National Spirit In Romantic Music

Tchaikovsky's Overture Fantastique Romeo and Juliet, a well-known piece of Russian program music, represents the deep thoughts of this pessimistic drama Romeo and Juliet by Shakespear in music language abundant in Russian music by sequential presentation, juxtaposition and interlocking of different music themes.This dissertation, composed of four parts, is a study on the harmony language of Tchaikovsky's overture fantastique Romeo and Juliet. The first part is a general survey of Tchaikovsky's life, historical background of the writing of the piece of the music, the contents of the original, and the origination and development of programme music. The second part is an analysis of the function of harmony, involving tonality thought, mode thought and the presentation of harmony. The third part, starting with the dramatic features of the original Romeo and Juliet, focuses on the representation of harmony. It mainly deals with the characteristics of the themes of its introduction, primary group and secondary group. The fourth part is on the national spirit in romantic music.By application of the methods of musicology, sociology, history and culturology, a detailed research is made into the harmony of this piece of music in order to find out the techniques of harmony specific to Tchaikovsky, the way of the combination of the systems of the major and minor with Russian natural mode in Tchaikovsky's pieces, and the features of the style of Tchaikovsky's combination of the traditional techniques of harmony in the West with the national music of Russia.The author of the present dissertation strongly believes that the study of Tchaikovsky's techniques of harmony serves to offer a mirror for pioneering a new field for developing national music and pursuing nationalization of music writing and that it is of great practical significance for China in music composing and music education.