The Myth of Formalistic Aesthetics-Shostakovich ’ s Early Vocal Cycle and Principles of Formal Beauty

As one of the most “mysterious” and “complex” composer in 20th century, Shostakovich’s creative ideas hidden and suggested in the complicated musical appearance have always been indulged in elaborating. In the present paper, rhythm, pitch and dynamics act as the entry point to be dissected for Shostakovich’s early vocal cycle. I will prove that the musical aesthetics idea of Shostakovich’s early creation according to music analytics data. The results showed that his early vocal cycle was significantly affected by the aesthetics of formalism. Several aesthetic principles, such as symmetry, golden section, unity of variety, have been used very frequently in his works. Due to that the formal beauty of music can be highly emphasized, the “formal beauty as the pure beauty” concept comes clear.


Introduction
In Russia (Soviet Union) modern music history, Shostakovich is undoubtedly the most shining star.His life was full of legend, being popular during his youth and getting an unprecedented recognition.During the immediate cultural purges, he was encountered with harsh criticism and heavy blow and was dubbed the "enemy of the people"; however, he was highly evaluated after death by the government, who called him "he is the great composer of era, the communist party's loyal child, a prominent artists, social and political figures, citizens and so on", and defined him as "devoted his whole life to Soviet music, socialism humanitarian and reconstruction ideal internationalism..." (Rossbury, 1999).Some people think that he was a faithful child of the Soviet Union and the Stalin government's own artist, always has a pure heart to the motherland; Others think that he was not satisfied with the Soviet union government and was a Stalin's opponents of the regime, he used music to express the silent protest and cry; others think that he is a simple artist full of compassion, and is the victim of the Stalin government's strict rule.No one has ever experienced such dramatic vicissitudes like him in life, nor has anyone ever received so many different comments.People were interested in "metaphor" hidden in his work in addition to the analysis of his composition techniques, habits and launched a fierce discussion around the "metaphor".This trend continued into the new century.
During the recent years, in the world of western music, studies of Shostakovich have mainly focused on either the technique analysis of his specific works (especially the instrumental music works in which symphony and string quintet predominate) or the exploration of the political metaphor and significance in his creation under the social environment and cultural atmosphere of that time.(McCreless, 2010;Mikkonen, 2010;Digonskaya, 2010) There is also one review which takes Shostakovich's vocal music works as the research object, focusing on the relationship between music and poetry (Bullock, 2010).24 dissertations related to Shostakovich are identified by a systematic search in CNKI and a manual query in various musical journals founded in the new century from 2000 to 2014 in China, 23 dissertations focus on the creation and performance technique of Shostakovich's instrumental music works (Liu, 2002;Wang, 2007).Another one discusses the aesthetic thoughts in his works, but still based on his instrumental music works (Mi, 2008).There are about 130 articles related to the discussion of Shostakovich published in the same period.Some are pure creation technique studies (Zhao, 2007;Wu, 2009), some others are to do with the performance technique studies based on the analysis of the works (Li, 2000), still more compare Shostakovich's works with those of other composers which have the similar themes (Hu, 2012), and there are also few non-technique analysis studies exploring composer's creation history (Liu, 2001;Mao, www.ccsen 2006) Form is the inherent, inevitable requirement of music, without form, music will not be music.The function and meaning in the form of music have been controversial.It's believed that the form of music is the essence of music or the ontology of music, but some scholars disagree with this point or even be completely against to it.However, even the latter cannot ignore the aesthetic and artistic value of the musical form, or the form and the beauty of music itself there have direct relationships.The performance of the form in music is all the basic elements of the relationship between the levels and the three-dimensional layout.It's well known to all that music is a strict organism, composed of a variety of elements.In addition to our familiar pitch, rhythm, which can play a structural role in music, or which can participate in the structural design of music, can become the basic elements of music.Timbre, tempo, dynamics make up the structure of music and play an important role in the final formation of works, therefore, they together with pitch, rhythm, become the basic elements of music.
The different superposition of various basic elements constitute various organizational means, for example, harmony, melody, musical form and polyphony.If different pitch, duration, dynamics mixed and piled up disorderly, it can only be noise but music, and it cannot bring the feeling of beauty.To make music with aesthetic, it is necessary to overlay the elements mentioned above through symmetry, contrast, proportion, unity of variety and other aesthetic principles.From this point of view, any parameters --rhythm (beat), pitch (interval), dynamics, tempo can be proportional analysis from the structure angle, further discuss its embodiment a sense of order and the principles of formal beauty.So, the research objects of this paper are pitch (interval), rhythm (beat) and the dynamics and other basic elements of music in Shostakovich's early vocal cycle "Six Japanese Poems", to explore the principles of formal beauty embodied in their respective levels, single levels, or superposition.
On research methods, Hanslick said that there was a driving force of all fields of knowledge in our times, which required understanding of things as objective as possible.It is also inevitably involved the study of beauty.
Method must be used close to natural science, at least trying to contact the thing itself, seeking the objective truth of things in the back of the myriads of changes impression.We should use the essential analysis method of natural science to study the beauty of the music.We can only use the objective method to objective understanding of music.This paper attempts to quantify the basic elements of "Six Japanese Poems" with the music and mathematical methods, displaying the explicit or hidden formal beauty in it.And we conclude that the work highlights the symmetry, golden section and unity of variety.Here discussed one by one.

Symmetry
Symmetry is one of the important rules of formal beauty.Symmetrical phenomenon can be seen everywhere in life, such as the physiological structure of the human body and leaves context generation in nature.The so-called symmetric, refers to something similar, similar factors around the central axis of a regular permutation…It has the characteristics of quiet, stable and can foil the center with a form of self-sufficiency.If we let point O as the center of symmetry and point A-A ' as mutual symmetric point, then it will get two formulas: OA=OA'=1/2*AA' and AA' =2OA=2OA'.So, 1:2 (2:1) and 1:1 both are the mathematical abstraction and the substantial induction of symmetry.
In music works, the principle of symmetry exists everywhere.The ternary form, symmetrical chord, retrograde or reflection in the technique of music, and so on, all reflect the principles of symmetry.The sequence, modulation, "reflection" and "retrograde reflection" structure formed on lengthways or crosswise also belongs to the symmetry in the broadest sense of the term.
As to the range, it is necessary to notice that the "axis of symmetry" in concept is a node in a narrow sense as well as a "domain" in its broad sense.For example, in music, the axis of symmetry could be a note, a phrase, or even a period.As to the properties, "axis of symmetry" can be any objective existence.In music, axis of symmetry may be a single note, or a relationship between two or two notes (interval or tone-cluster), also a rhythm (beat).Next, we will analyze the symmetric structure one by one in the text.
The pitch layout of the first song Любовь (Love), is a typical symmetrical structure.This is a multi-meter work  till a symmetr amics area to also symmetric nt.
жная любовь which showed s song is g 2 , i uld be # f 2 ( b g 2 ) omposed of 26 all again.The way t beats.times meter ro menon also app hanges and Н

Unity o
Figure 1.