探討音樂歷史風格

中國音樂的現代化綜論 (1) — 中國文化面對現代化的衝激

前言: 早前曾跟讀者談過陶傑所喜愛的一個中國歷史時代,也就是我所喜歡的同一年代 — 民國初年。我也曾說過,民國初年 (五四之後至1937 年中日戰爭開始時),就像一位風華絕代的中年美女,充滿使人感到醇醉的千嬌百媚和風情萬種。只因這個時代是中華民族在藝術文化音樂的各個領域裡經歷真正現代化的時期,或者,更應該說是對峙著西方式的現代化 (western modernization) 沖激。在音樂發展上,是中國傳統音樂接受西方音樂的洗禮的里程埤。我所談及的風韻醇醉,就是從這個音樂現代化開始。我這一系列文章,就是討論中國音樂的現代化的發展。其中各篇文章有的是以 Academic 英文寫成,也有用中文以隨筆方式寫成的。敬請各同學留意,不要 copy-and-paste。但 idea 就不妨拿來參巧一下。

China’s Cultural Modernization
China experienced its modernization at the time when the western culture was massively imported through the hegemony of imperialism in the beginning of the twentieth-century. From the present perspective, this modernization movement has proven to be an important phase in the entire progression of Chinese music culture. However, the cultural collision was so fierce that the seemingly unshakable traditional structure was seriously distorted. China had never experienced this before throughout its long history. In the Tang Dynasty, for instance, China was in a strong political and social position. Its indigenous culture was able to absorb, transform and assimilate the incoming foreign cultural elements, thus constructing a new, unique hybridized culture of its own without surrendering its original value system. The Indian Buddhism which was imported to Chinese community at this time was an exemplar of just such a successful cultural assimilation. However, the cultural transmission at the time of China’s modernization was totally different. Unlike the situation in the Tang Dynasty, modern China was in a seriously weak socio-political position. The transcultural process was carried out on the basis of neither a China-leading, nor a two-way equal exchange model.[1] On the contrary, it took the form of a strong, brutal conquest which aimed to fulfill a colonizer’s ambitious desire for exploiting greater economic and political advantages from the weaker colonized by destroying its ancient, historically valued socio-cultural structure.
The May Fourth Movement (1919), first appearing as a request for reform at political level and later spreading out to cover different socio-cultural dimensions, together with the New Cultural Movement (1915-1922) were regarded as the reactions to this great imbalance of east-west acculturation.[2] In July 1933, the Sheng Bao Monthly (申報月) in Shanghai published a special issue on “The Modernization of China”.[3] This publication showed that Chinese people used the term “modernization” to describe the cultural confrontation. As Chinese intellectuals and even the masses were forced to recognize the military power and political strength of western imperialism, there was a concomitant awakening of national consciousness. The western educated backgrounds of social elite also compelled them to acknowledge the serious backwardness of the country in areas such as democracy, science, and the military. With the aim of reconstituting a new Chinese culture through, paradoxically, wholesale westernization in order to save the country, Chinese intellectuals, thinkers, and educators, brought about a series of cultural reforms. Xiao Youmei’s notable contributions to institute a new music education system and promote the New Music Movement for modern China were some of the fruits of these cultural reforms.


[1] He Xiaoping, “The Background Behind the Formation of Chinese Music Backwardness Theory (中國音樂落後論的形成背景),” Journal of Music Research, 2 (1993): 8.
[2] On May 4, 1919, nearly three thousand university students protested in the street of Beijing against the decision that despite China being a victor in World War I, Japan – rather than Germany – could take control of the province of Shandong. For a comprehensive study of the May Fourth Movement, see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1964), “Introduction.”
[3] The headline of the Sheng Bao Monthly is cited from a secondary source. See Jiang Binghai, “The Cultural Tradition of China and Modernization,” in Chinese Cultural Traditions and Modernization: Chinese Philosphical Studies, X, Wang Miaoyang, George F. Mclean et al ed. (Washington D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1997), 43.
To be continued…………  待續……..
David Leung (theorydavid)
2011-02-08 (published)

有關文藝復興的一點看法 (2)

前言: 我曾跟學生談到文藝復興在西方美術史中的地位。由於時間的緊迫,我講得很快,加上學生對一般西方通史的知識比較貧乏,所以未能跟得上我想表達的一些我認為是較新,較獨到的見解。下課後,有一位程度較佳的學生提議,我不妨在我的網誌裡再補充一下。雖然我曾為這個題目寫了文章的第一部份 (2011-01-05),但有些學生跟我說他仍然覺得 Le Goff 的 idea 很深。我是同意他們的看法。要學會和運用一些新的理論去看 History 這個大問題,也的確不容易。可是,如個我在這個網誌裡所討論的觀點是太平庸,我覺得我不須再化時間去寫下去了。因為,我們都可以買一本 textbook 自己學習就已經夠,學生們都不用交學費去上堂。我們做老師的哪裡會有工作可做呢?

正面的去看,如果老師教的東西,學生不是全都明白 (不是全不明白),這是好的。因為,這可以顯示,學生求學的態度是怎樣? 如果學生的求學態度是誠懇,認真的,他們一定會主動請教老師,也會作出努力,繼續追求答案,直至滿足為止。但很可惜,現今香港的學生,已被那些以搵快錢為教學宗旨的商業性補習社弄得不再懂得思巧,只懂坐在椅上等候 model answer,就連指頭都懶得一動了。

就是由於有一位同學再請教我上一篇 “有關文藝復興的一點看 (1)” 的文章,所以,我就在堂上再化了一些時間去講解一下。經過再講解後,相信同學們也都明白了很多,大概也有七, 八成了。不過,若要掌握一個全新的理論去思巧問題,我相信同學還要付出更多努力。畢竟,世間是沒有免費午餐的。因此,學問學問,先學後問,所以,問,是不可或缺的了。

所以,如果讀者對我在這裡寫的文章,觀點,概念,有任何不清楚,不明白的,我是很喜歡作這裡作出回應。這樣,我就可以多一個題材去寫一篇新的文章。

正文:

I am not ready to write further on this topic at this site, since I have explained verbally in the class. However, what do the readers of the first article need, in my opinion, is some original explanations from the author about the relationships between time, rituals, innovation, collective memory and history, especially in the Reniassiance period. The following discussons are quoted from the book, History and Memory, written by the French historian and philospher, Jacques Le Goff for readers’ references.  (David Leung’s own comments)

Le Goff:

For the child, “to understand time is to liberate oneself from the present: not only to anticipate the future in relation to the regularities unconsciously established in the past, but to deploy a series of states, each of which is different from the others, and whose connection can be established only by a gradual movement without fixation or stopping point.” (History, Le Goff, 3)

To understand time is essentially to demonstrate reversibility. In societies, the distinction between past and present (and future) also implies this ascent into memory and this liberation from the present, both of which in turn assume education, the constitution of a collective memory preceding and extending beyond the individual memory. (History, Le Goff, 3)

Since historical time is usually expressed in the form of a narrative, both in the historian’s work and in collective memory, it includes an insistent reference to the present, an implicit focus on the present. This is obviously especially true for traditional history, which has long been primarily a story-history, a narrative. Whence the ambighity of even those historical discourses that seem to privilege the past, such as Michelet’s program: history as the “integral resurrection of the past.” (History, Le Goff, 7)

Through myths and rituals, primitive thought estalishes a particular kind of relation between past and present: ” mythical history is paradoxically both separated from the present and conjoined with it…… Through ritual, the mythical ‘separate’ past is connected on the one hand with biological and seasonal periodicity, and on the other with the ‘conjoin’ past which links, from one generation to another, the dead with the living”. (History, Le Goff, 7)

The past is defined as the period anterior to the events an individual remembers directly. Most societies consider the past as the model for the present. But there are interstices in this devotion to the past through which innovation and change slip in. What is the role of innovation in societies attahced to the past? Only a few sects succeed in isolating themselves in order to completely resist change.  The societies we call traditional, and particularly peasant societies, are not at all as static as they are thought to be. But if the attachment to the past can admit novelties and transformation, the direction of the evolution it perceives is usually that of a decadence or a decline. Thus innovation presents itself in a society in the form of a return to the past: that is the central idea of “renaissances.” (History, Le Goff, 9)

Many revolutinary movements take a return to the past as their motto and ambition: …….
(one example that David Leung quotes here) Nationalist movements, including Nazism and fascism, which tend to inaugurate a completely new “order”, present themselves a traditionalist, as returning to the past.
(History, Le Goff, 9)

Individuals composing a society almost always feel the need to have ancestors, and one of the roles of great men is to fill that need. The customs and the artistic taste of the past are often aped and adopted by revolutionaries. (Hisotory, Le Goff, 10)

Collective attitudes toward the past, the present, and the future can be schematically expressed as follows: in pagan antiquity, the valorization of the past predominated along with the idea of a decadent present; in the Middle Ages, the present is trapped between the weight of the past and the hope of an eschatological future; in the Reniassiance, on the contrary, the primary stress in on the present, while from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the ideology of progress turns the valorization of time towards the future. (History, Le Goff, 11)

In fact, medieval time confines the present between a retroorientation toward the past and a futuro-tropism that is particularly strong among millenarians. Just the Church restrained or condemned millenarian movements, it privileged the past. (History, Le Goff, 11)

S. Stelling-Michaud has maintained that the men of the Middle Ages, tossed back and forth between the past and the future, tried to live the present non-temporally, as an instant that was supposed to be a moment of eternity. (History, Le Goff, 12-13)

…… medieval artists, caught between the attraction of the past, the mythical time of Paradise, and the search for the preogative moment that is oriented toward the future, whether salvation or damnation, sought above all to express the atemporal. (History, Le Goff, 13)

The present is further diminished by the tendency of medieval man to constantly actualize the past, especially the biblical past. The man of the Middle Ages lives in a constant anachronism, ignoring local color, and attributing to ancient people medieval costumes, feelings, and modes of behaviour. The Crusdaers believed that in Jersusalem they were punishing the true tormentors of Christ. But one can say: “the past is not studied as past, it is relived, brought into the present”? It is not rather that the present is eaten away by the past, for only the past gives the present its sense and its significant? (History, Le Goff, 13)

Nevertheless, at the end of the Middle Ages, the past is increasingly understood in relation to the time of the chronicles, to progress in dating, and to the measuring of time brought about by mechanical clocks. “Present and past are distinguished in the consciousness of the late Middle Ages not only in terms of their historical aspect, but also through a painful and tragic sensiblity”. The French poet Villonn was tragically aware of this flight of time, of the irremediable passing away of the past. The Reniassance seems to be caught between two contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, progress in measuring, dating, and chronology permit the past to be put in perspective. On the other, the tragic sense of life and death, can lead to epicureanism, to the enjoyment of the present, expressed by poets from Lorenzo and Magnificent to Ronsard:

But gentle ladies, handsome youths,
Who sing and play upon your lutes,
Drink the joy of every days,
For hour by hour it slips away. (History, Le Goff, 13)

(David’s comment) From the above statements cited from the writing of Le Goff, one can easily understand why we admit that Medieval men have no historical awareness of the past. They lived in an atemporal sense of time without clear distinctions between the past, the present and the future. But, on the contrary, the Renaissance society was perhaps the first one in the history, possessed with the sense of historical consciousness. Reniassiance people caught their sight on the tragic present, and at the same time, glorified the past with deep passion.

If anyone who does not really understand the above citation (the important statements and arguments) of Le Goff ‘s idea on time, collective memory and history, you can are welcome to write your questions to me.

Finished……..

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-02-04 (published)

淺談浪漫時期的交響曲

前言: 今天上課時我問了學生一個問題: 你們是以音樂為主修科的,也算對音樂有一定的了解。如果要你以一般西方音樂通史所分劃的時代風格,去引導別人怎樣欣賞古典風格時期 (classical style) 的音樂;,如海頓,莫差特等人的樂曲; 又或浪漫風格時期 (Romantic style) 的音樂,如舒曼,舒伯特,布拉斯等人的樂曲,你會怎樣說。請想想這兩個時期風格的音樂特點在哪裡? 我要你只答一個 keyword就可以。當時兩位學生想來想去,都只能長篇大論地形容他們從textbook 所學得的有關這兩個時期的音樂風格來作答。我聽後就回答: 我只要一個 Keyword 來 highlight 你認為這兩個時期風格的音樂特點的最重要地方。你會用甚麼字詞作答? 當然,我早預計不同的人,會有不同的答案,只要合理就可,是通識題。我當時估計她們會至少答一些音樂上的常用彙語去 highlight 這時期的音樂特點。可是,她們仍是答不出來。以下的討論就從這個教學經驗開始。

正文:

有一年我為中大音樂系招收 undergraduate 生的入學試當監考員。當監考員是很悶的工作。幾個小時的看考生埋頭作答,我帶來的書都看完了。只好看看考生答問題時的人生百態。其實我是不知道出哪些題目的。偶爾走過一個考生旁,看見他一臉惘然地望著試卷,我不禁好奇的望望試卷的題目。原來問題是請考生任意選一個他認為在浪漫時期是最重要的 musical genre (樂種: 如交響曲,歌劇,協奏曲等)來評論,以及列舉他選這個 genre 的原因。就是我的好奇心,驅使我看看全場考生是如何答這條題目。竟然發覺十個考生,都沒有一個答得像樣的。雖說這是自由發揮,近似通識題,但如果你對西方音樂風格稍為有一點認識,中學的音樂老師稍為有一點料子教過你,你就不難知道,在十九世紀的眾多音樂曲種,獨是交響曲 symphony 坐大,它才是西方音樂界一直引以為豪的樂曲。一個要被公眾社會認為是作曲家的人,假如他沒有完成過寫作交響曲,在西方聽眾眼中,根本不算是一個作曲家。充其量只是一個音樂人(musician) 或歌曲寫作人(song writer) 。

查實自 Beethoven 的九首交響曲之後,交響曲這種樂種就已被那些德國有識之仕,哲學家和思想家認為是超越了音樂自身的界限的一種樂曲。它不再是單純地被認為是天才所創造成的一堆音響來取悅聽眾,而是人類探求真理,生命和宇宙的意義的媒介。換句話說,聆聽交響曲已是一種近似 transcendental meditation 的修鍊,如學習宗教哲學一樣 (此觀點我本人就不敢苟同)。所以大作曲家就小心翼翼地寫作他們的交響曲。就以布拉斯為例,他的第一交響曲就用了整整二十年的時間來完成。不過,也就是這首被稱為貝多芬第十交響曲令他的音樂事業闖至高。另外,如 Mahlar,馬勒的九首交響曲,不就是常給人評為超越音樂本身界限的交響作品。不過,我本人頂多認為交響曲是可以反影思想,即 symphony as thought ,音樂的本質並沒有那麼誇張,它只是可以一個表達意義的媒介,及擁有可以述事物的能力而矣。可是歷史事實就是這樣告訴我們,十九世紀流行的其他樂種,如藝術歌曲,鋼琴曲,甚至協奏曲等,實在難以和交響曲相提並論。話得說回頭,當天的考生,竟然答奏鳴曲 (古典風格的經典曲式),鋼琴曲的居多。探其原因,就是因為香港的學生大多數學琴,而他們又沒有培養對音樂和歷史的真正興趣,所以不求甚解,順手拈來的就只有鋼琴和鋼琴曲作曲家。因為他們認識的就只是鋼琴音樂,他們連演出管絃樂作品的音樂會也不曾去過。可惜,就算他們的答案是鋼琴曲,答蕭邦,答舒曼,也不見得答得起有見地。香港音樂學生 ,嗚呼!

返回我那兩個學生的問題,若要我提出一個一針見血的答案,我就會毫不猶疑地答,古典音樂風格重視結構美,即 structure 就是這時期的賣點。而浪漫風格音樂重點在於和聲表達,即 harmony 的美。當然我這兩個答案都是從音樂 (music) 的自身元素 (musical elements) 去看音樂風格的特點,對音樂的外行人來說,頗有斟酌的餘地。不過就一般音樂學生而言,這兩個答案應該能簡單 highlight 了這兩個風格時期的音樂上最重要地方。總的來說,音樂學生最難是攪通 classical 古典時期的曲式,form and structure。特別是 sonata form。而浪漫時期,他們最難掌握的就是浪漫風格的和聲設計和那些變化和絃是甚樣用的。

古典風格講求對稱,平衡,有控制,有次序。是一種很有理智的表現,如 Enlightenment 啟蒙時代所追求的推理以求進步,reasoning for a betterment。音樂的結耩 尤以 sonata form 就是一個很對稱,很結構緊密的曲式。古典音樂的美,無怪乎是從 structure 來感受的。但反過來說,浪漫風格就是追求個人主義,追求個人情感,情慾的解放。人不須再受理智所囿限。千變萬化的情緒起伏,豈不應以變化和絃和複雜的和聲音響設計來表達嗎? 當然,甚麼是 Romantic spirit, or style,我還須以另一篇文章詳細討論。

以上淺談,雖不是甚麼新角度,但至少點出了要點,使外行人更易以明白西方音樂的特質。可是,更值得我們留意的,是從學生們對音樂歷史的認知,反影今日香港教育帶來的風氣,就是不注重歷史人文的學習,以致我們的社會對人對事的價值觀都扭曲了。就如陶傑所說,香港已變成一個反智的社會。我確實希望這種情況可以通過加深整個社會對藝術,音樂,文化的認知和欣賞,重新將這股歪風糾正過來。

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-01-14 (published)

有關文藝復興的一點看法 (1)

前言: 今天跟學生談到文藝復興在西方美術史中的地位。由於時間的緊迫,我講得很快,加上學生對一般西方通史的知識比較貧乏,所以未能跟得上我想表達的一些我認為是較新,較獨到的見解。下課後,有一位程度較佳的學生提議,我不妨在我的網誌裡再補充一下。

在一般中,小學程度的歷史課學習裡,老師大多將歷史以年份時間,並以這段時間裏所發生的重要人物和事作為劃分點,來分出不同的歷史時期和時代風格,以方便學習。所以,我們常在課本裏看到文藝復興時期是由 1500 AD 至 1600 AD。然後,就理所當然地 (take-for-granted) 舉出在這段時期活躍的大師和其作品作為論據,去支持這段時期風格的存在。例如,我們一說起文藝復興,我們就會舉出 Michaelangeo,和他的 David 彫塑 ; Leonardo Da Vinci 和他的 Mona Lisa 名畫等作這時代的風格。因為他們的作品是以舊古典 Classical Antiquity 作為作品風格的依歸,模彷古希臘和羅馬的風格而創作的 (對這一般看法我大有保留),所以,他們的時代就是 Renaissance了。

當然,以 Chronological time phase 來看歷史的演進並不是錯的。但這是不。因為我們最想知道的不是 What happens ? 而是 Why and How that happens ? 用 what 看歷史時代,就如因為 有了Michaelangeo,和他的 David 彫塑,所以文藝復興時代來臨了。但我們其實更想知道,為甚麼 Michaelangeo 會彫刻 David,他甚樣受當時的大氣候影響? 又或 David 是如何被認為是擁有文藝復興風格的特點? 我們應該知道,只用 what 的 factor 來看歷史,我們就很容易只集中以那些大師和他的作品作為時代的劃分點。但卻忘記沒有任何人,包括社會裏各階層的人,不受這時代的外在因素諸如政治,文化,社會,大氣候 (mega trend) 和個人偏好 (personal predilaction) 所影響。事實上,No one can step outside of his/her time。哪是果? 哪是因? 是永遠不能界線分明的。究竟是大師們以自已的才華,又或社會的群體力量,創造了文藝復興的時代和風格,還是外在的因素促使了那些大師們,又或平民百姓,創造了這樣風格的作品,從而形成了所謂的文藝復興?

今天,我闡釋了 H. Janson 在他的 The History of Art 一書裡的看法。我本人比較喜歡他和另一位法國歷史哲學家,Le’ Goff 對文藝復興的闡釋。他們大致的看法是從 socio-cultural 的層面去看 歐洲 community (社群) 對 time concept  (時間概念) 的意會,這是非常 Humanistic ,即從社會群體的角度出發。他們兩人都認為,文藝復興這個時期起始於當歐洲社群裡普遍的大多數人,意會到他們已不再屬於中世紀 Middle Age 這個時期,而相信自己以踏進一個全新紀元 (new era) 的時候。亦即這時的歐洲社會(European community) 開始了解到時間概念 (time concept) 上是有以往 (past),現在 (present),和將來 (future) 的劃分。社會裡普遍的人也開始擁有一個新的意識,就是歷史意識 (historical consciousness)。從他們的討論來說,即是中世紀的歐洲社群大多數人並無有任何意識,認為自己是生活在現在 (present) 的,他們沒也有過往 (past) 的時間觀念,並沒為過往和現在劃分介線,換句話說,他們 actualize the past ,使過往繼續不斷向前進行,永無終止似的。

當然,我還沒有提出這兩位學者的論證來支持他們的見解。可是單從他們思巧的角度來看,已異於一般的教科書看歷史風格這個問題。故勿論他們對文藝復興說法是否合理,我們肯定的就是,用小時,分鐘和秒來劃分時間,大約是從十五世紀開始。因為,歷史事實告訴我們,時鐘 (clock) 是在 Renassiance 時期發明,並被運用在社區日常生活上的。我們現在常說的 .”時間就是金錢” 或是 “我們要分秒必爭” ,又或是 “時間是寶貴的”,就是從文藝復興這個時期,開始流行在 Renaissance 的社區的日常生活裡的。因此 Clock,時鐘,可說是 Renassiance 的一個非常重要的發明。它不只是一個純科技的發明,它對當時的人的生活方式,以至到人生態度,思維方式等,都產生了難以言喻的影響。從而得知,生活在文藝復興時期的人,是非常重視. “現在 (present)”。他們是擁有 “現在” 這個時間觀念的意識。

當然,我們不能單就 Renaissance 時期發明了Clock 一事,就確認中世紀的社會生活是沒有 past, present, and future 的 time concept。

待續……. To be continued………

David Leung
2011-01-05 (published)

布拉姆斯第一交曲第四樂章的第二主題是否抄襲

前言: 老朋友蕭才子和B.Tam今天閒談,齊齊說布拉姆斯第一交曲第四樂章的第二主題好像是抄襲貝多芬第九交曲的第四樂章第二主題歡樂頌 (Ode To Joy)。我覺得此問題非常有趣。不過,首先聲明,我思巧這些問題時,是比較喜歡以學術的角度去看。我常常鼓勵學生多以不同角度去推敲問題的可能答案 (suggestive answer),但並不是只用所謂的 common sense (普通常識) 去思巧。因為由 common sense 所得的結論是比較表面,也缺乏新意,人人都想得到。

抄襲和 copyright 版權的概念是息息相關的。音樂版權這個二十世紀的概念 (不是專利權),並不是十九世紀布拉姆斯時代的產品。本人認為音樂版權其實是資本主義 (capitalism) 加個人主義 (individualism) 帶動下的一種消費形式 (consumption pattern)。人要購得運用這首音樂 (即商品,commodity) 的權利 (user right),就得付版權費予原作者。就像人祇要付了款,就可以用任何形式,去運用這個商品一樣,包刮再發行出版。如果沒有付版稅,你用了那產品,就是侵佔版權。你以自己的名或品牌拿來再發行出版,就是抄襲。在共產主義以大鑊飯形式生產的商品,就不存在類此的消費文化,或許這就說明為何現今中國仍是世上最沒有版權的地方。老翻成行成市。

你或許會納罕老布所處身的浪漫風格時代,個人主義  (Individualism) 正影響著每一個藝術家,尤以作曲家為甚。究竟為何他的第一交曲第四樂章的第二主題這麼令人想起貝九呢? 其實老布不是抄襲老貝,在第一交曲首演時,他就向外公佈這首樂曲是繼承貝多芬的交曲的創作,是德國交樂曲傳統 (symphonic tradition) 的伸延,這才是未來德國音樂應走的方向 ,即 The future of German music。學者 Walter Frisch 的一本著名作品 German Modernism,就深入討論當時德國音樂在十九世紀末的困境。當時最大的爭論,就是德國音樂應以跟隨Wagner 華格納學派為首的高度變音主義  (High Chromaticism) ,抑或是布拉姆斯學派所提倡的浪漫古典主義 (Romantic Classicism)路線去走。要補充一點,老布擁維的 Classicism,返回傳統等主張,不是指回到海頓或莫差特的交樂路線,而是指從貝多芬第九交曲作起點。

老布寫的第一交曲用了二十年時間,這是眾所週知的事實。為了表明自己不是抄襲,只是發揚光大前人大師的傳統,即所謂的承先啟後,他就在交曲最後的一個樂章,亦即老貝寫第九交曲,第二主題歡樂頌的同樣位置,用了一個技巧,叫作音樂風格引典 (stylistic allusion),引用了貝多芬這個主題的寫作風格而寫他的主題。老布之所以這樣做,也同時表明了他對貝多芬的敬意。就如著名德國學者 Carl Dalhlaus 所說,”Beethoven is a circumpolar figure.” 因此,老貝之後的差不多所有作曲家,不論是想繼承他的,還是想超越他的,都深深受著他的影響,寫作的音樂總是環繞著貝多芬而寫的。

音樂引典,Stylistic Allusion,是一種類似文學,詩詞常用的引用典故的技巧。在音樂上,Stylistic Allusion,是 Musical Borrowing (音樂借題) 技巧的一種。跟據音樂學者 Peter Burkholder 對 Stylistic Allusion 所作的定義,就是: 借用前人某個音樂作品的寫作風格而寫自己的作品。聽眾在聆聽時,可隱約聽到前人的音樂風格輪廓,從以聯想到這是前人作曲家的某首音樂,但仔細分析,卻不是同樣的曲調。通常音樂風格引典,只會出現在整首樂曲裡的一小部份,而不是全部。這樣,作曲家既可以保有自己原創性的樂思風格,也可有一些令聽眾可確認得到的借題音樂片段。如果作曲家是高手,這些借題片段可以是非常有義意的,豐富了整首樂曲,增加了作品的韻味。值得一題,有些人誤解,只要自己作品裡含有別人作品超過十六個音符,就等同抄襲,就是佔了別人的版權。但負責版權的 CASH 的發言人稱絕無此事。要研究這個作品是否抄襲,是需要專家鑑定,沒有不變的律則,要視乎個別情況而定。再者。老布發表的第一交曲時,自己也承認是跟隨貝九,這就等同我們現今在寫作文章時運用 citation 了。

從音樂的角度看,布拉姆斯實在是花了不少心思創作的。不是順手抄來的。我們可以看看這兩個主題有何相似和分別的地方。

貝多芬第九交曲歡樂頌的主題

布拉斯第一交曲第四樂章的第二主題

從以上淺談,我們不難發現,音樂借題 Musical Borrowing,在西方音樂發展裡,是佔有一個非常重要的地位。在提倡音樂作品應有原創性的大前題底下,音樂借題在音樂作品裡的運用,就更顯得有研究價值了。

以下是舒曼 Robert Schumann 的一首藝術歌曲,奉獻 的Coda 結尾部份。請留意何處有音樂借題的出現。為何Schumann會引用 Schubert Ave Maria 的旋律片段呢? 當然這不是風格引典,而是旋律的直接引典 (Melodic Quotation)。

借用Burkholder的一句說話 : “The western music history is the history of borrowing.”
再有機會,我會再以另一篇文章去討論 Musical Borrowing 在西方音樂歷史中所扮演的角色。

David Leung

2010-12-30 (published)

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