7.c. Musical features
v. Role of piano
In Western art songs, the piano part has the same status as the performer (known as voice-piano equal partnership). An important part of art song creation, it not only plays a role in exaggerating the atmosphere, but also deepening the theme. Huang put forward the same point of view, he did not think that the piano only serves as a foil, but a necessary role, in the chapter Solo Songs in "Appreciation of Music", Huang affirmed the importance of piano part:
"The piano part in art songs is always very complicated, because otherwise it cannot create an appropriate atmosphere for the lyrics."
Music educator Wang Zhenya once commented on the piano texture part of Huang's vocal works:
"The piano part contained a lot of reasonable progression of harmony parts, with various rhythmic interlacing and transitions, and the structure was very tight. Such a texture was rare at that time..."
Liu also commented:
“Huang Tzu incorporated powerful chords into the music, reminiscent of Schubert's piano part from a century ago. The piano part makes the melody more lyrical, such as Longing for Home."
Many artistic conceptions in Longing for home were expressed through piano and harmony, such as columnar chords to express the situation of heavy raindrops (mm.16-18), and using very active and swaying arpeggio texture (in the bass part mainly, for example, mm. 2-4) to express "moving willow branches and fallen flowers". In many cases, the piano part is not only used for embellishment and embellishment, but also provides important nutrients for the important musical atmosphere and poetic artistic conception, and even has a specific role to compete with the singer. As mentioned above, in mm. 11, descending parallel thirds were used to depict the image of more cuckoos actively returning to home and they urge the poet to go home as well, in contrast to the long and sustained phrase of the melody. Therefore, the singing should be highly coordinated with the piano part in terms of tempo, dynamics, phrasing and each character in different sessions. Since they share the same equal partnership, and at least the piano part is not one of the accompaniments.
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