A Study on the Expression of National Cultural Identity in Chen Qigang's "A Moment of Peking Opera" Musical Work

Abstract

In the context of globalization in the 21st century, the integration and re-construction of cultures have become an important issue in contemporary art creation. Chinese composer Chen Qishang, as a disciple of French composer Olivier Messiaen, has been dedicated to combining Chinese traditional culture with Western modern composition techniques, forming a self-assertive cross-cultural musical expression. His piano solo piece "Instant of a Beijing Opera" (Instants d’un Opéra de Pékin) is inspired by the performance vocabularies of Peking Opera such as "singing, reciting, acting, and fighting", and through continuous deformation of timbre layers, rhythm patterns, dynamics, and texture, attempts to reconstruct the dynamic temperament and dramatic atmosphere of the Peking Opera stage on the Western instrument of piano. Based on the method of combining literature research and work analysis, this paper first sorts out the overall structure of the work (intro - theme - eight variations - coda), and conducts analysis around tonal organization, rhythm composition, timbre and texture techniques; secondly, introducing the perspective of "national cultural identity", discusses how the work generates perceptible and recognizable cultural symbols, auditory memory and community imagination in the tension between "tradition - modernity" and "East - West". The study holds that "Instants of Peking Opera" does not merely juxtapose elements of Peking Opera on the surface, but realizes structural transformation and language re-creation at the levels of rhythm logic, performance rules and "white space" aesthetics, thereby providing an enlightening case for contemporary Chinese composers to express their national cultural identity in the world music context.