纪念抗日战争胜利和世界反法西斯战争胜利写作安魂曲

<div>我要为纪念抗日战争胜利和世界反法西斯战争胜利写作安魂曲的计划已有数十年之久了。</div>   幼年时我就不断听到与看到过日本侵略者的残暴与恐怖。我成年后，尤其是在 1964 年我被迫害而下放到山西雁北地区时，我曾计划创作一些抗战题材的作品，但我能搜集到的都是扒铁路、端炮楼等事迹，并没有什么正面战场上的大型战斗。     1971～73 年期间，我在山西长治再次计划创作一些抗战题材的作品，但当时能够利用起来的素材也仅限于“我们在太行山上”这样的歌曲和“狼牙山五壮士”这样的事迹。由于缺乏对抗日战争全面的历史认知，这两度创作抗战题材作品的愿望都没有实现。     直到 1985 年，时任北京市委副书记的徐惟诚和当时宣传部、文化局的一批官员来到北京市歌舞团找到我，希望我为纪念抗日战争爆发 50 周年写作一部作品。我当时的想法是一定要摆脱中共传统的作曲观念，再也不能用标题音乐的思维“就事论事说故事”了，一旦要写就写出具有高度历史价值和艺术水平的交响乐作品，于是我马上就构思出了两个乐章《招魂》《国殇》，从此便开始有了明确的念头要创作一部纪念抗日战争胜利和世界反法西斯战争胜利的安魂曲，并且要用屈原《楚辞•九歌•国殇》的精神内涵来象征中国军队英勇抗击日本侵略者的伟大民族精神，来纪念那些为抗战而死的烈士英灵们，因为屈原的《国殇》写的即是全军覆没而精神不灭。     1986 年我首先完成了为女高音独唱与交响乐团而作的声乐协奏曲《招魂》，这部作品倾注了我的大量心血。《招魂》的音乐主题与构思来源于一次海上之旅。 1979 年底我第一次去海南岛、南沙群岛采风，并在南海石油钻井船上生活了七天。我每天清晨看大海日出，夜晚看大海日落，深夜坐在甲板上倾听大海深沉的怒吼。有一次我在海边等候轮船，听见周围的大喇叭传出了红线女的歌唱，我才惊讶的发现，红线女的歌唱竟然有着深厚的北方音乐传统，和秦腔及蒲剧竟如此地接近，于是我便以地方戏的思维，用南国的闽剧、芗剧、粤剧曲调做成了《招魂》中如同大海般汹涌的深邃主题。1986 年一个深秋的夜晚，我在案头反复吟咏这些戏曲性主题，并决定以戏曲思维作为这部作品展开部的基本写作指导线索，所以招魂这部作品的结构和一般的交响乐结构完全不同， 它是建立在戏曲思维的基础上，以单旋律发展原则结合十二音和多调性元素写就而成的。从1979 年开始构思直到 1986 年完成全作，不知不觉已过了七年，我对这一乐章寄予了极大的期望。这部作品 1987 年曾试奏，之后便一直没有得到演出，直到 1991 年在我的第一次个人作品音乐会上，李丹丹女士作为女高音独唱首演了这部作品，为此我很感谢。此后我对《招魂》这部作品情有独钟，分别在 1997 年、2000 年和 2005 年各演了一次。     1986 年《招魂》完成后，我便开始积累抗战题材以便集中写好《国殇》这一乐章。 1994年我第一次访问美国，在哥伦比亚大学图书馆我找到了潘德列茨基的《圣路加受难曲》（St.Luke Passion）、《圣母颂歌》 (Magnificat)以及《末日经》（Dies Irae）等作品，我对这些作品中的音块技术进行了深入的研究。潘氏将其在交响乐团中使用的音块技术，完整地“搬”到了合唱中，这引起了我极大的兴趣并给我以极大的启发!但是由于我们国家的合唱事业相对落后，当时国内的合唱团还不能担任演唱包含合唱音块技术的作品，考虑到这一原因，《国殇》这部作品我也迟迟未能动笔写作。直到 1997 年，新上任的北京市文化局副局长吴江先生大力支持我完成这部作品，他也是当时文化局所有领导干部中唯一一个支持我写作这部作品的好友。在他的支持下，我开始动笔写作并在 1997 年 7 月 1 日开始仅用了 20 天便一气呵成完成了这部 34 分钟的大型交响合唱作品。吴江调离后，这部作品就再也没有首演的可能而被搁置起来了！     2012 年来自重庆的友人造访我并希望我能写作中国远征军题材的作品， 2013 年又有来自云南的友人造访我希望我能写作滇西抗战题材的作品，他们给我带来了极大的动力并促使我重新学习抗战历史，这使我惊讶地全面而又详细地了解了正面战场上的 22次惨烈战役和战死二百余位将军和三百多万将士的沉重代价。     2014 年底，我向中国国家交响乐团提出了写作安魂曲的计划，并得到了团长关峡先生和全团演奏家们的大力支持，为此我在 2015 年 3 月亲自到重庆、滇西深入了解、学习了抗战英烈们的伟大精神。我在重庆和滇西分别停留了四天，我在重庆参观了蒋介石官邸和重庆大轰炸惨案遗址，在滇西参观了松山战役遗址，并在龙岩、腾冲等地详细考察了抗战历史。   在这八天中，我所了解到的事迹对我产生了巨大的震动，使我深深地感到，如果我们不能够全面恢复抗日战争的真正历史面貌，那将是多么大的罪过！我们将多么对不起死去的烈士啊！   回京后，我即在 2015 年 3 月到 8 月期间集中创作完成了现在这部《第九交响曲——抗日战争安魂曲》。   第一乐章  哀悼 这一乐章是全作的引子。在钟声的不断的敲打下出现哀伤的旋律，建立起了沉痛哀悼的形象。   第二乐章  苦难 我原本计划写铁蹄践踏与狼烟奔突两个乐章，但最终我决定将它们合成为一个乐章。第二乐章是全作中重要的一个乐章，南京大屠杀，重庆大轰炸，流民三千万……所有的苦难都压缩在了这一个乐章中。我在这一乐章中不仅写下了敌人的残暴与痛苦，还写下了人们对战争的反思与批判。人类为什么要有战争？人类为什么要互相残杀？我在写作过程中不断思考着这个问题，因此我要呼吁人们不要战争，热爱和平。从写作技法上来说，我得出了一个原则，那就是把有情节的具象的事件以无标题的抽象的思维方式加以概括，这才是交响乐思维的基本写作途径。     第三乐章  国殇 在这一乐章中，我力求用古朴的音乐风格来表现伟大的抗日战争。在这部作品中我直接运用了屈原《楚辞•九歌•国殇》的原诗，原诗分两部分，第一部分是大战，快板，以古代战场惊心动魄的激烈鏖战开始，使人宛如置身其中，令人震撼，大战的高峰是全军覆没；第二部分是沉重的祭奠，慢中板，音乐运用了古曲和戏曲中的散板吟咏，表现了凝重悲怆的古代祭奠和哀悼仪式中壮士们沉重的脚步，悲壮浩大，深沉有力，力图体现追悼阵亡将士们的沉重图画。我在腾冲、松山、龙岩等地多次看到人们用“国殇”这个词语祭奠阵亡的烈士，因此我感到我 1997 年前写就的这部作品以国殇为题悼念伟大的抗日战争中牺牲的英烈是多么的契合。我在这部作品中大量运用了地方戏、古琴曲中的音乐元素，同时把现代交响乐队里的微型复调、音级集合技术搬到了合唱队中使用，用以表现飞箭如雨、杀声震天、人马杂踏、哭泣嚎啕等声音，使现代音乐的合唱技术与中华民族的音乐风格有机地结合了起来，在美学和技术上做出了突破。     第四乐章  反攻 我们的胜利是非常惨烈的胜利，中华民族为此付出了沉重的代价，整个抗战期间，正面战场敌我伤亡比例在1:10 到 1:6 之间，但是尽管如此，我们仍然最终取得了伟大的胜利，因此这一乐章是明朗的，辉煌的。     第五乐章  招魂 声乐协奏曲。   第六乐章  纪念 再一次出现了哀伤的旋律，让人们铭记历史，珍惜和平！    在这部作品中，除第三乐章使用了屈原《楚辞•九歌•国殇》中的原词外，没有使用任何成文的歌词，而用简单的音节作为歌词进行演唱，也没有使用任何现成的抗战歌曲的曲调，这就是我所说的抽象性之于具象性的艺术原则所在。     最后我请我的朋友，著名的民间思想家王康先生写作了朗诵词。朗诵词应在第一乐章开始前诵读，以此表达出向抗战烈士的尊敬。抗战胜利的伟大意义，无需我额外赘述，对于抗战历史，我们应永远铭记。抗战胜利，让中国人民站起来了。   对于这部作品的首演，我要感谢中国国家交响乐团团长关峡先生、国交全体演奏员、中国国家交响乐团合唱团全体团员和首都师范大学合唱团全体团员，尤其要感谢合唱团，因为文革结束以来我们的合唱事业发展困难重重，改革三十多年来合唱团所演唱的曲目远没有乐团那样丰富，导致他们无法完全驾驭 20 世纪以来的现代音乐作品中的合唱技术，然而这些技术在本作中都被使用过了，这便对合唱团提出了新的高标准、高要求。最后再次衷心感谢所有为首演做出巨大贡献的演职人员们！   2015 年 9 月于北京       Author’s Preface   The plan of writing a requiem in memory of the victory of the Second Sino-Japanese War and that of the World Anti-Fascist War had been haunting in my mind for decades.       In my childhood, I continually heard of and saw the barbarism and terror of the Japanese invaders. After I grew up, I tried several times to write music for that topic. In 1964, I was persecuted and sent to Yanbei, Shanxi. The stories about the War, which I was able to collect there,  were  nothing  but  minor  military  events,  such  as  damaging  the  enemy’s  railroad, destroying an armed castle, etc. In other words, I failed to obtain any story about any major battle. Between 1971 and 1973, I was then living in Changzhi, Shanxi, and again, I tried to write some music about the War. However, the materials that I could then make use of were merely songs such as “We are on the Taihang Mountain,” or stories such as the five heroes on Langya mountain. In short, although I had tried twice to write music of the Second Sino-Japanese War topic, I did not actually achieve anything, because I was not able to get the overall historical picture or understanding of this war.       Time  flew.  In  1985,  Xu  Weicheng,  who  was  the  Vice  Secretary  of  Beijing,  came  to  the Beijing Art Troupe with some other government officials from the Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Culture. They found me, and asked if I could write a work in memory of the fiftieth anniversary of the commencement of the Second Sino-Japanese War. At that time, my thought was to put those traditional composing conceptions, which the Chinese Communist advocated, aside, and to no longer “tell stories literally” by means of program music. If I had to write  a  piece,  it  must  be  an  orchestral  work  of  highly  historical  and  artistic  values. Consequently, I quickly sketched two movements, i.e. “Summons of the Soul” and “Hymn to the Fallen.” Having done that, I started to have a clear thought of writing a requiem for the victoryof the Second Sino-Japanese War and that of the World Anti-Fascist War. Moreover, I decided to use the spirit of Qu Yuan’s “Hymn to the Fallen” from the Nine Songs, which is compiled in Chuci, to symbolize the great national spirit of the Chinese army bravely fighting against the Japanese invaders, and to commemorate the heroes who lost their lives in the War, because Qu Yuan’s “Hymn to the Fallen”  depicts the eternal spirit that never disappears even though all soldiers’ living bodies have died.       In 1986, I first finished the Concerto for Coloratura and Orchestra, Summons of the Soul.   While composing it, I had put great amount of time and energy. Both the principle idea and the musical topics of this concerto came from a sea trip. In the end of 1979, I visited the Hainan Island  and the Nansha Islands for the first time. My purpose was to look for music and musical ideas.  On  the  South  China  Sea,  I  spent  seven  days  on  a  drillship.  Every  day ,  I  watched  the sunrise  in  the morning  and  the  sunset  in  the  evening,  and  at  night,  I  sat  on  the  deck  and listened to the deep and angry voice of the sea. At that time, the Cultural Revolution had just been over, and the reflection judgment  of it was just being started. One day, while I was sitting on the seashore waiting for a ship, the singing of Hung Sin-nu passed to my ear from a nearby loudspeaker. All of a sudden I surprisingly realized that the singing of Hung Sin -nu shared a deep stylistic similarity with the music of northern China. It was so much related to the music of  Qing  Qiang  and  Pu  Opera!  As  a  result,  I  followed  the  logic  in  the  regional  operas,  and composed Summons of the Soul’s principle melodies, which were as deep as the sea’s voice. In it, I used the tunes of Min Opera (闽剧), Xiang Opera (芗剧) and Yue Opera (粤剧).       In 1986, at a dark autumn’s night, I sang these regional opera-style melodies again and   again  at  my  composing  desk.  I  felt  those  dead  souls flying  in  front  of  me,  and  I  wanted  to consulate  them  and  settle  them down  by  my  music.  I  made  up  my  mind  of  using  regional opera’s  developing  logic  as  a  basic  composing  clue  to  write  my Summons  of  the  Soul’s development part. That’s why Summons of the Soul’s structure is completely different from the usual structures of orchestral works. On basis of regional operas’ logic, the piece develops on single melodies. In the meantime, it employs and combines the methods and minds of the twelve-tone  technique  and  polytonality.  From  the  year  of  1979,  in  which  year  I started  to develop this piece, to the year of 1986, in which year I finally completed it, time flew quickly. Seven years had passed. I really looked forward to this piece. In 1987, it got performed in a tryout performance. After that, it was not played until 1991 in the first recital (in the history) of my works. A soprano with the name Li Dandan sang it, and I appreciated all the effort she put in. After this recital, I maintained the love of Summons of the Soul in a unique and personal way, and it was performed in 1997, 2000 and 2005 respectively.       Having finished Summons of the Soul in 1986, I began to collect materials of the Second   Sino-Japanese War in order to concentrate on the movement of “Hymn to the Fallen.” In 1994, I visited the US for the first time, and I found at Columbia University Penderecki’s works such   as Saint Luke Passion, Magnificat and Dies irae. I thoroughly studied the cluster technique used in these pieces. Here, Penderecki completely “relocated”  the cluster technique, which normally appears in orchestral works, in his choral music.   The way he did it greatly caused my interest, and greatly inspired me. However, in my country, the level of choral music was relatively low, and at that time, one could hardly find a choir in China that was good enough to perform such a piece using cluster technique. Due to this reason, I had not penned Hymn to the Fallen for long time. In 1997, Mr. Wu Jiang, who was then just appointed as the Vice Chair of the Beijing Ministry of Culture, greatly supported me to write this piece. At that time, he was the only friend that supported me to write this piece among all the officials of the Ministry of Culture. Under his support, I started to write, and it only took me twenty days,  starting from July 1, 1997, to complete this piece/movement, whose performance lasted for thirty-four minutes. However, Wu Jiang was transferred from his position, so the premiere of this piece became impossible.       In 2012, a friend from Chongqing visited me, and wished I could write a piece for the   Chinese Expeditionary Force. In 2013, another friend from Yunnan visited me, and asked if I   could write a piece for the battles that took place in the western Yunnan during the Second   Sino-Japanese War. Both friends, whom I just mentioned, greatly encouraged me, and their   encouragement pushed me to research and re-learn the history of the Second Sino-Japanese   War. I studied, with thorough and detailed research, and with surprise, twenty-two violent   major battles, in which we lost about 200 generals and more than 3,000,000 soldiers. I thought over and over again, and eventually at the end of 2014, I sent to the China National Symphony Orchestra a proposal of writing a requiem. This proposal was greatly supported by Mr. Guan Xia, who was the chair of the Orchestra, as well as all the other musicians in the Orchestra. Consequently, I traveled to Chongqing and western Yunnan in March 2015, and deeply studied the great spirit of those fallen heroes in that war. I stayed  in Chongqing for four days, and in western Yunnan for another four days. In Chongqing, I visited the official residence of Chiang Kai-shek, as well as the Bombing Raid Massacre Site. In western Yunnan, I visited the ruin of the Songshan battle, and I also visited cities such as Longyan and Tengchong for a detailed study of the war. In these eight days, what I have studied greatly touched me. I deeply felt that if we failed to retrace completely what had really happened in that war, it would be a great shame of us! We would be doing such a disservice to the fallen heroes!       After I returned to Beijing, I composed my Ninth Symphony, a Second Sino-Japanese War   Requiem from March to August 2015.       The first movement,  “Mourning”.  This is the introduction. Sad melody grows out of the never-ending ringing of the bell. It conveys a character of deeply mourning.       The second movement, “Suffering”. Originally I planned to compose two movements, i.e.,   “under  the  iron  heel”  and  “the  running  smoke  signals.”  However,  I  eventually  decide  to combine them into one movement. The second movement is an important movement of the whole piece.  The  Nanking  Massacre,  the  Chongqing  Bombing  Raid  Massacre，30,000,000 Vagrants…All the sufferings are condensed here.   Here not only do I depict our sufferings and how violent the enemy was, I also point out people’s doubts and afterthoughts of the war. Why should we have wars? Why should we human being kill each other? While I was writing this piece, I consistently thought of these questions. Here I appeal that we should throw the war away, and we should embrace the peace. In terms of the composing techniques, I adhere to the idea of distilling many individual stories to make abstract music. This is the basic composing principle of symphonic works.       The third movement,  “Hymn to the Fallen.”  In this movement, I try to depict the great Second Sino-Japanese War with ancient musical styles. Here I directly use Qu Yuan’s poem under the same title. This poem has two parts. The first part depicts a huge battle. My music, which is an Allegro, begins with the great fighting in the ancient battlefield. This part of the music is so exciting and detailed that the audience will feel as if they were on the battlefield watching the fighting. The climax of the battle is the death of all our soldiers. The second part, in a medium slow tempo, is the deep mourning. The music uses the free chanting of our ancient music and regional operas. It expresses the solemn and pathetic ancient memorial ceremony, and one can hear the heavy steps of the strong soldiers, who attend the ceremony. The music is grand and pathetic, deep and strong, and I try to paint a solemn picture  of mourning the dead soldiers. In Tengchong, Songshan, Longyan, as well as at other places, I saw many  times people used the words of “Hymn to the Fallen”  to mourn heroes who died in the War. Therefore I feel that it is very proper for me to use this title as early as twenty years ago to describe the great Second Sino-Japanese War. In this movement, I greatly employ the musical elements of the regional operas and Guqin (Chinese Lyre) music. In the meantime, I “relocated” techniques that are broadly used in the modern symphony orchestra, such as micropolyphony and Pitch-Class Set Theory, in the chorus to express the scenes of raining-like arrows, noise of fighting, people  and  horses  stepping  onto  each  other,  screaming  and  crying.  I combine  flexibly  the modern music’s choral music techniques with the Chinese musical styles, and I have made some breakthrough in the field of both aesthetics and techniques.       The fourth movement,  “Counterattack”.  Our victory was a real difficult one. The whole country won after a huge loss. In the major battlefields, the portion of the death between Japan and China was between 1:4 and 1:2. However, we eventually achieved great victory, so this movement is lively and brilliant.       The fifth movement, “Summons of the Soul”, Concerto for Coloratura and Orchestra.       The sixth movement, “Remembrance”.  The sad melody returns. It reminds people of the history, and reminds them to cherish the peace.       In this work, except for the third movement, which uses the poem of Qu Yuan, no other   texts are used. (Sometimes the voice parts have simple syllables as “texts.”) In addition, I don’t use  any  tune  from  any  Second  Sino-Japanese  War  songs.  These  phenomenon  show  the principle that I mentioned above, i.e., generalizing individual stories into abstract matters.       Last, I want to invite my friend Mr. Wang Kang, who is a free thinker, to write a small   speech, which will be recite before the first movement. This speech expresses our respect to   the dead heroes in the War. I don’t need to say anything more about the great meaning of the   victory. We should all remember the history of this War. After this victory, the Chinese people   stood up.       As for the premiere of this piece, I want to thank Mr. Guan Xia, who is the chair of the   China National Symphony, all the musicians of the China National Symphony, all the singers in the choir of the China National Symphony and all the singers in the choir of the Beijing Normal University. I want to express my special  thanks  to the choir members. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the development of the choral music in China has faced a lot of difficulties. In the past thirty years or more (since the Reform), the repertoire of choral music in China is not  at  all  as  rich  as  that  of  the  orchestral  music,  so they  can  not  completely  handle  the techniques in modern music. However, these techniques are all being used in this work, so it pushes the singers to achieve a higher standard and to meet the demands. After all, I want to deeply thank again all the musicians and staff members, who have contributed a lot for this premiere.   Wang  Xilin   2015.9   Beijing   (Translated  by  Yiming  Zhang)   —— 作者惠寄