Oriental” effects such as the pentatonic scale, the gliding of human voices, and the timbre of Chinese instruments that every listener can easily hear. . The orchestration of this work is particularly diverse, including a large number of percussion instruments, including traditional national instruments as well as traditional Western instruments.
Long Yu said that from this work, “people have been able to see two pictures-Europeans’ feelings of love, pleasure and death, and Chinese feelings of the same things. In the comparison between the two, one can hear Mahler’s last movement “Farewell” and Ye Xiaogang’s last movement express the same emotions. Mahler created oil paintings, and Ye Xiaogang’s watercolor paintings. The juxtaposition of these two works allows us to proceed. Connotative comparison”.
The two “Songs of the Earth” from the East and the West were performed on the same night and recorded into the same DG album. Long Yu with a good heart: “I want to enable more people, especially Westerners, to create conflicts in the cultural differences. Mutual understanding.”
It is reported that in addition to “Song of the Earth”, the opening concert used Tang poems as the text to show Chinese and Western musical expressions, as well as “Sound Poems” inspired by Song Ci by the young composer Zhou Tian. In addition, the new music season will also continue the “tradition of opera” handed in, and will focus on the different charms of Chinese and Western operas through “The History of the Prodigal Son”, “The Legend of the White Snake” and “Seven Days”. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Zhu Yuan)
Editor: Lu Weixin
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