The ways of renewing the genre role of the flute in Jin Ta’s creativity (on the example of Sonata Op. 3 No. 1)
Authors: Youjie Wang 
Published: August 2024

Statement of the problem. The ways of transformation of the flute creativity of Chinese composers in the 20th –21st centuries are analysed, in particular those of Jin Ta, a flutist and pedagogue, one of the most notable personalities of the musical art of modern China. Not being a professional composer, on today he created at least two opuses in the sonata genre, which marked a new stage in developing the flute art in China. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to identify the genre-style paradigm of Jin Ta’s creativity in the context of global transformational processes in the modern world flute art. Several main methods are involved in the research, the most important of which are the genre, style and system ones. The novelty of the study is connected with a complex approach to the analysis of Jin Ta’s Sonata Op. 3 No. 1 for Flute and Piano taking in account the author’s performing-composing style and the formation of a new paradigm of flute music in the 21st century. Research results and conclusion. The flute art of China can be conventionally divided into two directions – making music on varieties of the Chinese flute and on the Western-style instrument. The tradition of playing the Chinese flute is fundamental, it laid the basis of the semantics and general perception of the instrument in Chinese culture. Hence, the first original compositions for the European flute imitate the imagery (in particular, pastoral) and performing techniques (breathing) of the Chinese flute. Two main periods of fruitful interpenetration of Chinese and European flute music making traditions can be identified: the 1930s and the period from 1976. It was during these years that the genre-style paradigm of flute compositions by Chinese composers was formed. The main genre is the miniature and suites of miniatures, intermediate genres such as poems, capriccios are also popular; there is no concerto genre, currently there are only two sonatas, many ensemble compositions, where the flute is presented in combinations with various instruments. The genre of transcriptions is also gaining popularity (in particular, of the works for the Chinese flute – judi, dizi; for the piano, etc.). Investigating ways of transformation of flute stylistics at the beginning of the 21st century in Jin Ta’s creativity, we have come to the following conclusions. 1. The genre and style paradigm of compositions for the flute by Jin Ta is quite classical. Sonatas became the main genres of his flute creative work. Jin Ta chooses a three-movement structure and saturates the standard form with specific images and stylistics. The author explains the latter by the fact that he does not consider himself a professional composer and can allow quite free handling of traditional forms and genres. Nevertheless, Sonata Op. 3 No. 1 is the largest composition of the flute repertoire in the Chinese music of today. 2. Jin Ta’s compositional style is characterized by the following: – large-scale thinking in a full-fledged ensemble texture, thanks not only to the virtuous art of a flutist, but also to a fluent command of the piano. The piano part in Jin Ta’s works is fully developed (both parts are equal); – he considers the creation of a melody that would be remembered by listeners to be the main thing in his creative work (although it is worth noting that melodiousness is a typical feature of Chinese flute music); – the composer is interested in jazz and hip-hop, so he introduces these elements into his compositions, for example, into the First Sonata for flute and piano, which significantly updates the formed stylistic complex; – regarding the ways of renewal, it is Sonata No. 1 Op. 3 that presents them in full. So, Jin Ta combinates the elements of Western European music (an allusion to F. Poulenc’s Flute Sonata), the components of Latin jazz (in the movements I and III), such as anacrusis, syncopation, the “question-answer” structures, vamp, improvisation, the rhythms of salsa (montuno), etc.; – the performance technique of Jin Ta’s Sonata No. 1 is relatively difficult for classical flutists who have not studied jazz, although the composer himself considers his own jazz style as quite conservative (he does not use too complex rhythms, adheres to more traditional rhythmic patterns; in addition, he uses catchy jazz and pop intonations giving the sound feigned lightness). Thus, Jin Ta’s work for the flute today, firstly, continues to reproduce the traditional flute imagery in Chinese culture, secondly, it is inscribed in the context of the most modern compositional trends, and thirdly, it is tuned to the listener, which makes it extremely popular among young people and experienced performers around the world. All of the above gives the right to soon expect the composer to create an opus of the concerto genre, for the existence of which there are already all grounds.