Notes from the streaming EP A Chinese Folksong Suite, compositions by Ronald Stevenson performed by Kenneth Hamilton on piano, to be released in April 2026.
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
A Chinese Folk Song Suite
1. The Washer-Woman and the Flower Girl
2. A Song for New Year’s Day
3. War Widow’s Lament
4. Beautiful Fresh Flower
5. Song of the Crab-Fisher
In 1985, the distinguished Scottish composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson received an invitation to visit Shanghai Conservatory. After travelling to China in the company of his wife Marjorie, he taught both piano and composition at the Conservatory as a “distinguished foreign expert”. While there, he gave the Chinese premier of his massive Passacaglia on DSCH, a work that had already become a classic of 20th-century keyboard music. And he took the opportunity to complete his Chinese Folk Song Suite for piano solo, one of his most attractive and colourful compositions.
The Chinese Folksong Suite is fairly short, but it had a surprisingly long gestation over two decades. Stevenson had always been fascinated by folk music, encouraged by his epistolary friendship with the Australian composer and folk-song arranger Percy Grainger. Furthermore, he frequently expressed a fascination with oriental art and culture. “Europe is tired”, he wrote in 1971, “Western music must look to the East!”.
In his cottage in West Linton, near Edinburgh, Stevenson celebrated the advent of 1966 by arranging two Chinese folksongs for piano duet: “A Song for New Year’s Day” and “Song of the Crab-Fisher”. He would subsequently include piano solo versions of these as numbers two and five of his Chinese Folksong Suite. Stevenson’s source was a 1955 book by Grigorii Schneerson entitled The Music Culture of China, where he also came across melodies for “The Washer Woman” and “The Flower Girl”. Struck by the similarities between the tunes (the first elegiac, the second vivacious), he arranged them in varied alternation for the first number of his Suite.
The fourth number is based on the celebrated Chinese folksong “Mo Li Hua” (茉莉花) – “Jasmine Flower” or “Beautiful Fresh Flower” – a tune well-known in the West owing to its prominence in Puccini’s opera Turandot. Stevenson’s source, however, was not Turandot, nor the Schneerson book, but a more “authentic”, pentatonic transcription of “Mo Li Hua” by Percy Grainger. Stevenson included this wholesale in his Suite, notated somewhat differently, as a “tribute to Grainger”. Here the pianist is instructed to raise the piano dampers for the entire first half of the music, producing an effect akin to a Chinese percussion ensemble. “Mo Li Hu” also makes an appearance in Stevenson’s Second Piano Concerto, The Four Continents (1972) – a whirlwind journey through the world’s music.
The third number of the Suite, War Widow’s Lament, was the last to be completed, and the only one actually to be composed at Shanghai Conservatory. Stevenson was introduced to the tune by the librarian there, who also provided him with original Chinese recordings of the other folksongs. As a life-long pacifist, Stevenson was particularly moved by the “War Widow’s Lament”. It is the Suite’s longest, most dissonant and most intense arrangement. The last section (chords in the deep bass of the piano underpinning a fragile melody in the high treble) is an unmistakable allusion to Charles Valentin Alkan’s famously bizarre Prelude “The Song of the Mad Woman by the Sea Shore”. It is an expression of extreme, disorienting grief.
The Chinese Folk Song Suite differs significantly from piano arrangements of Chinese melodies that adopt the style of “French Impressionist” music. Stevenson’s influences were clearly Grainger, Alkan and Ferruccio Busoni (especially Busoni’s Indian Diary) rather than Debussy or Ravel. He also tried to imitate the sonority of Chinese instruments, and had a fondness for treating the tunes in counterpoint. “A Song for New Years Day” unfolds in strict canon (in other words, the melody supplies its own harmonization) and the central section of the “Song of the Crab-Fisher” employs a so-called “crab” canon (with the melody played against itself in reverse) – a slick musical joke from a composer who much enjoyed verbal puns and witty wordplay! The result is a series of piquantly polyphonic musical scenes that appear to unfold like a little story, with the details left to the audience’sown imagination. I had the great pleasure of giving the Chinese premiere of Stevenson’s Chinese Folksong Suite in the Xinghai Concert Hall in Guangzhou in 2025.
Notes by Kenneth Hamilton
罗纳德·史蒂文森 （1928-2015）
《中国民歌组曲》
- 浣纱女与卖花娘
- 新年歌
- 乱世寡妇的悲歌
- 芳鲜的花儿
- 捕蟹人之歌
1985年，卓越的苏格兰作曲家罗纳德·史蒂文森受邀访问上海音乐学院。在与妻子玛乔丽一同访华期间，他作为“杰出外国专家”留校教授钢琴与作曲专业。在上海音乐学院任教期间，他荣幸地在中国首演了规模宏大的钢琴作品 Passacaglia on DSCH (《肖斯塔科维奇主题帕萨卡利亚》)。 在当时，这部作品已是20世纪键盘音乐的经典之作。他还借此机会完成了他最富娱乐性和趣味性的作品之一——钢琴独奏《中国民歌组曲》。
虽然这部组曲篇幅不长，但其创作过程历经了二十年。史蒂文森对于民歌的痴迷由来已久，这也得益于他与澳大利亚作曲家及民歌编曲家珀西·格兰杰的书信往来。不仅如此，他也多次表达自己对于东方艺术与文化的浓厚兴趣。在1971年，他感叹道 ：“欧洲已乏善可陈……西方音乐必须向东方追寻灵感！”
1966年，在爱丁堡西林顿的乡间小屋里，史蒂文森为庆祝中国新年，改编了两首中国民间歌曲 《新年歌》 以及 《捕蟹人之歌》。后来，他将这两首歌的钢琴独奏版收录到《中国民歌组曲》中。史蒂文森的灵感源于格里戈利·施内尔森1955年出版的 《中国音乐文化》一书，这同时也是“浣纱女”和“卖花娘”两个曲调的来源。两首曲调的相似之处深深吸引着史蒂文森 （第一首哀婉，第二首欢快），他将之交替编排，作为组曲的第一首。
第四首改编至著名的中国民歌《茉莉花》 —— 这首曲子因在普契尼的歌剧《图兰朵》中的呈现而在西方家喻户晓。然而《图兰朵》并非史蒂文森的灵感起源，也不是施内尔森的著作，而是珀西·格兰杰更为“道地”，基于五声调式的《茉莉花》改编版本。史蒂文森将格兰杰的这一编曲收录进《中国民歌组曲》中，对其重新整理记谱，以此‘向格兰杰致敬’。乐谱的前半部分要求钢琴家保持制音器抬起，营造出类似中国民族打击乐团的效果。《茉莉花》也出现在史蒂文森第二钢琴协奏 《四大洲》（1972）中 —— 一场热闹非凡的世界音乐之旅。
组曲的第三首《乱世寡妇的悲歌》是最后完成的，也是唯一一首在上海音乐学院创作的。史蒂文森从图书管理员那里了解到这首曲子，这位管理员还向他提供了其他几首民歌的中国原版录音。作为一名终身和平主义者，史蒂文森尤为《乱世寡妇的哀歌》所打动。这是组曲中篇幅最长、最具不协和性、也最为激烈的乐章。最后一部分（钢琴低音部的和弦与高音部细腻空灵的旋律相结合）无疑是对查尔斯·瓦伦丁·阿尔坎著名的怪诞前奏曲《海边疯女人的歌》的致敬。因此，它表达了一种极度的、令人迷失方向的悲痛。
《中国民歌组曲》与许多受“法国印象派”风格所影响的民歌编曲不同。史蒂文森的创作显然是受到格兰杰，阿尔坎和布索尼（尤其是布索尼的《印第安日记》）的影响，而非德彪西或拉威尔。他还试图模仿中国乐器的音响效果，并经常运用复调技法组合旋律。《新年歌》以严格的卡农形式展开（即旋律自身构成其和声结构），而《捕蟹人之歌》的中间部分则采用了所谓的“螃蟹”卡农（旋律反向演奏）——这是作曲家巧妙的音乐玩笑，他本人非常喜欢双关语和诙谐的文字游戏！最终呈现出一系列色彩斑斓、引人入胜的乐章，仿佛在讲述一个故事，而叙事细节则留给听众自行想象。2025年，我有幸在广州星海音乐厅首演了史蒂文森的这套《中国民歌组曲》。
注释：肯尼斯·汉密尔顿
中文译文：金奕涵
录音详情：
封面图片：叶步榕
录制于2025年10月19日，卡迪夫大学音乐学院
钢琴：斯坦威D型（汉堡）
钢琴整音师：乌里希·格哈茨
钢琴调音师：加文·克鲁克斯
录音制作人：斯蒂芬·普鲁斯
录音编辑：菲利普·哈德曼
文本编辑：莫妮卡·亨内曼
中文译文：金奕涵