HISTORY 204 - EAST/WEST MUSIC

(F-11)

1. History of interactions between European and non-European music goes back at least to the 18th century - Turkish wind bands, Chinese tunes published

E-W musical interactions become especially important in 20th century - Because of improved communications and because of colonial and imperialist European control of rest of world

I am particularly interested in interactions between Europe/ America and Far East: China, Japan, Korea, also Indonesia - In my opinion these have become critically important in 20th century and will be central in 21st century, because "classical" music culture will be shared between Europe/America and Far East

We can look at interactions in each direction – 1) How composers born and raised in Europe or the US have responded to Asian music; 2) How composers born and raised in Asia have responded to Western music – Perhaps in the 21^st century these 2 situations are merging (i.e. it’s getting harder to tell who’s “Asian” and who’s “Western”)

2. European tradition of musical exoticism since late 17th century

Based on increasing encounters – especially with Turkey – Stereotypes of Turkish music reached Europe as "tokens" – e.g. you hear augmented second or long-short-short rhythm and you think "Turkey" – E.g. Mozart Abduction from the Seraglio or Turkish rondo – Tradition continues to Rimsky (Sheherazade) and on to Hollywood (Aladdin) – But most composers most audiences had no first-hand experience with non-Western music

20^th-century composers (and audiences) began to have much deeper experience and knowledge – e.g. Debussy with Javanese gamelan at Paris Expositions; Alexander Tcherepnin taught piano in China; Henry Cowell studied ethnomusicology with Hornbostel – Western composers began looking to Asian music for paths toward modernism – Especially East Asia: e.g. Debussy, Pagodes (1903); Stravinsky, 3 Japanese Lyrics (1913); Britten, Curlew River (1964)

3. James Wood (b. 1953) – Ho Shang Yao ("Songs by the River," 1983) - supplementary

Set of songs for soprano and percussion ensemble – will serve as an example of Western composers responses to Asian music

An Englishman and a percussionist, Wood travelled to Bali in 1981 (to buy gongs), and Balinese music and culture had a huge effect on him – He destroyed all his previous compositions and began composing music based on percussion and voice (like Balinese music) – But the resulting pieces don't imitate Balinese music

Texts for Ho Shang Yao come from Chinese Book of Odes (700 BC) – Wood selected 7 poems about courtship and marriage HANDOUT

Sung in Chinese – I can't tell whether pitch contours follow tones of Chinese language

Original poems would probably have been recited with percussion accompaniment (clappers) – Wood assigns meanings to instruments per Chinese traditions – e.g. river = wooden instruments, restlessness = shakers, rattles

Pentatonic (like Chinese music), BUT uses microtonal scale, which requires marimbas and glockenspiels with extra keys

PLAY #1 "The Peach Tree" – unaccompanied – You hear pentatonic scale and structure of poem very clearly – Also reflects performance practice of Chinese opera (Peking, Kunchü)

PLAY #3 "The Chen" – Title refers to river – poem is about courtship – marimbas suggest river, drums = sex – Sounds a lot like Peking opera

Does this imitate Chinese music? Evoke Chinese music? or is Chinese poetry and music a "catalyst" (Wood's word) to a new direction in Western music?

4. Far Eastern musicians and Western music

Japanese musicians began to encounter Western music in 1880s or so - Introduced as part of effort to "modernize" Japanese society and culture - Koreans encountered Western music via Presbyterian missionaries and also via Japan, because Korea was a Japanese “protectorate” from 1905 on - Chinese musicians encountered western music in treaty ports and via emigration to US

Fundamental fact about relation is asymmetry of power - During 18th and 19th centuries European countries exerted political and economic domination in much of Asia - European goods and institutions were often considered superior - Music followed this pattern - Many composers educated in West or at Western-style institutions (E.g. Japanese conservatories)

Asian composers came to know Western music in a much more thorough way than Western composers knew Asian music – For Western composers Asian music was “exotic”; for Asian composers Western music was “normal” – Thus Asian composers on the whole have been more successful at merging traditions than Western composers

5. Bright Sheng (b. 1955) – 7 Tunes Heard in China, No. 1, Seasons (1995) (NAWM 172)

For solo cello (Yo-Yo Ma) – based on a tune that Sheng heard in Qinghai province, where he was sent during the cultural revolution

PLAY – Listen for Chinese features: pentatonic, erhu techniques (vibrato, grace notes, slides), melodic patterns, accompanying text

What about Western features? – instrumentation, 2 voices (à la Bach cello suite), modulation – These features are unexpected in a setting of a Chinese tune – To a Chinese listener I think they are startling [CHECK]

Two ways to look at the piece:

1) As adapting Chinese musical materials into context of Western music

2) As synthesis (fusion) of Chinese and European traditions

It sounds as though Sheng is playing with the relations of Chinese and western music, amusing himself and his audience

6. (if time) Toru Takemitsu (1929-1996) - HANDOUT

November Steps (1967) - Commissioned by N.Y. Philharmonic - For western orchestra plus soloists on 2 Japanese instruments: Shakuhachi (end-blown notch flute), biwa (lute) – Supplementary Listening

Not based on traditional tune etc., and doesn't use obvious features of Japanese music (pentatonic, etc) - However sounds and playing styles are Japanese - Might also want to say that "aesthetic" is Japanese: declamatory style of solo instruments, emphasis on timbre rather than pitch, use of silence

"November Steps" uses many "advanced" Western techniques - e.g. atonal, notation, aleatory

PLAY from beginning - NOTE: lack of counterpoint in orchestra - separation between Japanese and Western instruments; T. doesn't try to combine – they barely overlap - use of harp and percussion as transition to Japanese instruments - Inflections of shakuhachi and biwa

Takemitsu said: “I would like to develop in two directions at once: as a Japanese with respect to tradition, and as a Westerner with respect to innovation. . . . I do not want to remove the fruitful contradictions; on the contrary, I would like the two forces to struggle with one another." (quoted in Marshall, 422)

(if time) PLAY cadenza (CD 9:35) - Note aleatory techniques, improvisation, use of silence