The National Styles of Jiang Wenye’s Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 16

BIOGRAPHY OF THE COMPOSERJiang Wenye (江文也 1910-1983) was born in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. At age six, he moved with his parents to Xiamen in the Mainland of China. At age thirteen, after his parents passed away, Jiang moved to Tokyo, Japan for further education. In Japan he majored in engineering and received private music lessons. According to Jiang himself, most of his music education came from himself. He said, “I recite many famous pieces to learn fundamental harmony and learn the composition technique of European music very quickly” (Xia Su, 2006: 1). Jiang lived in Japan for fifteen years, and spoke a little Southern Min1, but the language he used in daily life and writing was Japanese. In 1934 Jiang traveled back to Taiwan for nine days. In 1938 Jiang moved to Beijing to study Chinese traditional music. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Jiang began to work as a professor of composition in the Central Conservatory in Beijing beginning in 1950. In the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 he was categorized as rightist. During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang was sent to labor camps and was not able to work as a musician. In 1978 he received political rehabilitation, but his health condition did not allow him to work anymore. Jiang died in Beijing in 1983.

PERIODIZATION OF JIANG WENYE’S PIANO MUSICAmong the 130 plus music compositions composed by Jiang Wenye, 31 are for piano and only 21 have been preserved (Wu Cen, 2010: 111-2). Most of the piano compositions, written before 1949, are character pieces and sonatas. His piano compositional career is divided into 2-4 periods by different researches. It is divided into two productive periods and a transitional period by Liang Maochun (Liang Maochun, 1984: 5), including the first productive period (1934—1938), the transitional period (1938—1945), and the second productive period (1949—1953). The reason why Liang Maochun takes out the years 1945—1949 is probably that there were no popular pieces composed by Jiang Wenye during this period. Jiang’s piano compositional career is divided into four periods by Wei Tingge (Wei Tingge, 1992: 15), namely, 1)the early period (1935—1936), 2) the transitional year (1936), 3) the middle period (1938—1943), and 4) the late period (1949—1953). Here Wei Tingge leaves out the years between 1943 and 1949 for the same reason—no sufficient records could be found. Jiang’s career is divided into two periods by Wang Yuhe, that is, the Japan period from 1934 to 1938 and China period from 1939 to 1957 (Wang Yuhe, 1994: 83). Though examining Jiang’s career from different perspectives, all researchers agree that Jiang’s early piano music, especially those works written before 1938, was influenced by Japanese folk music and contemporary Western music. Liang Maochun, in his 2015 article, states that during his visit to China and Japan from 1935 to 1937, Tcherepnin suggested that young composers in China and Japan should learn the composition technique directly from their contemporary European colleagues. Unfortunately, most young Chinese composers then did not follow this suggestion. Jiang Wenye, on the contrary, took the suggestion. As a result, Jiang’s early piano music betrays clear influences from impressionism and atonal music (Liang Maochun, 2015: 37).

CAQ 2019 6-2 006.pdf