Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
While perhaps somewhat unknown among younger generations, Barry Manilow’s music career has spanned seven decades and has produced 51 top 40 singles and 13 platinum albums. He is most known for his hits “Copacabana,” “Mandy,” and “Could it be Magic,” but my far and away favorite Manilow masterpiece is “I Write the Songs.”
Manilow’s soft and sentimental ballad reached the top spot of Billboard charts upon release in 1977. Except, the song is not Barry Manilow’s. Written in 1975 by Beach Boys member Bruce Johnston, the song was first released by teen sensation David Cassidy in 1975. Cassidy’s version peaked at number 11 on the UK singles chart but has been far outshone by Manilow’s recording, which has tens of millions of plays on Spotify today. Manilow originally refused to record his own version of the song, as he felt that the public would not carefully listen to the lyrics and would think Manilow was singing about himself, instead of another, mysterious “I.” Following the massive success of his version, Manilow wrote and released another song called “I Really Do Write the Songs” as a bonus track of his 2006 reissue of This One’s for You.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
The Shanghai Quartet is one of my favorite string quartets. After receiving coaching from them, I was not only able to work on my own violin techniques efficiently, but also learned to listen and appreciate string quartet music more actively. This semester, the documentary Behind the Strings, shown at the Richmond International Film Festival featured the Shanghai Quartet, so I got to learn more about each member of the quartet and how they have become so successful today.
One of the attributes of the Shanghai Quartet is their Chinese heritage, which I also share similar experiences with. Therefore, in the documentary, I was especially impressed and attracted to the string quartet arrangement they performed based on a number of traditional Chinese folk songs. It is well known that a string quartet is one of the most prominent and common chamber ensemble arrangements in Western Classical music. Collaborating with Chinese folk music, which is largely based on the pentatonic scale and is very different from Western classical music, Shanghai Quartet’s performance illustrates the best possible way of culture integration, as they infuse the music with their personal experiences and emotions growing up in a different cultural background.
Zhou Long, the composer of the album The Flowing Stream: Chinese Folk Songs and Tone Poems, mentioned that “for many years, I have been devoted to merging Eastern and Western cultures through my music. That has meant, specifically, the combining of ancient Chinese musical traditions and western compositional techniques into a coherent and personal statement”. The Shanghai Quartet shared similar experiences and values with Zhou; therefore, they were able to fully support his compositions through their performances.
Chinese folk songs are valued greatly because of their historical and cultural significance. Based on the album’s description, these songs mirror people’s daily lives, thoughts, and sentiments in Chinese culture. Nowadays, these songs are widely re-created and shared in the global music world. One of the songs that I found being the most representative in this album is “Jasmine Flower.” The lyrics are simple, “Jasmine flower, such a beautiful flower, her sweet scent covers all others in the garden…”. In the 2016 Chinese New Year Gala, Celine Dion performed this song with Song Zuying, a Chinese classical/folk singer. Here is a link to the performance:
Here is a link to the version arranged by Zhou Long, as performed by the Shanghai Quartet:
In this version, the first violin starts the main melody, mimicking the soprano vocal line. Then, all four strings pass the melody to each other, accompanied by pizzicatos in the rest of the voices. This arrangement focuses on the aspect that the texture of Chinese folk music is often monophonic, where only one instrument is playing or one voice is leading. To me, hearing Eastern Music performed on Western instruments always creates a different feeling.
There are also four pieces that are created from poems in the Tang Dynasty. Zhou Long composed these four pieces based on four different poems for string quartet and orchestra. The four poems are:
To me, Zhou Long’s inspirations in these four pieces derived from the original poem verses. He emphasized on the meaning of these verses and added his feelings into his composition. I am able to have visual interpretations from his music. For example, in the first piece – “Hut Among the Bamboo,” the rests between different parts, the pizzicatos, and the shifting harmonics vividly presented an image of being in a bamboo forest alone. Meanwhile, I do find the composition style really similar to some characteristics in Igor Stravinsky’s music, as they are both contemporary pieces.
