Beyond Sound: Interpreting the Piano Works by Chen Su-Ti, Chih-Yuan Kuo, and Shui-Long Ma Through In-depth Exploration of Taiwanese music, History, and Culture.

Abstract

The sounds of Taiwanese music possess unique historical and cultural characteristics. Building up on the foundation of Western compositional training, modern Taiwanese composers combine aesthetic experiences and enriched life experiences to develop Taiwan's contemporary music. Without a deep understanding of Taiwan's background, it is difficult to fully comprehend the essence of Taiwanese music or accurately interpret its distinctive qualities. The key to interpretation lies in how to make music, as written work, revive and resonate with audiences. In addition to bringing the sound structure to life from the musical score, a comprehensive interpretation must deal with analyzing the internal meaning of the musical work, the external content, and the exploration of musical history and biographies. Music performance is not merely a mechanical relationship between "score—performer—instrument." Performers must thoroughly understand what is notated in the score and explore the possible musical meanings that are not written down. These meanings may lie in the composer's intentions, the historical context of the music, or other hermeneutic elements. Thus, one can give the music a meaning that goes beyond sound, transforming it into a form of intellectual emotional expression. The aim of this dissertation is to help performers to understand Taiwanese music from multiple perspectives: its history, its identity, the composers' personal experiences, and the analysis of their music. This dissertation will begin by introducing the musical history of Taiwan and the evolution of Taiwan's identity, followed by composers' biographies, and an analysis of their compositional techniques and characteristics, as well as how the music should be interpreted in performance. The development of Taiwan's consciousness and identity can be viewed in an evolving historical context, namely the period of colonial rule by Japan, the period when the Nationalist Government came to Taiwan, and the democratization of Taiwan in the 90s. This dissertation focuses on three Taiwanese composers: Su-Ti Chen, Chih-Yuan Kuo, and Shui-Long Ma, who were born around the Japanese colonial period and lived their lives in Taiwan until the beginning of 21st Century. The paper will analyze nine of their piano works. It explores how the composers utilized their life experiences in Taiwan as a musical vocabulary. Through the analysis of these works, I will offer a multi-faceted understanding of Taiwanese piano music and a more accurate and well-founded music interpretation. Hopefully, performers from different countries can picturize and understand the uniqueness in Taiwanese music through this dissertation and can further interpret the sound of Taiwanese music.