Ma, S.: Symphony No. 2 / Song Of The Mountain Forest

Description

Ma Sicong (Ma Sitzon) (1912 - 1987)  Symphony No.2Song of Mountain Forest  A native of Haifeng, Guangdong, where he was born in1912, Ma Sicong (Ma Sitzon) was distinguished as a composer and as a violinist.He began his instrumental study and pursued his interest in folk-music when hewas at a primary school in Guangzhou. In 1923, at the age of eleven, he went to France for the first time tostudy the violin there, returning to China in 1929, after finishing his studies. As one of China's first violinists, hegave concerts in Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and other places. In1930 he went to France for the second time, now to study composition. A year later he wasagain in China, now prepared to beginhis career as a composer. After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, he held the positionsas director of the China Central Conservatory of Music, vice-chairman of theChina Musicians Association and chief editor of the periodical YinyueChuangzuo (Creation of Music). From the late 1960s he lived in the United States. His important works includetwo symphonies, the orchestral suite Song of the Mountain Forest, the cantatasDemocracy, Motherland, Spring and The Huaihe River, violin piecesBerceuse, Rondo No. I, Inner Mongolia Suite, Tibet Tone Poem, Idyll, LanternFestival Celebration and Xingjian Rhapsody, two compilations of NewVersions of Folk-songs and many other compositions. During his residence inthe United States, he wrote music for theballet Sunset Clouds and composed the opera Rebia.  Ma Sicong's Symphony No.2 was written between the autumn of 1958and May of the following year and was first performed in Beijing in July 1961 by theChina Central Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of the composer himself.The symphony is a musical epic with the course of the hard struggle of theChinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army as the subject. As the composer said,though the symphony is not about a specific battle, there is some connectionbetween its conception and Loushan Pass, a poem by Mao Zedong. The symphony consists ofthree continuous movements. In order to develop the image of the Red Armyorganically throughout the whole piece, the composer adopted the originalprocedure of inserting the lyrical second movement between the developmentsection and the recapitulation section of the first movement, in a uniquestructure.  The first movement, marked Allegro agitato and in 12/8 metre,makes use of the Phrygian mode, in a sonata-form structure. The first group(bars 1 to 71) of the exposition section begins with rapid triplets, whichheighten the tense atmosphere of the battlefield. With the development of theprincipal theme, the music gradually increases in dynamics, the range ofpitches expands and the harmony grows accordingly in complexity, leading to aclimax with brass, woodwind and percussion. The succeeding bridge passage, withthe bass instruments and the percussion, introduces a piano suggestionof the second sub