THE EVOLUTION OF A COMPOSER’S STYLE AS A DRIVING FORCE FOR THE RENEVAL OF NATIONAL MUSIC, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE WORK OF GUO WENJING

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the body of work of the world-renowned representative of the «new wave» of Chinese music, Guo Wenjing, whose work has garnered international acclaim on the finest stages of Europe, Asia and the USA, has been performed by world-famous artists, and has involved collaboration with the music publisher Casa Ricordi. It examines the artist’s origins, the role of his family and environment, and the influence of political events on his development as a musician. It is established that during his formative years at the conservatoire, the composer’s priorities included the music of the Western European avangard (B. Bartók, P. Hindemith, K. Stockhausen, K. Penderecki, modern techniques, particularly aleatoric music) and the Chinese musical tradition (Sichuan music). The overall mood reveals the expressionist character of the works from this period. ‘Burial Above the Abyss in Sichuan’ demonstrates a new sophistication and boldness of musical expression, whilst the programmatic title of the work reveals a deep sense of his own national identity. Works composed after his return to Chongqing demonstrate a fusion of features from Beijing and Sichuan opera with expressionist expression (A. Schoenberg).
It has been established that, upon his return to Beijing, the composer developed his own refined stylistic language, based on elements of Chinese folk music, particularly that of his native Sichuan province; the themes of his works reveal a focus on religious ritual («She Huo»), whilst the 1990 s saw Guo Wenjing increasingly turning to his native timbral language. This period is marked by a search for naturalness in a foreign environment, a sense of belonging.
The turn of the millennium marked a shift in the composer’s style, characterised by a return to local traditions of Chinese music in works with distinctly national themes, a revival of historical themes, and a return to the national opera tradition, including in the field of film music (the opera «No» served as the basis for the plot of Zhang Yimou’s film «A Single Man’s Journey»). Among the works of the second decade, the predominance of incidental music in Guo Wenjing’s oeuvre is evident (the operas ‘Rickshaw’, ‘Xi Fan’, ‘The Thirst for Everyday Life’ and the ballet ‘Dunhuang’) This epitomises Guo Wenjing’s quest to create a new art form that organically continues the ancient traditions of Chinese opera, a philosophical interpretation of the deep mental drivers of Chinese identity, from which the diversity of the world is formed, preventing one from getting lost in its global nature and allowing one to preserve one’s own ‘self’.