There are not many albums solely promoting Eastern cultural music on the classical guitar that have received international recognition like Sketches of China. However there are more arrangements of Eastern cultural music for the classical guitar. One of the most popular is "Sakura - Theme & Variations" arranged by Yukihiro Yocoh. The arrangement is, a set of variations on the popular Japanese folk melody 'Sakura Sakura' inspired by the cherry blossom, a flower of great symbolic value in Japan. The melody is commonly attributed with the Japanese plucked instrument, koto (figure 1), after an arrangement of the melody was published in the 1888 Collection of Japanese Koto Music, henceforth being used as a formative piece for students of the instrument7. Yocoh's arrangement includes particular techniques such as tremolo (both one finger and multiple finger tremolo) and pizzicato which, on the classical guitar, can create a sound reminiscent of the koto (figures 2 - 5). This arrangement was made popular after world renowned classical guitarist, John Williams, recording it for his 1993 Sony album The Seville Concert8.
These are only some of the arrangements of Eastern cultural pieces for classical guitar. The albums by Yang and Muraji that feature these arrangements (as well as Yocoh's Sakura - Theme and Variations - included on Williams' Sony album) have promoted these works to wider audiences through association with prestigious record labels - Sony and Decca. There are many arrangements of this kind that have yet to receive more widespread recognition and promotion. I have included a list of arrangements that I was able to find during my research in Appendix A. When such works are included more frequently in concert programmes and recordings, many more will be inspired and encouraged to look towards Eastern cultures a source for new arrangements for the classical guitar repertory. In Part III, Chapter I, I look at ways of arranging songs collected and recomposed by Rabindranath Tagore onto the classical guitar so as to add culturally significant songs from India to this growing catalogue.
Let us now look at some original works for solo classical guitar by contemporary composers. With these arrangements we were able to see how folk and popular melodies can be adapted to the classical guitar but how have some modern composers approached writing for the classical guitar with Eastern culture influences?
The classical guitar continues to garner an increasing global popularity and audience with many individuals from different countries across the world pursuing the instrument professionally. The diversity of artists in the classical guitar world is greater than ever. Some of these artists bring with them, along with their artistry, their culture and a very accessible and direct means of doing this is through the art of arrangement.
An arrangement is the adapatation or musical notation of a pre-existing musical work. Arrangements allow for a degree artistic freedom by the arranger; certain elements of the original work can be made clear in the arrangement, such as a melody or a harmonic progression, but the result does not have not be entirely faithful to the source. Arrangements give space for creative solutions towards problems that involve physical limitations (not being able to easily play notes due to the nature of the instrument) by granting the arranger the opportunity to change notes so that the result may be more playable. Arrangements may also offer freedom for compositional influence by the arranger.
A large part of the classical guitar's repertory is constituted arrangements. Being a polyphonic instrument, the guitar is an ideal instrument to arrange for and this practice is one way in which music from Eastern cultures has been explored on the classical guitar. Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang released the album Sketches of China with Decca in 20201. The album, as suggested in the name, features music from China ranging from the time of the Han Dynasty to the contemporary period. Yang writes about the album:
Kaori Muraji's 2016 album Rhapsody Japan also includes a solo arrangement of Yoko Kanno's Hana Wa Saku9. This piece has become a song of great cultural importance in Japan as it was composed and performed in support and memory of the incredibly tragic 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami10.The arrangement is by Japanese classical guitarist Yoshihiro Koseki who has idiomatically adapted the melody and the main harmonic structure of the song to the classical guitar. Here, instead of imitation of traditional cultural instruments, Koseki's arrangement aims to bring out the melody in a faithful way. Like Dyens' arrangement, the piece begins with a spacious introduction with resonant harmonics and short quotes of the song before presenting the melody complete with harmonic colouring and voice leading. (see figures 6-9). I was learning this arrangement after hearing it from Muraji's album and a friend of mine from Japan wanted to share a short clip of me playing the piece on her twitter feed, I was happy to oblige. Although I am not a strong believer in judging something by the number of likes and retweets it has, I was a little overwhelmed by the popularity the post received (it was not a global sensation or viral hit but it was certainly more than I expected!) because the piece is so dear to Japanese culture11. Here is the link to the original tweet.
Yang arranged over half the pieces featured on the album and in doing so, introduced to the classical guitar repertory a number of popular Chinese pieces. Yang has uploaded performances of some of these arrangements on YouTube:
- Silver Clouds Chasing the Moon - Ren Guang
- Flower Drum 花鼓 - Qu Wei 瞿维
- Yao Dance - Tieshan Liu & Yuan Mao
Of the pieces on this album, I would like to touch upon the last piece - Roland Dyens' arrangement of Weng Ching-hsi's famous Chinese song - The Moon Represents My Heart (Mandarin:月亮代表我的心) . Dyens was a prolific guitarist and composer and his numerous arrangements have been performed and celebrated. Dyens' arrangements are unique in the way that he is able to make a creatively idiomatic use of the guitar as well as ornating the original source with his compositional experience. in this arrangement, Dyens supports this popular Chinese melody with an atmospheric introduction that quotes just a couple of recognisable phrases from the original melody before presenting the full unadulterated melody with supporting voices and harmonic inflections. We shall revisit this arrangement in further detail in Part II, Chapter I. Here is the recording of the arrangement from Yang's album:
Yang's album gained global recognition including being a finalist at the "Presto Recordings of the Year 2020"3 as well as gaining a spot on the Top 10 Best World Music Albums of 2020 - Popmatters4. It is one of the first internationally acclaimed albums to celebrate the music of an Eastern Culture on the classical guitar. This is a significant milestone and the implications for the cultural impact could be massive. The inclusion of arrangements of popular Chinese melodies and pieces extends the reach of the classical guitar to audiences also interested in traditional and popular Chinese music. In doing so, Chinese culture is being celebrated through the medium of classical guitar which will facilitate the promotion of the instrument and its art in China. I believe this can be one of the most effective ways of integrating a culture into the instrument's cultural identity as a culture will, most likely, be more willing to support the education and promotion of an instrument if that instrument is promoting that culture's music. This cultural support creates a positive environment for the education of the classical guitar within a community which can, in turn, lead to the emergence of generations of artists from the same community. In this case, these arrangements of Chinese music may appeal to listeners who know these traditional melodies such that they themselves may be inspired to play this music on the classical guitar themselves. This may seem like gross speculation but the guitar's immense versatility has attracted many of the leading figures in the classical guitar when they were starting out: Julian Bream was inspired to pick up the guitar upon hearing the magical sounds of Django Reinhardt's playing in the Quintette du Hot Club de France5 while Pavel Steidl recalls his journey towards the classical guitar through his father's adoration for the use of the guitar in golden age Mexican Movies as well as the tradition of folk music of Bohemian and Celtic origin being performed on the guitar6.
Figure 6f
"The experience of travelling the globe and performing music from many different countries has given me a more vivid perspective on my own cultural background. It triggered a desire to share more of my own culture with audiences around the world. And so began a significant personal project to add more Chinese repertoire to the transcriptions I had already made and recorded. This has involved commissioning new works, transcribing pieces and working with other Chinese instrumentalists to create music together."2
Figure 2b
Figure 7g
Figure 3c
Figure 1a
Figure 4d
Figure 9h
Figure 5e
