Hui Xi Of Wu Opera Music Research

Hui Xi of Wu Opera, which was called "Jinhua drama" by the local people, is a kind of folk operas prevailing around the district of Jinhua and Quzhou, Zhejiang Province. As a local opera, it is not only an important part of Wu Opera and the base of the formation of Wu Opera, but also a branch of Hui Xi. Because of the influence of the culture of the district of Jinhua and Quzhou, Hui Xi developed to Hui Xi of Wu Opera. Thus it is the reflection of the long history and the local culture. In this paper, the author take the music morphological and ethnomusicology research methods to have a tentative study of Hui Xi of Wu Opera thematically and systematically.In this paper, there are overall three parts:introduction, body, conclusion. In the body part, this paper develops from the perspective of history, state, performance, instrumental, and the relationship between performance and instrumental to synthesize and have a search on the history, the state of music, and the art of performance and playing the instrument.The first part of the body distinguishes the definitions and theories of Hui Xi of Wu Opera, Hui Xi and Wu Opera in the perspective of history. The different opinions of the source of Hui Xi of Wu Opera are discussed. And Hui Xi of Wu Opera is studied in the social background.In the second and third part of the body, the state of Hui Xi of Wu Opera is studied from the Pihuang Style and Chuibo Style. With the qualitative and quantitative study of the opera, this paper has a deep analysis of the prescriptive and variable factors and the musical features of Pihuang Music of Hui Xi in pronunciation, style, tone, rhythm, range, melody, and rules. Through the systematic study of the history, structure, melody of Chuibo Style, it is concluded that Chui Style is a transitional music of Qupai Style and Banqiang Style and that Bozi Style belongs to Banqiang Style. Chui Style and Bozi Style are contrastive and complementary. What’s more, the combination of Chui Style and Bo Style is discussed.In the fourth, fifth and sixth parts of the body, the performance, instrumentals and the relationship between performance and instrumentals of Hui Xi of Wu Opera are studied. On the performance level, the formation of the style of performing Hui Xi of Wu Opera and the reason of the formation of the distinctive style are analyzed. The distinctive style includes the classification of the difference of the performers, the changes of voices, the use of the modified sounds, the combination of singing and speaking, the social background, and the change of the audiences’appreciation. All kinds of the voice styles (big voice, low voice, male and female throat, and true or false throat), and modified sounds (crying, sad sound, roaring, rolling sound) are interpreted on the musical level. On the instrumental level, the instruments, the skills of performing the instruments are analyzed in detail; the specific style of the main instrument, the title of the opera, and the rules of the music are concluded. Furthermore, the formation of the style of the Hui Xi of Wu Opera, the context, as well as the relationship between Hui Xi of Wu Opera and the practice of the artists are explored. On the level of the relationship between performance and instrumentals, the content and the style of the relationship between performance and instrumentals are analyzed in detail to figure out the indispensable relationship between the instrumentals and the performance.