Guo Wenjing's Life

Guo Wenjing was born in 1956 in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, and grew up in a region where "Li Bai sang 'The road to Shu is more difficult than ascending to the blue sky', and boatmen hooted the bravado of the Sichuan River Horn". 1968, at the age of twelve, Guo inevitably encountered the "Cultural Revolution", and quite by chance, hit the violin. In 1968, at the age of 12, Guo Wenjing inevitably encountered the "Cultural Revolution", and by sheer chance, he bumped into a violin. The ten years of turmoil were a catastrophe, but the popularization of Western musical instruments on a scale never before seen in Chinese history was unforeseen. During the "Cultural Revolution", the whole country was studying and rehearsing the "Model Operas" with special political background, and the "Model Operas" stipulated that orchestral accompaniment should be used for all the performances. The "model theater" required all orchestral accompaniment, so there was an urgent need for a large number of orchestra players, and led to the "prosperous" literary and artistic organizations becoming the envy of all during the ten years of turmoil when all industries were in the doldrums.

As a result, "both big cities and small counties were filled almost overnight with the sounds of violins, cellos, black pipes, and flutes." People had a purpose that was clear and realistic: city kids to avoid being inserted into the army later, and countryside youths who were inserted into the army could test back into the city's cultural and labor corps. Guo Wenjing's parents had an even simpler goal: to keep their child at home to avoid accidents - martial arts fighting in the mountain city of Chongqing was fierce. Guo Wenjing began his foray into music by teaching himself how to play the violin, which cost 8 yuan. 12 years old may be a little late to be a virtuoso, but it's probably the right time to be a future composer. Two years later, Guo Wenjing was admitted to the Chongqing Song and Dance Troupe, where he practiced diligently and performed frequently, even though his playing technique improved rapidly and he knew the sound of the orchestra by heart. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, Guo Wenjing had the chance to hear foreign symphonic music recordings such as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Nightmare in the Sky", Borodin's "Steppes of Central Asia" and Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 11", which were still banned at that time, and this 19-year-old young man found a new world of fascination. The 19-year-old young man found a fascinating new world, so he sold all the violin exercises he had painstakingly collected in exchange for Sposobin's Harmony Course and Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration, and began to learn composition on his own. He began to learn composition on his own, playing the piano in the orchestra and writing accompaniment scores for various performances. Simple "orchestration assignments" were played by the orchestra in a timely manner (often so timely that they were written the night before and performed the next day), a "blessing" that may not be available to composition students at conservatories nowadays.

Authoritarian pressures, secular motivations, and serendipitous experiences can sometimes blossom into artistic splendor. The unforeseen popularization of Western musical instruments during the Cultural Revolution changed many people's destinies, preserved the seeds of art, and built up a reserve force. Many of the performers, composers, theorists, and even literary figures and artists born in the 1950s and 1960s who are active in the cultural and artistic circles nowadays began to study or learned Western instruments during the Cultural Revolution. As a matter of fact, many of the active figures in China's new music scene, such as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Chen Yi, He Xuntian, Chen Qigang, Peng Zhimin, Ao Changqun, Sheng Zongliang, and so on, were similarly "performers" and "instrumentalists" during the Cultural Revolution. The "Cultural Revolution" period has a similar "player" and "instrumentalist" valuable experience.

The similar experience continues: all of these people were admitted to the Conservatory of Music after the resumption of the college entrance examination, and they really received rigorous and systematic training at a time when it was neither too early nor too late to improve their professional and technical standards. It was only after graduation in 1983 that Guo Wenjing neither stayed at the academy nor stayed abroad, but returned to Chongqing and did not return to his alma mater, the Central Conservatory of Music, to teach until 1990. I often take for granted that this seven-year period of "coming from the masses and going to the masses" is a very important and unique experience for Guo Wenjing. The fact that Guo Wenjing's musical style may have been influenced by the fact that he let go of the "classics" and avoided the "fashions" may have influenced his musical style. The movie and television music of "Sunny Day", "Red Pink", "Southbound", "Dead Water", "A Thousand Miles" and so on.

These works have been performed in the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the famous Otterbuilen Church in Bavaria, Germany. The success of these works has continued in many cities throughout the United States, Paris, France, Münster, Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Taipei, China, and Seoul, South Korea, where they have been described as "full of exquisite and delicate music and grand and solemn silences."

Guo Wenjing has also been invited to write music for more than 40 films and TV dramas, including Zhang Yimou's A Thousand Miles, Jiang Wen's Sunny Days, Li Shaohong's Red Pink, and Teng Wenji's The King of Chess. In addition, he has composed music for the drama "Ten Thousand Lights" directed by Lin Zhaohua of Beijing People's Art (awarded the National Stage Excellence Project Award), the new concept Peking Opera "Mu Guiying" directed by Li Liuyi, "Mulan", "Liang Hongyu", as well as the drama "Beijinger" and the poetry drama "Confessions", etc. In 2008, he was invited to compose unique music for the Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games, "Words". The Gorge" (Chinese Master Class). In 2008, he was invited to compose unique music for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, "Word", "Gorge" (China Master Piano Masterpiece Selection IV, "Mountain Spring", China Record Corporation), "Ancient Porcelain" and other instrumental solo pieces.

"Ba", "Chuanjiang Narrative", "social fire" (music - China's new music Dutch Zebra), "Oracle", "away from the dirt", "the voice of Tibet" and other Western instrumental or vocal small works.

The burial of Sichuan cliffs (China Record Award-winning symphonic album China Records Shanghai), "The Warp", "The Road to Shu" ("Gadamerin" excellent symphonic poem China Records Corporation), "The winds of ten thousand miles" (2002 Vienna Chinese New Year Concert China Records Corporation), and other Western instrumental or vocal works. Medium-sized works.

"Violin Concerto", "Cello Concerto", "Harp Concerto", "The Red Eastern Sun", "Heroic Symphony", "Faraway Journey", and other large-scale Western instrumental or vocal works.

"Sorrowful Hollow Mountain", "Late Spring", "Earth Winds of Western Yunnan", "Sun and Moon Mountain" (this movie), "Zen Garden" and other works for ethnic instruments and orchestra.

Percussion music such as "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Theater" (this movie), and "Dazzle" (this movie).

Operas such as Diary of a Madman, Night Banquet, Fengyi Pavilion and Li Bai.

New concept Peking Opera such as "Mu Guiying" and "Mulan". This composer, always with the mountains, always with the earth, always with the rivers, always with the chili peppers ...... -- Tan Dun

Guo Wenjing's music is often somber, furious and mysterious, seeping out like his birthplace of the cloud-covered, eerie atmosphere of Chongqing. His bands and theater pieces feature man-eaters, mysterious cliff hangings and writings on animal bones. --Gao Wenhou [Netherlands]

The New York Times called Guo Wenjing "the only Chinese composer who has established an international reputation without having lived abroad for an extended period of time." Many important international festivals, such as the Edinburgh Festival, Paris Autumn Festival, Holland Festival, Lincoln Center Festival in New York, Almeida Opera in London, Frankfurt Opera in Germany, and Rouen Opera in France, have arranged special concerts of his solo works or staged his operas. In the two decades since his graduation, his works have continued to be performed around the world. Currently, he has signed a contract with CASA RICORDI-BMG, an internationally renowned publishing house with a history of nearly two hundred years, which will publish his works and publicize them all over the world. At the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation, he visited the United States as a visiting scholar. He has also been invited to lecture at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music.

Wang Xilin once wrote an article criticizing Guo Wenjing and other composers of the younger generation for their lack of profound works with a sense of historical responsibility, and was particularly disgusted with Guo's pandering to power in "The Red Sun of the Orient" (Symphony of Heroes), and his downplaying of contradictions and tragedy in "The Diary of a Madman" and "The Night Banquet". In fact, if one tastes carefully, Wang Xilin's Symphony No. 3, composed in 1990, and Tan Dun's Lament: Snow in June, composed in 1991, Wang Xilin's Violin Concerto and Guo Wenjing's Sorrowful Empty Mountain, Wang Xilin's Gotham II and Guo Wenjing's Sun and Moon Mountain, as well as Sheng Zongliang's Trace, all share similarities and similarities. Although Wang Xilin's Cast Swords II and Guo Wenjing's Diary of a Madman/Wolfsbane Village present Lu Xun's work very differently - and regardless of the fact that they both coincidentally chose Lu Xun - both works for folk orchestra, Gotham II and Sun and Moon Mountain, coincidentally pursued a thick, powerful, and tragic sound, with an expressive approach The two works for folk orchestra, Gotham II and Riyue Mountain, are almost identical, and were performed together in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra's 2006 "Sino-British Dialogue" concert (the other Chinese works on the same stage were Zhu Zhener's Sad Tune and Wang Ning's Festivals of Celebration)! Seeing that the difference between Wang and Guo may not be as great as they themselves think, composers of Guo Wenjing and Tan Dun's generation may not be as preoccupied with historical injustices as Wang Xilin, but are still involved in music that focuses on the tragic sense of historical destiny. Even the very ideological Soviet composer Kabalevsky said, "It is hoped that the youth will boldly develop a wide variety of symphonic genres, and will not use the method of trimming down each other's varying personalities by cramming them all into the box of philosophical-tragic symphonic music." Behind the differences in the outlook on life, history and aesthetics between the two generations of composers, Wang Xilin and Guo Wenjing, the more serious contradiction lies in the unfair distribution of opportunities caused by the narrow domestic market for classical music and the monopolistic division of resources under the cultural system. Otherwise, under the same publicity and performance opportunities, the audience themselves would have used the self-financed attendance rate to judge and compare Wang Xilin's Fourth Symphony and Guo Wenjing's Symphony of Heroes, and the parties involved in the mutual evaluation would have been inconspicuous. Thus, Wang's indignation also lies in the question of why Guo Wenjing was able to occupy such a large proportion of the already small space for performances and public opinion. Why is it that even though Guo Wenjing's generation of composers has touched on music with a sense of tragedy, none of them has been able to face the suffering of the past as y as he has for as long as he has?

In the face of Wang Xilin's stubborn, indignant and helpless questioning, Guo Wenjing defends artistic freedom, emphasizes that artists are all different, each with their own strengths, and understandably opposes moral criticism. What is even more sympathetic is Guo's own lament: "I spent the last ten years of the twentieth century in Beijing, and I have always been saddened by the lack of domestic appointments. As a composer living in China, it is true that I have always had a large number of foreign engagements, but when time and time again I flew to the other side of the globe in exhaustion to rehearse and perform my own works, in the dimly lit cabin I clearly saw myself as a migrant laborer who could not find any work in his homeland and left it to go out to work." But Guo Wenjing, who was commissioned by the government to write "The Red Sun of the East"/"Symphony of Heroes," should not forget the words of Mencius Tengwen Duke: "The rich and the noble cannot be lustful, the poor and the lowly cannot be moved, the mighty and the mighty cannot be subdued, and this is what it means to be a great man. Even "migrant workers" can make their own choices between "hungry for food" and "poor people do not eat in contempt", not to mention that Guo Wenjing if he was a "migrant worker". If Guo Wenjing was a "migrant laborer", then Wang Xilin was still a "peasant", and most Chinese composers were "beggars" who ate "relief" from the state. "

Guo Wenjing proudly mentioned that the Beijing International Music Festival has been running a "China-themed" program for several years, Tan Dun and others have won many international awards, his own operas have toured around the world, and The New York Times has used two full pages to introduce Chinese composers, etc. Progress is of course gratifying, but he should not forget that it is all due to the fact that his own accomplishments are related to his own achievements and not to Wang's. When he shows that Wang has not made any progress, he should also not forget that it is all due to the fact that he is the only Chinese composer who is not a peasant. However, when he shows that these are all related to his own achievements and not Wang Xilin's, he should not forget that these are all achieved in a situation where the domestic spontaneous audience is weak, the channels of dissemination and publicity are narrow, and the music resources are mostly monopolized, and are still far from being sufficiently competed and tested, or else these rare advances will turn into hemlock to quench the thirst, destroying the long term vitality of the Chinese works. Neither Wang nor Guo should forget that, with the exception of Wang's Torch Festival, the music of which they are each most proud has attracted a minuscule spontaneous domestic audience. In short, no matter how much the Chinese music cabal attacks and vilifies each other and fights for a share of the spoils, Wang and Guo are the rare Chinese composers who insist on remaining in their homeland - two composers who, from birth to eternity, have had and will have only one country labeled, China! The loss of either of them would be a great loss to Chinese music. ...... Listening to Mei Lanfang's pinched voices singing women's voices, I felt as if damask and silk were glistening like a dream under red candles, revealing the splendor and intoxication of old-fashioned China. Unfortunately, this exquisite art, this charming voice for many composers, often as a museum of fine display, can only appreciate, can not be used.

This is true of the Peking Opera as well as other styles of theater. In my 1987 symphony <>, I had hoped to use a few Sichuan opera voices with the aura of great rivers and dangerous mountains. The harsh wildness and sharp penetrating power of this voice is the soul of this symphony, and with this voice, even if I only wrote one note for it, it would be enough to show the vigor and scene that I was pursuing. However, the orchestra in Beijing only had actors with American voices, and it was impossible to find such a voice in the mountains to cooperate with the orchestra. I had no choice but to give up. To this day, I still feel frustrated. In fact, we do not have to listen to all the world's nationalities of the song, as long as the Chinese nationalities of the various regions of the song to listen to once, you will find that people singing, can make the voice how rich and varied timbre. If you are willing to imagine our ancestors, in the arbitrary voice of the voice to sing, you can better appreciate this point. It's just that when one style of singing is too prevalent, it leaves the composer with no choice.

The sound of a money board often floats through my memory. This kind of poetry and praise genre inherited from the Yuan and Ming dynasties, sung in a raspy voice, with a mixture of comparisons and drawings that brought the story to life. Nowadays, it is extremely difficult to hear in Sichuan. The rapping voice, smoked with tobacco and brewed with tea, mixed with the rustle of futon fans and the clatter of mah-jongg tiles, was old-fashioned and sophisticated, and very entertaining. As a way of life disappeared, so did the sounds. Now, I do not know by the curling fragrance of tea and the bowl cover clinking into the Sichuan Qingyin's crisp floral, whether it is still that kind of playful, spicy sound, from which quite a side of the woman's charm.

In an old town by the Daning River in Wushan County, a frail old man, in front of a dimly lit old house, had sung an old folk song for me trembling. At that moment, the streets of the town fell silent for a moment. The senile trembling song, drifting like a swimmer in the drizzle, but overpowered the sound of the raging waters of the Daning River at the foot of the town ...... This is the amazing thing about folk songs, that they don't need any accompaniment, that they are already perfect in themselves, and that they can still move the heart y. No other style of singing has this power except the singing of a child. But these voices are slowly being obliterated over the years. It may never be possible for me to use these voices that I dreamed of using in my future work.

Self-destruction is perhaps the cleanest and most natural outcome for folk music, and it's better than being dragged off to become an appendage of the tourist industry and made tacky.

The world won't be left with just one sound. The New York Times called Guo Wenjing "the only Chinese composer to have established an international reputation without having lived abroad for a long time." He has held solo concerts in Edinburgh, Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Turin, and three solo concerts in Beijing, making him the only composer to have held solo concerts at home and abroad.

Guo's compositions cover a wide range of genres, including opera, dance drama, symphony, chorus, concerto, repertoire, solo recital, solo singing, folk music of various scales, drama scores, opera scores, film and television scores. His major works include the operas "Diary of a Madman", "Night Banquet", "Fengyi Pavilion", "Li Bai", the ballet "Peony Pavilion", the symphonic chorus "Difficulties of the Road to Shu", the symphonic symphonies "Symphony of Heroes in B Minor" and "Diamond Coat and Green and Red", the symphonic poem "Hanging Burial on the Cliffs of Chuan", the symphonic prelude "Miles of the Royal Winds", the large-scale folk music ensemble "Mountains of the Sun and the Moon", the concerto "Sorrowful Hollow Mountain", "Wild Grasses", and "Rituals on the Mountains", and the chamber music "Opera ", "Oracle Bones", "Social Fire" and a cappella "Echoes of Heaven and Earth".

Guo Wenjing's works are characterized by heaviness, grandeur, sadness and a sense of history. He pioneered the introduction of Chinese opera singers into opera, and pioneered a new form of placing solo instruments on the opera stage.

Guo Wenjing is currently the only Chinese composer to have staged operas around the world. His four operas have been staged in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Rome, Lisbon, Turin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Rouen, Perth, and the Central City Opera in the U.S.A. The premiere of Diary of a Madman in Holland shook Europe, and since then there have been produced versions of the opera performed in eight different countries around the world. This is a record that no one, including overseas Chinese composers, has yet achieved. The opera Night Banquet, inspired by the scroll Han Xizai Night Banquet of the Five Dynasties, premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London, while the opera Li Bai premiered at the Central City Theatre in Crowley, Crowley, USA, and Fengyi Pavilion premiered at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Holland, were also universally acclaimed, contributing to the dissemination of Chinese operas in the world's operatic arena. Critics in many countries have reacted strongly to Guo Wenjing's works, with the European Music Review describing him as "a composer who completely disregards Western expectations of Chinese culture and creates works based on his own inner feelings." Le Monde described his work as having "incomparable musical and dramatic power"; The Guardian commented that his work was "pungent and vivid"; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung found his music "subtle and unique"; and the Independent Weekly described his music as "subtle and unique". "In 2003, Guo Wenjing's operas Diary of a Madman and The Night Banquet had their Chinese premieres at the Sixth International Music Festival in Beijing, and he was honored as Artist of the Year at the Sixth Beijing International Music Festival.