The Gesture Of Sound

In this thesis, the researcher aimed at the balance between tradition and innovation in the integration of Eastern and Western culture in the composition of Zhou Long’s opera<Madame White Snake>, particularly in the area of the application of language. It will not only benefit young composers who can learn from previous successful experiences, but also, from a unique angle, provide certain reference for more composers who are composing Chinese music and making it heard more worldwide.In addition to the information and thoughts provided by the composer himself, and the studies of other referential material on Zhou Long’s<Madame White Snake>, the researcher has summed up the logics and influences behind the creation of the opera through his own discovery, thinking and analysis on the opera, which became an important part of this thesis.In the process of the development of modern music in the21st century, Zhou Long’s opera<Madame White Snake> has shown the unique charm of the Chinese traditional culture through its starting point of making a high degree of integration of traditional Chinese culture and Western culture. Zhou Long has made use of the technique of integration to combine the western modern music techniques and the Chinese opera music, which made the opera<Madame White Snake> a success.In the thesis, there are two resources of "The Gesture of Sound" in Zhou’s opera, which laid the basic tone of the melodic design for the entire work. The first one is derived from the Chinese opera with a glide way of singing, which has been grafted into Zhou’s English opera. The second is drawn from the descending scale used in the melody of Suzhou Tanci, a stylistic kind of folk vocal music from the region where the legend Madame White Snake came from."The Gesture of Sound" with the slides of stepwise has appeared frequently throughout the opera, and left a deep impression to the audience.Various forms and their variations of "The Gesture of Sound" are applied in the instrumental and the vocal writing. There are descending scales with tremolos in both the instrumental accompaniment part and the pure orchestral part. The application in the vocal writing also includes the descending scales and the sliding tones in the melodies. The various forms of "The Gesture of Sound" constitutes the layout of the core material of the entire opera.Composer Zhou Long has done thoughtful work on the language processing in his opera<Madame White Snake>. It has become a highlight, which is very worthy of study.In the aspect of language processing, the research emphasized on the English musical setting which has the influence from the Chinese opera singing, such as "The Gesture of Sound", the processing of the drag of the ending pitch of the phrase, the triplets, the syncopations, and the tremolo-sound-like tone made with wide vibrato, all of which are used to strengthen the English syllables. To imitate some methods of the word setting in Chinese opera singing, in which one character can be set into a phrase with many notes, or, in a single musical note, composer Zhou Long has applied a single English syllable, but not an entire English word in the musical setting in his opera.The language processing in Zhou Long’s opera<Madame White Snake> is a very meaningful experiment in high degree of integration of Chinese and western cultures. It echoes the recommendation made by the jury to the Pulitzer Board in the2011Pulitzer Music Prize on Zhou Long’s opera<Madame White Snake>:"with this ambitious opera based on an ancient Chinese folk tale, the Chinese-born Zhou Long attempts an impressive feat of cultural translation:a work that synthesizes ancient and modern, East and West, blending Asian timbres, instruments and musical traditions into a Western musical fabric in ways that transcend mere local color to become deeply expressive in their own right"(Mu Qian:Classic tale retold, China Daily, April23,2011).