Ballads Of Four Seasons By Ziye Of Jinxiang Harmony Research

Xiang Jin, one of the most influential modern composers, has variety of composingstyles and types; art song is a part of Mr. Jin works. ballads of four seasons by Ziye, aseries of vocal music, was created by him in1981. It is, till now, an outstanding masterpiece in terms of both the creation technics and singing perspective.In ballads of four seasons by Ziye, the composer, Mr. Jin transformed the characters fpentatonic cultural-music-language to a special creator-personalized tone that perfectly fitsin the song. Carrying typical Chinese national pentatonic mode, its harmonic music alsocombined with western music and techniques. As a result, the song remains nationalpentatonic tone with western-styled dynamic.In this essay, author fully analyses this series of song, including the development ofthe origin lyric background and content plus the implication of the entire musical details.In the analysis of harmony structure, it talks about the different aspects and motionsshown in chord material of this master piece. The analysis is based on the examples of thenational pentatonic chord material, western tertian chord material and recurrent othermaterial in this song. In the analysis of harmony progressing, the author listed the frequentused functional progressing, linear progressing and so other harmonic progressing byexampling multiple functions of harmonic progressing. Another important part in thisessay is the usage of the musical mode and scale. The song is actually an exhibition ofpersonalized technics of scale and complicated use of mode. With the will of exploration,the author will show and develop this master piece’s multiplemodes as well as musicallanguage.