On Its Pursuit For Modernity Of The Chinese National Vocal Art Within The Context Of Cultural Transformation

As a cultural ideology full of aesthetic charm, the vocal art has been in a close relation with human society. From the beginning of the 20th century to that of the 21st century, this century witnessed an important phase of development of the Chinese vocal arts. In one word, within the context of the social transformation, the line of "encounter-estrangement-return"--the whole process of the involvement between the Chinese national vocal art and the western vocal art--has just sketched the pursuit of "modernity" by the national vocal art.First, the 20th century saw the development of the Chinese vocal art in a historical phase of cultural transformation. The social transition put enormous vigor and impetus to the Chinese musical art. As a whole, there are two times of cultural transformation during the 20th century: the first one is from the late of 19th century to the May 4th Movement. This is a cultural revolution and a try to establish the modern western culture, which at last ended in a failure. The consequent social revolution achieved the national unification, independence and social development. Form then on, the so-called "Neo-traditional culture" gradually evolved to maturity, and till the beginning of the reform and opening-up policy in the 1970s, the second "cultural transformation" gained its momentum. During this process, the Chinese vocal art has all along kept its pace with the social changes of cultural transformationSecond, taking the issue of "modernity" as its theoretical base, the thesis tries to explore the notion of modernity in the development of the Chinese vocal art. The cultural transformation is a further step for the social transformation in the process of modernization. To some extent, the cultural transformation is, in its essence the transformation of modernity. As a matter of fact, the pursuit for modernity of the Chinese vocal art has been initialed since the phase of the first cultural transformation after 1840. Due to its failure, the continuity of this pursuit was detained. During the period of "cultural transition" form the establishment of the People's Republic of China to the reform and opening-up phase, the restriction arising from the socialist "Neo-traditional culture" characterized with pan-political mindset and centralization conduced to the row between traditional vocal voice and western bel canto. In the phase of the second cultural transformation, the pursuit for modernity of the Chinese national vocal art gained its. full momentum, and its rampancy resulted in the reflections on the notion of "modernity".In this thesis, the author tries to indicate that, the fundamental differences between the Chinese vocal culture and aesthetics and that of the western vocal art lie not in its nationality, but in modernity. Within the context of cultural transformation in current globalization, we could find that, from the perspectives of multiple or alternative modernity, the Chinese vocal art of the 21st century should forsake the mindset of binary opposition and construct a sophisticated national vocal art through integration and innovation, and also transcend beyond the demerits of western modernity.