From "West-Japan Exchange" To "East Meets West"

Jiang Wen-Ye (1910-1983) is one of the most fruitful composers in modern Chinese music history. Of his numerous contributions, his piano music works stand out as the best ones in the 1930s and 1940s in China. Generally speaking, his piano music can be divided into three periods: early, middle and late periods. Academics have different views on Jiang Wen-Ye's music-style changes. Some emphasize the impact of Japanese music culture; some validate the various manifestations of modern Western techniques; while some focus on the progressive approach of traditional Chinese musical elements. This paper, based on a comprehensive analysis of the various approaches, studies the changes in style of his Piano music from a consistent and dialectical perspective.This paper argues that Jiang Wen-Ye's changes in musical style can be divided into two stages. The first stage is the "West-Japan Exchange", the second stage, the "East meets West fusion." A careful analysis shows that in the first stage of "West-Japan", two kinds of music cultures "exchange" rather than "blend". The conclusion is drawn on the basis of a full understanding of the "Western Music" and "Japanese Music" in Jiang Wen-Ye's early works. On the one hand, young Jiang Wen-Ye has just mastered the modern Western techniques, and he is still in the experimental phase; on the other hand, though Jiang Wen-Ye had lived in Japan for a long time, a "marginal sense" as the people of Taiwan continued to bum in his hearts, so it is difficult for him to assimilate into Japanese culture completely.In the "West-Japan Exchange" process or after, the Japanese element was fading, Chinese elements began to grow, especially after Jiang Wen-Ye settled in Beijing in 1938. Jiang Wen-Ye came to accept and learn Chinese music culture. This process has undergone two stages, firstly the "East-West Exchange" with "Beijing wanhua sets" as the representative, and secondly the "East meets West", with "Local seasonal poem" as the representative.This paper argues that, we can clearly see the evolution of the style of Jiang Wen-Ye through his piano music. Generally speaking, they demonstrated three levels of development. The first one is composition matches techniques, the second one, cultural-ideas exchange, and the third one, fusion of music style. Towards the end of this paper, the author makes an assessment on Jiang Wen-Ye's "Chinese and Western" music style and emphasizes the important status and significance of Jiang Wen-Ye and his works in China's modern music history. This paper also points out that, Jiang Wen-Ye could have made more contributions than merely bringing the world music trends to China. Yet given the historical conditions and his personal experiences and other reasons, he has played a very important and successful role in modern Chinese music history..