Chen Qigang (b. 1951) is one of today's most representative and prolific Chinese composers. His works are regarded as setting a standard of excellence among Chinese composers in the twenty-first century. Like many Chinese composers of his generation, Chen combines in his works the traits of both Chinese traditional music and Western musical language. La joie de la souffrance (The Joy of Suffering) for violin and orchestra, composed for the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition in 2016–17, is one of his mature works that not only represents one of the great achievements of fusing Chinese and Western musical languages, but is also a major addition to the venerable tradition of Chinese concertos. By analyzing La joie de la souffrance as the nexus of old and new, East and West, I hope to provide not only insight into a valuable work of the twentieth-century violin concerto repertoire, but also a glimpse into some of the musical influences of a Chinese composer working in France in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. By extension, I hope to shed light on some of the factors, trends, and developments that have influenced Chinese composers in the early twenty-first century.

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Du 19e siècle à nos jours, la musique chinoise a pris une nouvelle direction. La création musicale en Chine s'est développée à travers les diverses cultures et les changements de politique, conférant ainsi un charme particulier à la musique contemporaine chinoise. A partir du début de l'imitation occidentale et juste avant la fondation de la nouvelle Chine, les musiciens chinois sont parvenus à associer les éléments musicaux chinois avec les nouveaux langages musicaux. Au cours de certaines périodes, l'art avait été asservi au pouvoir politique et la création musicale de style traditionnel était l'identité principale. Après de vagues stratégies d’Etat successives, l’évitement des thèmes sensibles, les besoins urgents de la culture racine, la mise en œuvre des techniques expérimentales s’est déployée et diversifiée et les échanges internationaux ont conduit à l'émergence du départ à l'étranger des compositeurs chinois pour chercher leur propre chemin créatif. La musique contemporaine de la Chine s’est élaborée à partir de la technique occidentale et a progressé dans le contexte culturel chinois et ses racines multiples, les pensées fermées et les expériences d'enfance dans l'environnement culturel pur et la collision du nouvel environnement créent des œuvres d'art fascinantes, la rendant remarquablement différente de la musique contemporaine occidentale. Durant ces 30 dernières années de développement économique et d'ouverture politique, la société chinoise s’est de plus en plus internationalisée; les nouvelles technologies et les profils variés des compositeurs ont incité la nouvelle génération à mettre en place d’excellentes innovations musicales spécifiques. / As of the 19th century up to now, Chinese music has been taking a new direction and has developed in the wake of social evolutions. In China, the musical creation was affected by both the various cultures and political changes, thus bestowing a special charm on contemporary Chinese music. From the beginning of Western imitation and just before the founding of the new China, Chinese musicians succeeded in matching the Chinese musical elements with the new musical languages. Throughout specific periods, art had been bound to political power, and traditional style constituted the main identity of musical creation. Following the Cultural Revolution, the return to the root culture, the implementation of diversified experimental techniques have resulted in the departure of Chinese composers abroad in search of their own creative way. Contemporary Chinese music developed from Western technique and progressed in the Chinese cultural context and its multiple roots, closed thoughts and childhood experiences in the pure cultural environment and the collision of the new environment is now creating fascinating works of art, remarkably different from Western contemporary music. During the last 30 years of economic development and political openness, Chinese society has become increasingly internationalized; the new technologies and the varied profiles of composers have prompted the new generation to set up outstanding specific musical innovations.

This documents aims at the identification of the sources of influence upon the styles of selected 20th century Chinese composers. Personal influences are reflected as well as those general influences specific to the different stylistic periods discussed. Most important, however, is the description of the methods by which these composers employ contemporary compositional devices to project musical gestures that are uniquely Chinese: elements of culture which are fundamentally programmatic and intimately related to the lives of the Chinese people. The introduction of Western music and musical instruments to China in the early 17th century and cultural exchanges with Japan served to gradually westernize the musical environment and training. The establishment of decidedly Western schools was accomplished at the beginning of this century, with the founding of Peking University and Shanghai National Conservatory. Music theory was taught, as well as history and composition, but with an emphasis on the practices of the 18th and 19th centuries. Compositions from this period reflect Western techniques from these eras, with some use of the pentatonic scale. In the 1930's, nationalism arose, a mirroring of the 19th-century European nationalistic trends. This philosophical conception has remained essentially unchanged to the present, as composers have aimed to utilize Western techniques to create artistic works and compositional styles which are uniquely Chinese. The musical works examined are limited to works for piano solo, as it is believed these are often more immediately revealing of compositional techniques and stylistic idioms.

In Chinese contemporary piano music, large-scale piano compositions featuring innovative polyphonic musical languages are rarely found. Chang-Lei Zhu's Ballade for Solo Piano represents his development of contrapuntal techniques passed on from J. S. Bach and Dmitri Shostakovich in their polyphonic works for solo keyboard or piano. This study focuses on an analysis of Zhu's Ballade as an idiosyncratic composition that makes a significant contribution to the Chinese contemporary piano music repertory. Comparative analysis is made of Zhu's Ballade and J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Books 1 and 2, as well as Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues for Solo Piano, Op. 87. Zhu, a living Chinese composer born in 1976, uniquely writes the twenty variations of his Ballade based on the opening theme, a single melody in ten subphrases. This research lays out the close relationship of the opening theme with twenty variations in the Ballade. This study also illustrates how Zhu is an innovative voice in Chinese contemporary piano music literature. This comparative study constitutes the first scholarly study of Zhu's Ballade. Chapter 1 is an introduction to my comparative study. In chapter 2, comparisons on selected excerpts are conducted between Zhu's Ballade and J.S. Bach's WTC, Books 1 and 2, as well as Dmitri Shostakovich's Op. 87. Taking into consideration the pedagogical function of the Ballade, this study includes how the work can be used in Zhu's Ballade in piano pedagogy as an addition in chapter 3.