Definition On Art Songs And Their Artistic Characteristics

Art songs, resulting from the music during the epoch of European romanticism, occupy an important position in the phylogeny of European music. Stylistically speaking, art songs, distinguishing itself from other types of songs such as popular songs, children songs and selected songs for an opera, have distinctive artistic characteristics, criterions of aesthetics and value of function. As an exotic style of vocality, art songs have not developed long in China, as a result, people have not formed an unified understanding of the term. Some people even mistake it as "artistic songs"; in some books and magazines, the term is usually described in general; in the circle of music, musicians and masters have different understanding of it and disagree with each other.Based on the origin, development, configurations of art songs and criteria for appreciation of their beauty, this article has made a systematical analysis of the representative European art songs of the nineteen century and contemporary Chinese ones, explored the historical, humanistic and configurative attributes of art songs, and it has also highlighted the characteristics of musical genre of vocality as well as the aesthetic basis. This article is aimed at defining the term art song, revealing the skills and techniques of composing art songs, rules and principles for their deducting and the criteria for appreciation of the beauty of art songs. The conclusion has been drawn that the art song, with a view of expressing one's sentiment, is a musical genre of vocality that usually takes a famous poem as its words, and a harmonious music as its tune, with poetic and artistic accompaniment, and that art songs, narrative or lyric, differ from one another due to their different genres. Some other conclusions about the artistic characteristics of art songs have been reached as follow: first, the literature of art songs determines the elegance of their styles and the profound tastes; second, the characteristics of art songs, musical poems and poetic music, indicate the perfect integration of poem and music, exhibiting the aesthetic special characteristics and reflecting the typical characteristics of the genre; third, the language style and musical material present national characteristics implied in the art songs; fourth, accompaniment constitutes the indispensable part of an art song, which brings multi-voice effect to art songs.In the course of our musical practice, we should make clear the definition and the characteristics of art songs, rooted into the cultural reality of Chinese nation, throbbing with the pulse of the times, establishing scientific concept of development, and have our own way of art songs with Chinese characteristics...