The Harmony Of The River Given Immortal Art Songs

Jiang Dingxian (1912-2000)is a renowned Chinese composer and musiceducator in the20thcentury, whose musical creation embraces various music formsand genres, including art songs, chorus, children’s songs, piano music, movie music,symphony, etc. As one of the four leading disciples of Huang Zi, Jiang carriedforward his rich western composing techniques and blended them with Chinese fivetones, which has made remarkable contributions to Pentatonic Mode HarmonyTheory.This thesis selects materials from the eighteen solo art songs from the Collectionof Jiang Dingxian and mainly studies his harmonic techniques. In light of the relevantstudies on Jiang’s works and from the angle of musical morphology, the authoranalyzes and discusses the chosen eighteen solos from the aspects of the mode andtonality, the chord structure, the harmonic progression, etc. in a subtle and profoundmanner, in hope to probe the distinct harmonic techniques of Jiang’s art songs, whichcan provide a sound foundation for the further study on styles and characteristics ofharmony in Jiang’s musical works.This thesis involves the following five parts:Chapter One: Jiang Dingxian’s life and the creation background of his art songs.At the beginning of this chapter, the life of Jiang Dingxian and his most importantmusic works are given in the sequence of early, middle and late periods of his artsongs creation. And then follows the general introduction of the creation backgroundof Jiang’s art songs.Chapter Two: the musical analysis of Jiang’s art songs. In this chapter, themusical analysis is made on Jiang’s art songs from the aspects of the musical formstructure,temple features and the performance of accompaniments in order to see thefeatures of Jiang’s art songs from a larger picture. Chapter Three: the analysis of harmonic techniques in Jiang’s art songs. As thehighlight of this thesis, this chapter discusses the characteristics of his harmonictechniques by elaborate analyses and studies on the mode and tonality, including themajor and minor mode,the pentatonic mode, the modal alternating and interchangeand the tonality layout; chord structures, including the tertian chord and thenon-tertian chord, which involves the forth chord, the fifth chord and the secondarychord; and harmony progression, including the functional harmony progression, theparallel progression, the modal progression, the continuant progression, the linearprogression.Chapter Four: the characteristics of harmonic techniques in Jiang’s art songs andhis influences. Based on the studies above, this chapter summarizes the characteristicsof harmonic techniques in Jiang’s art songs and expounds the far-reaching effects ofJiang’s harmonic techniques.Conclusion: This chapter is the summarization of the whole thesis, making aconclusion on the major harmonic techniques and creation influence of Jiang’s artsongs.