Study On Music Composition Of Chinese Composers Studying Abroad In Soviet Union In 1950s

In the early days of new China in 1950s, to develop our country's musical undertakings and education, by means of strict political investigation and specialty examination, six talented young musicians, Zuqiang Wu, Mingxin Du, Jianer Zhu, Wei Qu, Lu Zou, and Qige Meili were chosen and sent to the world-famous Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory to study to compose music. This is one of the greatest events in China's history of music and its education.Under the guidance of their Russian teachers, these six Chinese young musicians accepted a systematically regular training on composing techniques and theory, and a comprehensive education on music theory so that a solid foundation was laid for their future musical creations. In the meantime, they were nurtured by the excellent traditional musical culture of the Russian nationalities, and directly contacted a lot of great Russian composers and their works that broadened their outlook and enriched their knowledge. They gained a lot in learning and mastering of the western composing skills and techniques that could not have been obtained if they had not gone abroad. Their diligence, conscientiousness, and excellent, synthetic qualities were highly admired by the USSR government and people, and by their teachers and classmates, which also made a contribution to the friendship between China and the USSR in 1950s. When they completed their study and came back home, they brought back excellent Russian ideas of music creations and a systematic teaching setup of composition, which raised our understanding and mastering of the western composing skills and techniques to a new level.No doubt that these composers are the first outstanding professional ones of new China. The experience of study in Russia made them have different growth background of music from others, which resulted in the broader music outlook, sounder grounding in basic composing, and more creative ideas of creations. Their works are rich and varied in type and form, which best display their ideological content and artistic quality with a solid cultural grounding and a unique angle of view. Many works keep a strong attendability and meanwhile combine the western composing skills with the Chinese national music elements perfectly. The music style which merged the Russian-USSR music, European classical and romantic music, and Chinese national and folk music together, has deeply affected the development of the China's contemporary musical creations.This paper reviews and summarizes the growth process and musical creations of the six Chinese composers who studied in the USSR in 1950s, focusing on their study life and musical creations in that period and taking their major representative works as the research subject. The paper has five chapters: Chapter 1 Introduction gives overview of the origin, methods and objectives of the research subject; the current status, achievements, deficiency, and problems to be in-depth studied in the related research fields are also overviewed. Chapter 2 and 3, based on the historic event that these young Chinese composers studied in the USSR in 1950s, expand discussion about them, in which the background and features of study in the USSR, their specialty learning experience and personal growth process are reviewed and summarized in detail. Chapter 4 and 5 are the focuses of this paper in which, based on deeply analytical investigation on a great deal of exercises in composition, in terms of harmony, polyphony, musical form structures, and orchestration techniques, the author expounds in detail how these young Chinese composers raised the learning of compositing techniques of the western classical and romantic music to a new level; and how they made new explorations and attempts in the nationalization of creation style of composition during the period of study in the USSR.Although the musical creations by these six composers in the period of study in the USSR were just the exercises in composition, they were the fruits of their art practice with great concentration, which had great weight. Today, half a century later, the rich-in-features artistic creations and writing techniques that appeared in their musical creations are still a model of combination of artistry, technicality, and nationality in China's contemporary musical creations. Because of the historic limitations, it was impossible for the composers to touch upon the modern compositing techniques which are quite complex and various today, however they had reached a very high level in the application of the traditional compositing techniques. They used the simplest, most classical traditional techniques to creatively cast the most powerful voice of the age, and their works have become a banner of the China's contemporary musical creations for a few decades since then, which is worth study and thinking.