MUSIC COMPARISON Purple Bamboo Melody to Bright Sheng’s Shanghai Overture

CHINA ❖ 2nd largest country by land mass ❖ Population: 1,361,170,000 ❖ 91.51% Han Chinese ❖ 34 provinces

❖ Dialects: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Hakka ❖ Most common dialect: Mandarin ❖ Borders 14 countries, and shares maritime borders with 4 others

❖ The People’s Republic of China ever since 1959 ❖ Went through movements like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

❖ Ancient China was based on dynasties and was very advanced at the time ❖ Influenced many of the surrounding countries

❖ Traditional Chinese instruments were the predecessors of many others ❖ Guzheng ( 古箏 ): Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum, and the Japanese koto

Traditional Chinese Instruments ❖ Erhu ( 二胡 ) ❖ Pipa ( 琵琶 ) ❖ Zheng or guzheng ( 古箏 ) ❖ Yangqin ( 揚琴 )

ERHU ( 二胡 ) ❖ Spike-fiddle of the huqin family

PIPA ( 琵琶 ) ❖ Pear-shaped lute

ZHENG or guzheng ( 古箏 ) ❖ A zither with movable frets

YANGQIN ( 揚琴 ) ❖ A hammered dulcimer

Purple Bamboo Melody ( 紫竹调 )

BRIGHT sHENG (Sheng Zong-Liang) ❖ Born in Shanghai, December 1955 ❖ Sent to Qinghai (near Tibet) during Cultural Revolution ❖ Moved to America 1982

STUDIES ❖ Learned piano, but had to teach himself music theory while in Qinghai ❖ Went to Shanghai Conservatory of Music to study music ❖ Studied with George Perle, Hugo Weisgall, Chou Wen-Chung, Jack Beeson, Mario Davidovsky, and Leonard Bernstein in America

INFLUENCES ❖ Chinese folk music ❖ Béla Bartók, a Hungarian composer

NOTABLE WORKS ❖ Madame Mao ❖ Shanghai Overture ❖ The Song and Dance of Tears ❖ Nanking! Nanking! ❖ China Dreams

SHANGHAI OVERTURE

COMPARISON ❖ Both have an intro, then the melody focuses on one of two players at a time with the other players providing accompaniment ❖ Shanghai Overture uses the main theme of Purple Bamboo Melody

❖ Instrumentation (traditional Chinese vs. classical symphony instruments) ❖ Use of dynamics ❖ Variations of the style DIFFERENCES

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WORKS CITED