ekphrasis

Chew, E. (2001). The PPP Connection: Paintings, Poems, Pieces—an Essay on Wang Lisan's "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii.  In Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Musical Signification, Imatra, Finland.  This paper was presented at the 7th International Congress on Musical Signification, Imatra, Finland (July, 2001) and the 17th International Musicological Society Conference, Leuven, Belgium (Aug, 2002), and appears in a special issue of Acta Semiotica Fennica.  

The PPP Connection: Paintings, Poems, Pieces

An Essay on Wang Lisan's "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii"

By Elaine Chew

Wang Lisan's piano suite "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii" (1979) consists of four pieces that represent the composer's response to the paintings of the 20th century Japanese landscape artist. Accompanying each piece is a poem corresponding to a painting. These poems, in turn, serve as poetic outlines for the compositions. In recognition of its expressive depth, exquisite beauty and its originality, Wang Lisan's "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii" has been designated the first milestone of contemporary Chinese piano music (Zhou 1994: 424).

Wang Lisan's creation challenges the listener to grapple with three different artistic media - paintings, poems and pieces. The interplay brought about by this tri-medial juxtaposition weaves a rich tapestry that surpasses the individual works. This essay describes the techniques employed by Wang to create a double ekphrasis, his depiction of the paintings as well as his poetic response to Higashiyama's art, and how the two interact.

1. Double Ekphrasis

"Musical Ekphrasis" is a term coined by Siglind Bruhn to describe the transformation of an artwork into a musical form. In Wang Lisan's "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii", one is confronted with not just a simple musical ekphrasis but a double ekphrasis, a composer's twin responses to the artwork - verbal and musical. This is distinct from the two-phase ekphrasis described in Bruhn's essay "Towards a Theory of Musical Ekphrasis" (2000) where the composer is inspired by an ekphraistic work by another artist.

In a double ekphrasis, one author responds in two ways to the primary representation. In a two-phase ekphrasis, because the first re-presentation inspires the second, there is a well-defined time sequence to the two creative events. In a double ekphrasis, because the two responses spring from the same mind, it is difficult to separate and to determine the chronology of the ideas presented in each medium. It may even be debatable whether such a division and chronology exists.

In the case of the poems and pieces by Wang Lisan, the verbal and musical responses are closely intertwined. The poems interpret and augment the musical works. In turn, the compositions re-present the poem's narrative on the artworks in a musical medium. Together, they tell a coherent story that is inspired by the common source - the paintings of Higashiyama Kaii. The two responses constitute an irreducible whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

2. Background

2.1 Wang Lisan

Wang Lisan was born 1933 in Wuhan to a scholarly and privileged family (Zhou, 1994: 414-425) - his grandfather was a magistrate of the Ching Dynasty, and his father a highly educated economist, and philanthropist and founder of several schools. A precocious child, he showed musical promise at a young age. Despite the political instability in China during his formative years, his unmistakeable talent earned him free composition and piano lessons. He later topped both the composition and piano entrance exams at the Shanghai Conservatory and enrolled as a composition student.

His compositional style is both nationalistic and boldly original. He experiments with unusual instrumentation and frequently crosses boundaries to meld disparate musical traditions. A sampling of his works include "Balinese Dance" (1961) for traditional Chinese instruments, "African War Dance" (1965) for piano, narrator and traditional Chinese instruments, and "Tashan Suite", a collection of Five Preludes and Fugues on Chinese themes (1982). It is also this very boldness and fondness for testing boundaries that landed Wang Lisan in political troubles.

In 1957, he co-authored an outspoken article against questionable music practices of his time, causing him to be labeled a "Rightist" and to be sent to the northern steppes of Heilongjiang for a period of "Correction". At the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1970, like many other intellectuals, he was sentenced to farm labor. After the fall of the Gang of Four, he returned to Harbin in 1972 to resume his teaching duties. "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii" dates from this period of renewed freedom and inspiration.

2.2 Higashiyama Kaii and Toshodai-ji

The celebrated Japanese landscape painter, Higashiyama Kaii, was born in 1908 in Yokohama. He passed away in April of 1999. Amongst his contemporaries, Higashiyama's art and prose has gained the largest following in China. A graduate of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, he was one of the first Germany-Japan exchange students to study art history at the Berlin University in 1933. Widely exhibited in Japan, China and Europe, he was appointed to the Japan Art Academy in 1965 and honored by the country's Order of Cultural Merit in 1969.

Higashiyama specialized in landscape paintings, and his works include the "Four Seasons in Kyoto" series (1964-66), "Landscape with a White Horse" series (1972), "Landscape in China" series (1943), and the "Landscape in Northern Europe" series (1962). Between 1971 and 1981, he was commissioned to paint 68 large-scale landscapes on sliding screens for the Toshodai-ji Temple. These murals depicted landscapes from Japan and China, and included masterpieces such as "Burnt Clouds of Huang Shan", "Moon Evening in Guilin", "Mountain Clouds" and "The Sound of Waves".

3. Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii

Choosing from among the Japanese landscape artist's numerous works, Wang pens both verbal and musical responses to four of the paintings. After hearing Wang's creative work, Higashiyama Kaii validated the composer's responses in writing, saying, "I truly admire the depth to which you have comprehended my works." (Zhou 1994: 424)

3.1 Winter Blossoms

The piano suite opens with "Winter Blossoms", most likely inspired by "Luminous Cherry Blossoms", Higashiyama Kaii's painting of a magnificent cherry tree in full bloom on a moonlit night. This painting is part of the artist's "Four Seasons in Kyoto" series (1964-66). The composer's poetic response (my translation):

• • Alone, desolate . . . . .

  • One immense silver tree

  • Glittering and scintillating,

  • Its dense rasping limbs

  • Enveloped in the icy light

  • Sing the song of life.

The poem acts as a window into the composer's innermost response to the artist's work. It also serves as an outline, explaining and motivating his musical impression of the painting.

EXAMPLE 1: Opening bars of "Winter Blossoms".

Musically, Wang Lisan sets up the mood, climate and locale in the introductory eight measures of the piece. The composer indicates the geographic location of the landscape, Kyoto, by using the Japanese Toshi scale (see Example 1). For the entire "Impressions" suite, this pitch set is used to signify Japanese, its history and culture. The opening glissando-like figures (Example 1) evoke icy limbs rubbing together like wind chimes. The pause between each gesture together with the tranquillo marking creates an impression of the profoundly quiet, lonely and cold landscape described in the poem and illustrated by the painting. The measured and dignified pace is also reminiscent of stylized Japanese theater.

EXAMPLE 2: Voices entering in stretto, bars 8-10, "Winter Blossoms".

The composer uses various musical techniques to represent the dense and scintillating limbs of the luminous cherry tree. In the first section, the stretto effect of the layered invocations of the melodic figure (see Example 2), both in augmentation and diminution, evokes the chorus of densely packed branches. In the next section, the pointillistic figure (shown in Example 3) employing pitches in widely varying registers convey the effect of shards of moonlight bouncing off the icy branches. In the central sections that build toward the climatic "Song of Life", the repeated motif is iterated in high registers, simulating the sounds of icy limbs rubbing together. By using rhythmic figures that do not divide easily into each other (five against two, and seven against six as shown in Examples 4 a and b), and by staggering the entrances (in the case of the seven again six figure), the composer confounds the listener's sense of rhythmic boundaries and evokes the free moving branches of the cherry blossom tree.

EXAMPLE 3: Pointillistic figure in widely varying registers shown in latter half of bars 26-29, "Winter Blossoms".

EXAMPLE 4a: Five against two, bar 41, "Winter Blossoms".

EXAMPLE 4b: Six against seven, bars 51-52, "Winter Blossoms".

3.2 The Woods in Autumn Garb

The two middle pieces are miniatures in comparison to the opening and closing pieces of the suite. Higashiyama Kaii has painted a series titled "Landscape with a White Horse" (1972). According to a 1999 article in the East magazine (Vol. 35 No. 2, July/August 1999), "for Higashiyama Kaii, painting was a kind of prayer. The white horse in his works symbolizes the prayerful artist." The composer alludes to a painting from the white horse series titled Woods Spruced Up. The Woods in Autumn Garb is my translation of the title. In his poem, the composer describes the white horse and trees as being drunk in the wash of fall colors:

• • Trees -

  • Likewise drunk.

  • Ah, little white horse,

  • Are you still dwelling on

  • Your gold-colored dream?

The composer uses dotted rhythms and off-beat entrances to simulate the uneven walk of an inebriated horse. Three main rhythmic and melodic figures dominate in this movement as shown in Example 5: (1) the ostinato in the bass; (2) the rhythmic alto figure; and, (3) the soprano melody. All three combine to evoke the uneven steps of the drunken horse.

EXAMPLE 5: The intoxicated horse, bars 1-4, "The Woods in Autumn Garb".

In Wang's re-presentation, the artist's intoxicated walk is interrupted by two sequences of rolled chords symbolizing the gold colored dream (see Example 6). The note material of these chords breaks out of the Toshi mode (wider whole-step intervals are mixed in with the half-step intervals of the Toshi scale), indicating that this otherworldly dream transcends the Japanese landscape.

EXAMPLE 6: Rolled chords symbolizing the gold-colored dream, bars 19-22, "The Woods in Autumn Garb".

The ending of the piece is particularly effective. The piece ends with a staccato note on G, quiet and unassuming, like a bubble vaporizing into thin air.

3.3 Lake

The third piece, Lake, is the most somber of the set. The piece re-creates the image of a luminous lake by the woods that the composer describes as plain and unadorned.

• • Clear mirror, clear mirror!

  • You give the plain forested mountain

  • Knowledge of its own beauty.

  • Clear mirror, clear mirror!

  • I love your wordless timeless depth.

The composer paints the musical image using a palette of unusual chords in which intervals of seconds and fourths prevail. The chord sequences deliberately employ parallel fourths and fifths to reinforce the eastern sounds. Example 7 shows the composer's use of these parallel intervals in chord sequences, and in Example 8 (bars 2-4) shows chord sequences employing parallel fourths and fifths repeated each time a perfect fourth lower.

EXAMPLE 7: Parallel fourths and fifths in "Lake", bars 8.

EXAMPLE 8: Opening bars (1-5) of "Lake".

The watery setting is indicated in three ways. The main theme is made up entirely of minor second intervals, ornamented by two mordents (more seconds!) as shown in Example 8 (bar 1). The topography of this melody on a keyboard is not unlike the cross section of a small ripple on the lake. Visually, the lingering ties in bars 2-5 are also drawn in such a way as to resemble small ripples. By simultaneously sounding pitches related by intervals of major and minor seconds, the interfering sound waves achieve the effect of a trail of quivering echoes. These sound ripples suggest the gentle ripples on the placid lake. By using broken octaves and combining these octaves with major second dyads the composer again artfully sets up ripples in the sonic realm.

3.4 Crashing Waves

"Crashing Waves" is arguably the focal piece in the suite. It was premiered at the Seventh Harbin Summer Music Festival, and won the 1985 National Chamber Music Competition in China. The composer's wife Wu Qifang who performed the piece on this occasion won the best performer award for her rendition of the work. The piece is based on the painting titled "The Sound of Waves", one of 68 murals created by Higashiyama for the Toshodai-ji between 1971 and 1981. These large-scale landscapes were painted on sliding screens and reside in Mieido, the rear of the temple grounds.

"Crashing Waves" is my translation of the title. A literal translation of the title would have yielded "The Sound of Waves". However, the waves to which the Chinese character refers are windswept and foaming waves. Hence, the title has also been translated as "Billows", but "Crashing Waves" is closer to the true spirit of the piece.

The composer's poetic and musical response to this painting is best understood in its historical context. Toshodai-ji is one of Japan's foremost cultural treasures and dates back to the Nara period (710-784 A.D.). "The Nara period, also known as the Tempyo period, marks the apex of concentrated Japanese efforts to emulate Chinese cultural and political models." (Encyclopaedia Brittanica) One of the results of these efforts was that Buddhism received massive support from the government. Toshodai-ji was built during this period for the Chinese monk, Ganjin, and it stands as a monument to the perseverance and spirit of this Buddhist missionary.

According to legend, the venerable monk arrived in Japan after six foiled attempts to make the treacherous journey across the straits. Each time he sets sail for Japan, the ship is forced back by violent storms. Ganjin finally succeeds on his seventh attempt in 753 (or 754, depending on the source), but the perilous journeys have left him blind.

Both Higashiyama Kaii and Wang Lisan are re-presenting the story of Ganjin's epic journey. With this history in mind, we can now better appreciate Wang Lisan's verbal response to Higashiyama's painting:

• • Ah! Ancient Toshodai-ji

  • I dreamt from afar

  • Of the sincerity of one lone voyager,

  • As if I heard the sounds of high winds and lashing waves

  • Melt into dusk drums and bells at dawn.

"To" in Toshodai-ji refers to China; more precisely, "To" is a transliteration of Tang, after the Chinese dynasty of the same name, a dynasty so influential that its name was to become synonymous with China for centuries to come. The stately first theme (see Example 9) quotes from Chinese Buddhist chants (Wei Tingge, 1996: 165-169), and according to Chinese musicologist Wei Tingge, the theme is the embodiment of Ganjin's spirit.

EXAMPLE 9: Theme I quoting from Chinese Buddhist chants, bars 1-4, "Crashing Waves".

The Chinese theme is also emblematic of the magnificent monument built in the missionary's honor. The resonant chords employ intervals of seconds and fourths to emulate the timbre and sonorities of the ancient temple bells, thus re-creating the ambience of Toshodai-ji. A five-note cluster reaching down to the lowermost register of the piano punctuates this first theme. The cluster signifies a colossal temple gong; the position of the notes on the keyboard allows the performer to strike the keys with a fist so that even the gesture is like one of striking a gong. The crash and its echoing rumble also suggests thunder, an omen of the massive storms to come.

EXAMPLE 10: The stormy second theme in "Crashing Waves", bars 20-25.

The second theme, marked agitato, is a masterful presentation of dark waters, seething with latent energy (see Example 10). The repetitive figures outline wave-like contours at all levels: in the sixteenth-note motif in the right-hand, in the Japanese melody embedded in this RH motif, in the left-hand melody and in the LH figures. The hairpin dynamic markings in phase with the rolling left hand figure add to the rocking motion. The layering of these wave-like pitch and dynamic contours conjures up the image of a chaotic seascape.

Alternating between the two themes, Wang Lisan dramatizes (musically) the monk's physical and psychological experience, leading the listener through Ganjin's epic journey. Ganjin's seven attempts are figuratively represented by three storm passages based predominantly on the second theme.

The first storm passage is interrupted a crashing chord, as if the ship were hit by a bolt of lightning. Ganjin's theme appears, and is overwhelmed by a massive wave indicated by a broken chord figure ascending from the bass. This sequence of events happens again as Ganjin's spirit struggles to stay afloat in the turbulent sea. A sweeping Toshi scale passage, first in parallel then diverging to another thundering crash, draws the first storm to a close. Absolute silence clears the air of remaining echoes before the second storm passage.

The second storm is deeper and darker. The pedal point on D throughout the first storm passage has descended to C#, then creeps down to Bb. As the storm builds, the leaps in the left hand get increasingly wider, signifying by the distance of the pitches and the physical gesture the mounting waves. The relatively sparse interlude before the final storm is like a recitative; it portrays Ganjin reaffirming his faith and gathering his strength to set sail once again.

The final storm is epic in scale. The tsunami-sized waves, symbolized by ascending and descending pentatonic scale passages, occurring in sequence after sequence, pound relentlessly on the hapless ship. But Ganjin's perseverance prevails, and the ship rides out the storm. Harp-like cascades of Chinese scale sequences celebrate the triumph of Ganjin's spirit over the elements. In conclusion, the temple bells chime (as shown in Example 11) to celebrate Ganjin's victory.

4. Political Inuendo?

As a Chinese composer's response to a Japanese painter's art, the piano suite can be seen as signifying the friendship between China and Japan. So, is "Impressions of Paintings by Higashiyama Kaii" a gesture of friendship that transcends the history between the two countries? A closer look reveals that Higashiyama Kaii the artist was a contemplative man and a self-professed pacifist. In China, he is one of the most highly regarded Japanese painters of his generation. The focal piece in the piano suite is undoubtedly "Crashing Waves", a musical narration of a Chinese monk's epic journey to bring Buddhist teachings to Japan. It celebrates an event that took place during a period of Japan's history when the country strove to emulate Chinese culture and politics. Perhaps the composer has deliberately chosen to imbue the piece with some nationalistic sentiments, and that the political agenda is not so controversial after all.

REFERENCES

Bruhn, Siglind (2000). Towards a Theory of Musical Ekphrasis. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~siglind/ekphr.htm

Wei Tingge (1996). Zuoqujia yu Zuopin Jianjie [ Brief Introduction to the Composers and their Compositions ]. In Wei Tingge (ed.), Zhongguo Gangqinqu 30 Shou [ The 30 Famous Chinese Piano Pieces ], 165-169. Renmin Yinyue Chubanshe [ People's Music Press ].

Zhou Zuquan (1994). Caohua Xixiu Yuetan Yiqi - Zuoqujia Wang Lisan [ Nationalistic Scholar Extraordinaire and Musical Wonder - Composer Wang Lisan ]. In: Xiang Tingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo Jinxiandai Yinyuejia Zhuan [ Biographies of Contemporary Chinese Musicians ], Vol. 4. 414-425. Shenyang: Spring Breeze Arts Press. (The article has been translated by Chew and is available upon request)

Posted Friday Jan 18, 2002.