Henri Dutilleux Orchestral Work "metamorphosis" Creative Research

Henri Dutilleux (1916-), as the most brilliant founding-father French composer who is still living, has promoted the 21st-century French modern music to a new peak with unique composing characteristics and perfect musical qualities. Encompassed in the 20th-century Western music community though, which features multi-school turbulence with various revolutionary and experimental modern/pioneering music constantly emerging, Dutilleux has chosen to deeply root the composition in the excellent traditions of the French music rather than follow suit to be in line with the then blazingly hot "avant-garde." By that, Dutilleux has integrated different sorts of "new techniques" into the composition, and has paved a unique path between tradition and modernity with Dutilleux characteristics.This dissertation, with the research domain focused on techniques in terms of composition theories, analyzed the orchestral work Decay (Metaboles,1964) which is typical of his maturation period, and explored his unique composition techniques and aesthetic orientations and how these techniques and orientations were implemented and realized in various aspects such as structure, pitch material, harmony, tone coulor, and sound arrangement. In the composition of Decay, Dutilleux, emphasizing "colors"-delicate orchestration and those "strips"-coupled with advanced polyphony and ingenious, precise, strictly logical mirror-symmetrical principle, created splendid and variedly graceful acoustic images. While exploring and attempting various new techniques and methods, due to intense artistic characteristics and strict structural logic, Dutilleux has permanently exhibited maturation in thinking, skill in handling all techniques, and a kind of accurate, sensitive artistic intuition.This dissertation is composed of six chapters. Following an introduction, Chapter 1 introduced Dutilleux, the man, and his composition styles; Chapters 2-6, the main body, analyzed pitch material, texture, orchestration, and formal structure with concrete examples; and the conclusion summarized the composition techniques and styles applied in Decay, and proposed the authors points of view and insights.