Ruben Stam ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Derek Lim wrote:
>
>>I'm doing a presentation about how Western music has influenced 20th
>>century Chinese music, and I would like to ask for some help on this.
>>In particular: Did any major composers mention their impressions of
>>Chinese music, and did any attempt to portray Chinese-ness through their
>>music?
>
>Mahler's 'Lied von der Erde' was inspired by German translations of Chinese
>poetry (or perhaps they were a German's conception of Chinese poetry, I
>forget).

Hasn Bethge's Die Chino"sische Flo"te (I think that's right) was indeed
translated from the Chinese.  Or it may actually have been a translation
of a French translation from the Chinese (I have this notion in the back
of my mind, but don't know quite why).

I gather his translations are fairly loose and some of his poems are
actually conflations of two originals - Der Abschied (the final mvt of
Das Lied) is an example.

>The music to me doesn't sound obviously Chinese, although the Chinese
>'atmosphere' in the poems is served quite well by Mahler's European music.

Well there is the opening of the second movement, with the (IIRC)
pentatonic violin figurations.  it's the only bit which sounds vaguely
oriental to me.

Then there is Busoni, in his opera Turandot.  For some reason - according
to Dent he was shown the melody, which was in a book of lute melodies, by
an Italian scholar - he thought he had found an old Chinese melody.

Well, one listen to the theme of Turandot's Frauengemach and it's quite
obviously Greensleeves.  Seriously...

Deryk Barker
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