Today, for the first time in the Dolby Cinema environment, people in China enjoy classical music in The Dolby Atmos format , the DG record "Song of the Earth" recorded by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the direction of music director Long Yu, held a concert sharing session and cultural forum at Beijing Huanying Cinema (Dolby Cinema), and played two pieces of music in the Dolby Atmos format.
"Song of the Earth" includes the music works of the same name by Mahler and Ye Xiaogang, two composers, based on Tang poems, and is recorded by Universal Music's classical music label DG Deutsche Grammophon, and recorded with Dolby Atmos technology. The technology enhances the expressiveness of music and creates an immersive listening experience for listeners. It is reported that the Dolby Atmos format of "Song of the Earth" has been launched on Apple Music, so that global music fans can "immerse" listen to Chinese voices and Shanghai sounds.
Mare Mahler, founder and president of the MAHLE Foundation and granddaughter of MAHLE, specially recorded a video for the event. She said: "This album is a dialogue between Chinese and Western music, it is very beautiful, I believe it is just the beginning, I want to offer sincere blessings and love to the conductor Yu Long and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, you have overcome the new crown epidemic, traffic restrictions and other difficulties, with your persistence and love for music to get through the difficulties." Now that you've finished recording the album, it's a very great and meaningful music album. ”
The internationally renowned sound recordist worked in Shanghai for five days and quarantined for a month, only for this record that made shanghai sounds and Chinese voices
At the music sharing meeting, Zhou Ping, director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, introduced the recording process of the album "Song of the Earth" to Beijing fans. "It was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and several foreign recording engineers and musicians not only needed to quarantine for several weeks in order to complete the five-day recording work in Shanghai, but also encountered difficulties and obstacles such as the final replacement of the performance staff due to the length of the quarantine, the cancellation of tickets several times, and the refusal of visas due to nucleic acid test documents and clinic qualification problems."
In fact, in order to ensure the international artistic quality of this record, Yu Long, music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, communicated by phone many times and persuaded Christopher Alder, a DG recording engineer who had recorded many records for the famous conductor Abado, to come to Shanghai, which required foreign sound recordists to quarantine at home and abroad for a total of 28 days, just for this record that made Shanghai sound and Chinese voice. Fortunately, two foreign singers, tenor Brian Jade and mezzo-soprano Michelle De Young, and two foreign recording engineers under DG, Christopher Alder and Philip Claus, finally arrived in Shanghai and successfully recorded with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Yu Long.
Christopher Alder shared his journey to make "Song of the Earth" using Dolby Atmos mixing. "We added an extra microphone to the recording process [at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall], so that the audience could listen to the symphony as if they were sitting in the concert hall. The sound of the instrument emanates from the listener's head and behind him, and when encountering some of Mahler's musical works with choruses, the technique can be used to create the aural effect of the sound emanating from very far behind. According to Christopher, Dolby Atmos music can currently be enjoyed using headphones, home theaters or soundbars.
"Dolby Atmos delicately presents the orchestration and musical colors of the work, immersing the listener in the sound and giving them the greatest imagination." Wu Jialun, managing director of Universal Music China, believes that the development of music cannot be separated from the development of science and technology, "We hope to win the attention of more young listeners through new technologies and let them know that classical music is not cold." ”
The recording process in Shanghai is a phenomenon across countries, triggering a deep understanding of different cultures
"The recording process of 'Song of the Earth' is a colorful dialogue between East and West, between Chinese composers and Western composers in the last century and this century, and it is also a phenomenon-level cultural event created by China and foreign countries." Yu Long believes that people should have a kind and tolerant heart for different ethnic groups and different cultures, and "Song of the Earth" contains the exploration of love, survival, death, human nature and other propositions, aiming to stimulate deeper transnational cultural exchanges.
When he was in his 20s, Yu Long communicated with the famous conductor Li Delun. "I remember that at that time, Teacher Li thought that Mahler's 'Song of the Earth' should be translated as 'Song of the Earth', and he thought that the work reflected the mood of walking into mortal dust." Today, Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang has also written his own "Song of the Earth" and assembled it in the same record, which makes Yu Long, the bearer of the two works, feel a lot.
"Mahler's 'Song of the Earth' presents the feeling of entering the world, like an oil painting; Ye Xiaogang expresses the feeling of being born, like an ink painting, and there are many blank spaces for people to imagine." Yu Long used the use of musical notes to express the "farewell" in Tang poetry as an example, and the two composers wrote different moods. "The song moon is born at night, the wind spring is full of clear listening, Meng Haoran's Tang poems are few words, but they include scenes, pictures and meanings, just like Ye Xiaogang's music; the works are translated into German, but they use complex and realistic words to explain the story clearly and carefully, just as Mahler will use complex instruments to present the drama in music."
Listening to mahler's version of "Song of the Earth" recorded by DG, Ye Xiaogang was impressed by the interpretation of soprano Marshall and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. "Through her singing, I can hear her inner entanglements and struggles, and hear her distinct feelings about life; the Shanghai Symphony under the baton of Yu Long is quite accurate and unique in its interpretation of this immortal classic, interpreting a version different from the West, especially the first movement, which has a feeling of pushing the music forward."
"When poetry becomes the image of music, our generation of Chinese composers are using modern methods to inherit the artistic conception of Tang poems written by poets such as Li Bai and Wang Wei, which is a very meaningful thing." Ye Xiaogang said that he wrote "Song of the Earth" in his 40s, which is younger than Mahler when he wrote the work of the same name, so his attitude towards life in the work is more radical than That of Mahler. "For example, I would like to make some contributions to the world, and I would also use music to express the poet's mood of standing on the top of the mountain and overlooking life."
Zhang Liping, a soprano who participated in the recording of the record, believes that Ye Xiaogang's "Song of the Earth" has the artistic conception of Jiangnan Water Town, the magnificent expression of Tang poetry, and the dashing and compassionate mentality of human nature. "These are difficult to present only by conventional vocal expression, because I had the foundation of Beijing opera when I was a child, so I used the singing voice of Qingyi and Hua face in the interpretation of Ye Xiaogang's version of "Song of the Earth", so as to make the dramatic and story expression of this work more complete and accurate."
Author: Jiang Fang
Editor: Tong Weijing
*Courtesy of the organizer