Introduction |
Er Quan Ying Yue (二泉映月) is a distinctive piece of Chinese classical music literature by Abing. Abing was a musician at a temple when he contracted an eye disease at the age of 21. By the time he was 35, he was completely blind. Due to his impairment, Abing could not remain at the temple and chose to become a street performer. Er Quan Ying Yue was what he composed in the mid 1930's as a street musician that shows the sorrow and suffering from his soul, and the desire to live a better life rather than in poverty. It was one of the six songs recorded by musicians from the Beijing Conservatory of Music before Abing died.
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AnalysisMelodic Intro
First motif (first line continues on to the next)
Second motif
Third motif
Tremolo line
Climatic point
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This piece is written in the key of G major and like many other oriental pieces, it is based on the pentatonic (G, A, B, D, E) rather than the diatonic scale, but there are occasionally diatonic intervals. It is composed for the solo erhu, and can be played solo or with accompaniment. The melody is composed of three motifs that repeats throughout the piece with variations as the piece develops thematically. The piece is played at a comfortable pace, and the melody is often exaggerated on the slow notes to be more legato. There are many ornamentation throughout the piece, mostly in the form of grace notes and the articulation of the notes are mainly slurred. An interesting characteristic of Chinese and oriental music in general is that performer will bend the pitch of the note and slide to the note rather than playing it directly. This gives the piece a slow, languid feeling that establishes the calm mood throughout the piece.
The introduction of the piece begins with a free melody leading into the first motif, which establish the beginning of the theme. The second motif is played right after the first, providing a contrast in the melodic structure and phrasing as the melody ascends to higher notes. The third motif follows the second and transposes the first theme one octave higher at the beginning before becoming its own idea within the piece, finishing up the thematic introduction. Then, the three motifs are repeated with variations such as tremolos in the melody and rhythmic deviations from the introduction and the theme develops along with the variations. As the repetition of the motifs occur, the melody builds up to a climatic point, characterized by the sixteenth notes on a higher register and fervent playing before descending back to the repetition of the three motifs. The piece does not end on a rather resolute note. It seems as if it was more of a pause than a stop and as if the music was actually continuing somewhere else. In this aspect, it is a lot like the natural scene it conveys, since nature is continuous and never really stops. The use of word painting and the conveyance of emotions occurs frequently throughout Er Quan Ying Yue. As a friend of Abing, Li Hui Zheng commented, the piece describes Abing's daily life and how his performance of the piece was similar to “snow falling like goose feathers across from a broken down park … as an old woman, leading a blind man by a bamboo stick walks through. The blind man holds the stick with his right hand, carries the pipa on his back and erhu sluing over his left shoulder as they trudge through the snow.” (Chun, Ru) The piece conveys an inexplicable deep meaning of life and shows the complexity within life. The repetition of the motifs within the melody throughout the piece gives a sensation of continuity, but the variations within the melody hints at underlying changes that is not yet perceivable to the eye. The changes in the melody are subtle at first with a clear manifestation in the end of the piece in which Abing composes all of his sorrow into the music, but also conveys a determination to live on. |