Russian and Chinese traditions in the piano piece by G. Ya. Ore “Fantasy of Southern China”

Abstract

The subject of the research is the piece for piano solo "Fantasy of Southern China: Lady and the Flower Seller" (1931) by the Russian émigré composer Harry Yakovlevich Ore (Xia Like, 1885-1972), forgotten in his homeland. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he lived most of his life in China, where he distinguished himself as a pianist, teacher and composer. Ore left a notable mark on the history of Chinese music, including as the author of the first piano arrangement of typical qupai melodies of the traditional Cantonese opera yueju. The purpose of the study is to consider Fantasia through the prism of the refraction of the Russian traditions of the St. Petersburg school (primarily The Russian Five) and the Chinese operatic traditions yueju. The article uses comparative typological and analytical research methods to substantiate the uniqueness of the selected piece as the first sample in the history of Chinese academic music that combines the melodies of Cantonese opera with the traditions of “New Russian school”. Piano piece “Fantasy of Southern China” by G. Ya. Ore is considered in Russian-language musicology for the first time. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. In the presented composition, the composer arranged four well-known tunes of the Cantonese yueju opera - "Ba Da Ban", "Toilet Table", "Product Sale" and " Narcissus flowers". The composer organically combined the national opera melodies of the Guangdong province in pentatonic modes with the writing techniques characteristic of the representatives of the St. Petersburg "New Russian School" (especially N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Mussorgsky) and its followers (A. K. Lyadov): variability, trichords, parallel-variable modes, plagal harmonies, smooth voice leading, melodization of voices, "singing" piano texture.