The Programmatic Character of Music as a Marker of the National Specificity of the Piano Concerto Genre in Guo Zurong’s Music

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of the programmatic character in the piano concertos by Chinese composer Guo Zurong (b. 1928). The author of the article, applying methods of cultural, historical, and comparative analysis, explores the specific features of program music in the genre of the piano concerto established by Go Zurong at the early stage of the development of this genre in his musical output, which subsequently became a distinctive feature of it. These include a concentration on the images of nature endowed with symbolic meanings, corresponding to the philosophy of Taoism through the category of “empty space” and the symbolism of the images of mountains (Yang) and water (Yin). The “roots” of the programmatic qualities, stemming from the practice of Guqin music, are identified in the article. The connection with the ancient tradition of Gohoa painting, which formed the Chinese national perspective of programmatic qualities, is observed. The composer’s knowledge of the technique of drawing with mascara determined the features of many of the solutions of the concertos pertaining to textures, timbres, and registers, on the basis of which a certain inner-stylistic canon of musical depictions of images of natural elements is formed. The conclusion is arrived at about the priority of programmatic qualities of the landscape type in Chinese instrumental music, as a whole, and in the piano concerto genre, in particular, the manifestation of these features in the examined musical compositions, because of the programmatic qualities, the connection between music with painting and calligraphy, in themselves realizing the attributes of syncretism and symbolism, which are significant features of the Chinese worldview.

Keywords: Guo Zurong, the genre of the piano concerto, program music, Gohoa painting, musical landscape, empty space