Chinese Composer’s Autographs during the Sino-Japanese War and Conflict: A Case Study of Nie Er and Xian Xinghai.

The composer’s autograph was an important first-hand source of musicological studies. Compared to other musical scores that were transcribed by copyists or printed by either woodblocks or movable types, composer’s autograph showed significantly richer details of the progress of composition, as well as other details such as the modifications and revisions etc. Therefore, the study of composer’s autograph (when it exists) is by any mean helpful for understanding more about the historical and cultural context of a piece of music, as well as more detailed information about what and how the composer has worked for his final composition. Based on this guiding principle, in this study, I will mainly study the autographs of two representative Chinese composers at that period, NIE Er (聶耳) and XIAN Xinghai (冼星海), as both are significant figures of the patriotic composers during the Sino- Japanese war and conflict in 1931-1945 A.D., in order to understand the development of Chinese music composition further, the nationalistic movements, the antiJapanese propaganda as well as various political and cultural thoughts under such grand historical changes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]