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Preface
Speaking of the famous mainland composer Du Mingxin, everyone must be familiar with it.
As an outstanding musician, Du Mingxin's works not only demonstrate his superb artistic skills, but also reflect a profound historical background and unique cultural perspective.
However, this is not the most noteworthy.
For Du Mingxin, his most remarkable personal achievement is his ability to perfectly integrate Chinese and Western music.
In this way, the charm of traditional Chinese folk music is not lost, nor is it lacking the techniques and forms of Western music.
It can be said that for now, this unique form of music has become a musical language, which profoundly shows the rich cultural connotation and profound significance of the times.
But what kind of mystery is there, and how should we learn from it?
The Misery of Childhood and the Enlightenment of Music
As we all know, Du Mingxin is good at using Western musical instruments to blend national things, no matter what kind of Westernized instrumental music genre can be injected into the style elements of the Chinese nation.
In the eyes of the world, Du Mingxin is not only a national musician, but also a musician of the times.
I don't know if you still remember one of the world's most authoritative music dictionaries - "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians".
He said that Du Mingxin's music is a dynamic melody, and he is very good at skillfully handling the orchestration to make the music extremely vivid and colorful.
Du Mingxin's lyrical melody that blends China and the West is very easy to catch the ears of the audience, and it also blends the styles of the times in China in the past hundred years under a variety of harmonic languages.
It was a summer in the late 70s, in a nursery school in Sichuan Province at the time, 11-year-old Du Mingxin was the lead singer and a group of children sang the first part of the exile trilogy, "On the Songhua River".
It may be the grief of losing his father or leaving his mother, which makes Du Ming cry while singing.
His tragic and affectionate singing voice also deeply touched the teachers of the Yucai School founded by Tao Xingzhi, who came to enroll students.
At that time, there were 300 children at the scene, and Du Mingxin stood out very rarely.
Later, in Yucai Primary School, he met the enlightenment teacher - He Luting.
It was under the influence of He Luting that Du Mingxin began to enter the palace of music.
The song "Tocata" was born on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Yucai School, Du Mingxin composed for this purpose, and won the second national "Golden Bell Award".
This piece is a rondo, divided into five sections: A-B-A1-C-A2.
First of all, the core motive of the theme is already told in the music example box, and the A section is carried out in the element of the four-note sequence.
However, because of the speed of this piece, it is necessary to relax the upper arms, keep the wrists down, ensure the control of the fingers, and be fast and solid when pressing the keys.
At the same time, the player should also pay attention to the dynamics, and not cause the sound to be too harsh because of too much force.
However, we can also find another element in this score, which is the repetition of the B-flat note from side to side.
When playing this part, the fingers should not be raised too high, and the fingers should not be relaxed, and the fingertips should be used to quickly switch between the left and right hands at a certain height distance, not deep and shallow, both accurate and clear.
In fact, this section is more of a Western style, but Du Mingxin's work will definitely stand at the intersection of Chinese and Western combinations.
Next, let's move on to the B-segment topic together.
From the score, we can accurately see that the core of this theme is still progressing according to a pure fourth.
However, the melody is more lyrical through the horizontal arpeggios, and for this part we have to move our wrists like waves.
In addition, while playing, we need to figure out the author's writing hierarchy and practice according to the levels.
These seem to be small short sentences with small connections, but they have to converge into a big flow.
The accompaniment of the arpeggios is slightly weaker, and the octave progression should be steady, accurate, and solid, and the sequential advancement forms a small climax at the end, in which the Chinese national style is highlighted.
By section A1, the left-hand theme motive and the right-hand chord begin to travel in reverse lower octaves.
Alternate octaves of the right hand in succession and the chords of the left hand in a semitone relationship, gradually rising to a small climax point, returning to the core of the theme again.
The chords of this section are progressed in tension maneuvers from the second, fourth, and fifth, respectively, making the harmonic texture more inflated and fuller, until the great tension of the seventh degree of the left hand and the eighth degree of the right hand in measure 61 hits strongly.
We can clearly notice that the five consecutive Boeings starting at measure 63 are like an over-the-top bridge.
This makes the melody enter the second section of the C section with the characteristics of the Chinese national style, which echoes the theme melody of the Chinese national style in the above section.
At this point, the playing needs to strengthen the fingers and highlight the melody of the right hand at the right time.
In addition to this, the clever combination of forty-six and triplets in this section makes the melody extremely dramatic.
The octave of the right hand dominates the melody, and the sound needs to be clear and powerful when playing, and the rhythm needs to be slowly amplified before practice to achieve accurate rhythm.
As the upper octave separates from the reverse march of the lower chords, the resulting bizarre acoustics push the music to the high point of measure 93.
At this time, the whole person of the player is completely open and relaxed, and uses the strength of the forearm to reverse the semitone octave in turn, and gradually repeat again.
When a passage is unexpected, it returns to the main key, which makes the harmonic structure very layered, and is the finishing touch to the whole piece.
Not only that, but the performer should also understand that playing is also the most physically demanding part, which requires us to use the strength of our body to help our fingers, keep our feet on the ground, lean forward, and use our waist and abdomen strength to push the major chord strength.
The A2 part returns to the core of the theme, which also accounts for 30% of the whole song, and the musical ups and downs are also particularly prominent, setting off waves one after another.
At this point, the player's emotions should be pushed to the highest point with wave after wave of waves, until they break through the main chord, and end the piece with a cadenza transition.
The structural design of the whole track is relaxed, full of vitality, and multiplies the dynamics, which is very easy to drive the audience's emotions and has strong artistic appeal.
In this regard, the performer should not only flexibly use the performance technique in learning, but also use high and intense emotions to arouse the emotions of the audience.
This piece is a typical Du Mingxin style piece, with elements of the Western toccata technique of homophony and rapid repetition, and also incorporates the common principles of Chinese style of pure fourths and major and minor seconds.
The whole track is not too long, but its full "tocata" elements require us to have enough perseverance and stamina, as well as passionate emotions.
Therefore, it takes a lot of physical energy to walk down the whole bullet.
Mr. Du Mingxin himself once said: "The highest level of music is that your works and your listeners get a deep emotional exchange, otherwise your music is a lonely person, music does not belong to yourself, it is the art of feelings."
The background and structure of Toccata
In 1928, a great composer was born in Qianjiang, Hubei.
He has a father who is a major battalion commander, and this father is Du Mingxin's successful enlightener.
The masculine and upright father loves music very much, and whenever he has nothing to do, he will try to buy some records to listen to, which also lays the foundation for his son Du Mingxin to learn music in the future.
Unfortunately, in 1937, when the "August 13" incident broke out in Shanghai, my father was killed on the battlefield.
Since then, her mother can only lead Du Mingxin to start a life of wandering and homelessness.
Finally, in the extremely cold winter of 1939, in order to save Du Mingxin's life, his mother reluctantly sent him to the wartime child care association.
In this way, Du Mingxin left his hometown and arrived in Yongchuan County, Chongqing two months later.
Later, after entering Yucai School, he met his teacher, He Luting, the creator of "Guerrilla Song", at He Luting's suggestion.
In order to train these hard-working children like Du Mingxin, the principal Tao Xingzhi managed to purchase three pianos and five organs.
Under the guidance of He Luting, Du Mingxin began to study music comprehensively and systematically.
From music reading to ear training, from piano to music appreciation, I grew up step by step in a difficult environment.
These deeds have been described in the preface of Du Mingxin's work "Yucai Song".
"In the old society, learning music was only possible for rich children, but for us poor children, it was something that we could never dream of. Under the strict and systematic guidance of our teacher He Luting and other teachers, we refugee children have strides towards the palace of music."
It can be seen how difficult and lucky Du Mingxin was to learn music at that time.
In 1954, with the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union, 26-year-old Du Mingxin ushered in a new opportunity.
During his studies in the Soviet Union, Du Mingxin studied under the famous composer and director of the Moscow National Theatre.
It was also during the four years of studying in Moscow that Du Mingxin's creative career was at a major turning point.
In addition to this, there was in 1976.
At that time, Du Mingxin's "Youth Waltz" reflected the cheerful mood and vigor of the people at that time with its cheerful melody and bright rhythm.
Du Mingxin's "Tocata" was written for his alma mater during the 60th anniversary celebration of the Yucai School that raised him and nurtured him, and he must have been excited and grateful at that time.
In the era of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, there are still the traditions of the old society, and there are also the novelties of the new society.
In order to perfectly merge the two, he recombined the harmony, melody, and texture to create this one-of-a-kind Tocata.
It is not difficult to see that the core feature of Du Mingxin's music is the nature of the times, and his music keeps pace with the times.
From his music, he retains not only his original expectations and dreams, but also the desires of a modernist composer.
Toccata is no less than arpeggios, diphonics, tremolos, trills, etc.
However, these words have been transformed into Chinese national styles, such as beating gongs and drums, blowing suona, and the pentatonic scale as the basic composition tone of Chinese folk songs.
However, this is actually the addition of slingers, portamentos, and rhythms from national instrumental music to the piano.
The music is played in response to the mood of the performer, while in the West the harmonic scale is adopted.
From the early Baroque period to the present modernist genres, they have developed the harmonic music to the fullest.
In Du Mingxin's "Tocata", it not only has its own "tocata" technique, fast and short, but also expresses the national percussion instrument using the same tone and repeated molding, China is a multi-ethnic country.
The 56 nationalities have their own unique musical instruments, such as drums, which are divided into waist drums, flower drums, thunder drums, fishing drums and so on.
There are also many types of gongs, such as cloud gongs, ten-sided gongs, etc., and the most lively and extraordinary Chinese folk is the noisy gongs and drums.
The core melodies of the three themes of A, A1 and A2 in Toccata are all percussion of the keys without repeated percussion of the left and right hands, which is a Western technique that reflects the warm atmosphere of our own nation.
epilogue
After reading the article, we were not only deeply shocked by the charm of music, but also felt Du Ming's sonorous and powerful heart.
It is no exaggeration to say that Du Mingxin's music is not only a demonstration of skills, but also a transmission of culture and emotion.
His works completely cross the boundary between Chinese and Western cultures!