Individual Consciousness And Rights In Culture Breakthrough

As a product of a particular era and society，the creative acts of thecomposers informed by their cultural concepts are framed within the ecology ofculture of the times. No matter how rigorous the external restrictions are, and even ifthey are formidable, as an individual artist in society, some of them will always findtheir ways out by instinct or in the consciousness of individual dignity. Such impulsesof personal autonomy embodying elements of culture breakthrough inevitably createcontradictions and conflicts between social responsibilities (more as politicalresponsibilities in the fifties and sixties) and cultural rights of an individual (creativechoices and approaches, and aesthetic values and perspectives). It is thesecontradictions and conflicts that declare the rights and dignities to which the artistsaspire. This dissertation does not aim to interpret how the Chinese musicianscompromised within the confines of the social and cultural ecology during theseventeen years after the liberation. It seeks to unfold those constrains and personalchoices through a case study of a typical and representative composer.The dissertation examines three earlier orchestral works of Shi Yongkang in lightof his life’s circumstances, and their creative acts, musical expressions, artisticconcepts and aesthetic inclination. Situating this individual cultural event in the vastand intricate culture ecology, it explicates how this enlightened and dignifiedcomposer exerts a covert combat, a culture breakthrough in face of formidablerestrictions and very limited margin of compromise to vindicate a suppressedaspiration to personal dignities and individual cultural rights in those historicalsituations. It also throws light on the difficulties faced by the Chinese musicians ofthose times in developing music culture and actualizing musicianship and personalvalues.