The Opera "song Of The Prairie" Musical Style And Achievements

The Opera Song of Prairie is a great successful work which highly praised by the audience and the experts both at home and abroad. However, most of the relevant literatures we have seen are reports about its performances, recollections, or comments in certain musical articles. But there is no comprehensive induction and judgment about its musical style. With the musical style and its achievement in the Song of Prairie as my research aims, the thesis could probably provide a reference to the study of China's contemporary opera.Through analyses music and the relevant background of the work, I did a comprehensive and in-depth study about Song of Prairie's musical style. From the view of musical history, I also studied the work's achievements.The composer of Song of Prairie mainly absorbed materials from Chinese ethnic groups'and folk music such as Tibetan songs and dances, Han ethnic group's narrative music and Chinese opera, thus making the song demonstrated a vivid national character from its harmony language, tonality arrangement and musical material. Based on Chinese folk music, the song created many characteristic, distinctive and moving musical themes. By using the approach of"making the theme run through the work"in western music and many other composing techniques, the work created rich and integrated musical images.The conclusion of the thesis: with the influence of new musical culture of China and that of People's Liberation Army, Song of Prairie inherited the excellent traditions which based on Chinese folk music and made new innovations and development. It draws references from some western musical techniques on purpose and creates rich and lively musical images using characteristic and colorful musical themes and logical and exact development techniques. It successfully displays the dramatic conflict and eulogizes the great theme of the triumph over the enemy of the prairie people under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party. The whole work had remarkable achievements on the way of China's new opera development, owing to its enduring artistic effect.