| Qing Zhu, a very successful composer and music aesthetician in Chinese Modern and Contemporary Art history, is one of the forerunners in the professionalization of China's art music composition. His art songs and music composition had been controversial and drawn much attention from many scholars for more than half a century in the academic circle. But all the starting points are purely from the perspective of musicology, attention to the literary meaning of his works was missing. So, based on this situation, this thesis will lay its emphasis on the literary meaning of Qingzhu's art songs.The so-called art songs refer to the popular emotional songs at the end of 18th century and the beginning of 19th century. These musical works are characterized by putting emphasis on the revelation of people's innermost world with strong tune power and complicated means of expressing and technical skills; at the same time accompaniment playing an important role. Qingzhu is one of the forerunners who introduced art songs into China. He had combined the skills of traditional Chinese Folk Songs and at the same time implemented the inconsistency and lack of integrity of the skills of folk songs by paying attention to the consistency and individuality of the words and tune of songs. His art songs fall into three kinds: original creative music, art music, and musical pieces. Original creative music was written and composed all by himself, for example, Unfettered Tour, Love of Life, Summer Night. Art music is music that originated from ancient poetry which had been composed solely or co-composed with his wife, Warlis, for example, The Might River Flowing Eastward, Eyeful of Red, etc... The musical pieces refer to the musical works in the musical album, Songs of Qing, Which was published in 1929. These pieces are quite simple but very popular, for example, Song of Plowing, Reflections on the Southern Part of the Yangtze River and Burning Sun, etc…As for the research methods of the thesis, the author tries to combine the characteristics of musicology and literature to illustrate the artistic achievements of Qingzhu in the crossing and melting of the two disciplines. As a musician, Qingzhu's original creative music is vivid, neat and rhythmic; his art music chose those authentic, high-pitching and natural works and revealed the deep artistic connotation through his feelings; his musical pieces are simple, but with powerful artistic appeal. As a man of letters and a connoisseur, his three kinds of songs are cordial, emotional and consistent in the rhythm of music and Chinese musical scale. |
