A performer's guide to selected Chinese art songs by twentieth-century Chinese composers

Abstract

This dissertation offers a performer's guide, including fifteen Chinese art songs, to non-Chinese singers. Chapter 1 proposes the purpose, major concerns, and methodology of this study. Chapter 2 gives a brief introduction of the historical background of the development of Chinese art songs, including the influences from the Western world and from the inner social, political, and economic changes in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Chapter 3 provides a phonetic system built up as a mixed system derived from two major phonetic schemes--the International Phonetic Alphabet and the Singer's Phonetic Alphabet Guide for Mandarin Chinese developed by Mei-Fung Kang Chi. Chapter 4 presents fifteen Chinese art songs, in which each song includes Chinese text, an International Phonetic Alphabet transcription, an English translation, a brief biography of both composer and poet, and an interpretative analysis followed by a musical score. Chapter 5 concludes the investigation with a brief summary of each chapter and three suggestions for further study.