The similarity of Smetana’s Die Moldau and Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Seconds Spring can be drawn upon the theme melody of both compositions. Both compositions use tone painting to depict the scenery that the two composers wanted to represent.
Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Seconds Spring bar 1-4:
Smetana’s Die Moldau:
The two passages above are the theme of the respective compositions. Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs’ theme starts immediately in the beginning, played by the erhu. Smetana’s Die Moldau’s theme starts at 1:04, preceded by a section that serves as an “introduction” of the composition. The tone painting is evident in the placement of notes. Both works depicted a body of water through the music. The evidence of tone painting is how the notes go up and down. With Die Moldau, the notes are wider apart, giving an image of a large river moving. However, in Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs, the notes are closer together, using semiquavers and dotted notes to represent springs, considerably smaller and faster than a big river. The upwards and downwards motion of the melody are like the waves and the currents of the water. The themes played with legato also make it very flowing. Another important attribute of the themes are that both incorporated melodies influenced by their respective cultures. Smetana used aspect of traditional Czech folk music into Die Moldau. Meanwhile at the same time, Abing put in melodies influenced by traditional Taoist music. The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs is obviously a Chinese music but to be more specific, the melody is significantly familiar to Taoist religious music.
The similarity between the two compositions does not stop there. The texture of both compositions is monophonic and homophonic. Monophony is more apparent in Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs because the composition can be dubbed as a concerto as only the erhu plays the main melody while other instruments serve as an accompaniment. However, monophony is not the only musical texture in The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs. Homophony is present as well besides monophony. Homophony in The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs is present at the beginning after the flute solo, where the erhu and the whole orchestra play the same melody together. Abing may have done this to present the climax and that the moon is at the most top, fully reflected by Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs, Die Moldau starts with a solo flute. The flute solo in Die Moldau is a monophonic phrase, accompanied with pizzicato strings. This is to represent the water nymphs that, according to folk legend, reside in the Moldau River. The river theme itself is homophonic, almost all the time played by the whole orchestra. By using homophonic, Smetana showed the majesty of the Moldau River.
The similarities between Smetana’s Die Moldau and Abing’s The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs showed two different musical cultures that may have come from a different place and time period but showed identical aspects to it. Biedrich Smetana and Abing came from clearly a very different and sometimes may have been contrasting, but in these differences, similarities can be found. This showed that music and culture may be different in every place, but in essence, most of it can be traced back to human nature, where differences come from development by people over time.
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