We have used a biological analogy for the title of this special issue of Contemporary Music Review—and with good reason. Put simply, music ought to be alive! There is nothing worse than ‘new music’ that arrives stillborn, and candor requires the sad acknowledgement of just how often this has been the case. So the question immediately arises: What about the music written of in this issue? The music of Chou Wen-chung, Bright Sheng, Xiaoyong Chen, Chen Qigang, Law Wing Fai, Tan Dun, Chen Yi and Zhou Long? Does this music have life? Has the interaction of Chinese and Western ideas about music—something that characterizes the work of each of these composers, though in strikingly different manners—brought forth something vibrant? Fresh? Something capable of inspiring strong and useful emotion in listeners? Capable, too, of inspiring other composers to explore these new sonic landscapes for themselves? Our answer is ‘Yes!’ to all these questions. And I believe I can legitimately speak not only for the immediate contributors to this issue of CMR, but also for a far wider group of musicians: for men and women around the world, in ever-increasing numbers, who are taking the time to acquaint themselves with the remarkable body of work that has arisen from those composers who have tried, honestly, to see what China and the West can add to each other.
Most of these composers so far have direct Chinese heritage in terms of family history. From a socio-historical perspective, this is very understandable. And several of the contributors to this issue, most notably Frederick Lau and Samson Young, take the cultural politics of the matter head-on. Yet, the past does not foreclose the future. In the coming decades, such geographical and ‘ethnological’ lop-sidedness is unlikely. As Antonio notes in Shakespeare's The Tempest, we need to make a distinction: ‘Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come / In your and my discharge.’ Footnote1
The future, indeed, is in our charge, and it seems the future is being created now by an intrepid company of composers (not just Chinese) who have a vision of an emerging style of music that, while arising from the meeting of China and the West, is far more than just a superficial mingling of the two. It is a new thing entirely: a child of both cultures. And, to repeat, that future will not just be created by musicians from Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing. We will hear it there, without doubt, but just as surely from composers living in Buenos Aires, Budapest and Brooklyn: composers whose visual portraits are not ‘Chinese’ at all, and may instead resemble those of Ginastera, Ligeti and Copland. The situation will be, in the coming century, akin to what happened with jazz in the last century—for jazz, too, burst its chrysalis. At first, it was an almost exclusively African-American music; yet soon its development was actively participated in by many artists (and certainly many fans) of European-American heritage, and, later, of all the world. That many (if not most) of its greatest masters remained African-American cannot be denied; and this, too, likely will prove true of the new music this volume engages in study.
As they say, only time will tell! For here we arrive at the most salient aspect of our biological analogy. Just as a child, newly-born, is utterly unique, 100% himself or herself, so, too, the new music honored in these pages is something the likes of which was never heard before on this planet. Yes, one might proudly point to certain features and say: ‘Child of my flesh, Chinese music!’ And someone else might observe other features, and say: ‘Ah, just like his grandfather—a chip off the old Bartók!’ Yet they would be wrong. Just as a human baby does not belong to one family more than another, or even (and this is sometimes harder to see) to both families equally, the child belongs to all of humanity, and, of course, to itself. This is the analogy our title embraces. That title says a new ‘musical child’ is in the process of coming to birth, and it is aesthetically dishonest for anyone to claim it for one culture over another. It belongs to the entire world of music, and is freshly and proudly just itself. And free: free as individuals are to travel on paths very different from those taken by their parents; and to develop character traits not found in any progenitor. A free music. A new music. Again, like jazz. And, who knows? Just as jazz has proved the most influential music of the twentieth century, it is not inconceivable that this new music, as it grows and takes on stronger and more mature musical life, may similarly sweep the twenty-first century—leaving its mark everywhere.
Often, musicologists and theorists of music resemble no persons so closely as geneticists. For example, they might listen to jazz and be impelled to point out how this element can be traced back to Dahomey; or this other, to Belgium. Fair enough! Valuable enough. Yet let us not over-estimate the value of these insights. The insight of the ‘average listener’ actually is more profound. Such a listener makes the obvious—and, in truth, more central—observation that whatever its roots, jazz simply does not sound just like anything that preceded it. Nor was that new sound, that auditory ‘something else’, that new ‘sonic personality’, just the result of a superficial mixture of previous elements: a little ‘Africa’ here, a little ‘Europe’ there. No, it went far deeper than that. A mixture is not a molecule. Water may indeed have oxygen and hydrogen as its ‘elemental components’, but it functions rather differently from either of them. Just try drinking hydrogen for your health; or putting out a fire with oxygen!
Our ‘average’ listener is also aware when something seems to lose that characteristic ‘jazz’ quality, when we are meeting a kind of music in which one style is pasted, like a veneer, over another. The ‘jazzing of the classics’, for example, or the ‘classicizing of the blues’ come to mind. Of course, opinions can (and will) differ as to just when ‘the line is crossed’, but few would place Milton Babbitt's All Set in the mainstream of jazz, or the Swingle Singers' version of Bach's Fugue in G minor. In a similar way, one can tell the difference between the ‘new music’ written of in this volume—sincere and vital—and the spurious, superficial junctions of the West and the East that have preceded it and (lamentably) can still be heard, like certain of Hollywood's musical cosmetics: the obligatory ‘pentatonic’ scale for a Chinese scene pasted over Montovani-like orchestrations. Or the equally awkward minglings found in various Asian musical circles (‘classical’ or ‘pop’) in which traditional melodies are forced into ‘shotgun marriages’ with impressionistic, or late Russian romantic, or even ‘blues’ harmonies. These are invitations to a still-birth. No, the composers written of in this issue are going after something far lovelier, more honest and more courageous: the accomplishment of a true unity between East and West. Organic, alive and never heard before. Footnote2
In his classic essay, ‘Art as Life', the great American poet and philosopher Eli Siegel, who was the founder of Aesthetic Realism, wrote this:
Birth is the comprehensive made specific. Any making of many things one is like birth. The organization which is life is more thorough than organization we see usually. The comprehensive becomes specific is of a richer sort. Life is reality at its most organizing, most aesthetic. It is because we are aesthetic ourselves, that we are disposed to make art. But the ego can go for organization of a worse kind, of what can be called a spurious kind. When the ego is only a container, as a bucket is of stones, organization is going on of an inferior, and, in the largest sense, of a spurious kind. When a relation is seen among the stones other than what the bucket willy-nilly gives them, there can be organization of a good kind. The first kind of organization is akin to inert memory; the second kind to loving imagination. Footnote3
As its editor, of course, I hope this issue of CMR has a ‘life’ of its own. Not just in terms of affecting people widely, but also inherently in terms of the prose to be encountered in it. We aimed for a vibrant kind of scholarship, and for comprehensiveness. My colleagues and I tried, in the relatively short amount of space available to us, to give an authentic vision (however introductory) of what is happening out there: an exciting new world of musical sound. Nor, we hope, is the result of our efforts just a kind of ‘inert container’. Each article has its own living drama, grappling with diverse issues and attempting to unify them. And certainly, the articles (by implication) are engaged in a very vigorous dialogue with each other: a dialogue about the best way to present the meaning of this new music. Some of us emphasize its universal significance; others its great rootedness in particular cultural circumstances. Some include biographical issues; others eschew them. Some of us are composers, and write from that perspective. Others are theorists—technical and cultural. Others, still, are active performers of this music. We range in age from the mid-20s to the mid-80s, and we write about music composed in mainland China, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, in Germany, and in the United States. There are articles that are passionate and purposefully provocative: articles unafraid to engage the music in terms of emotional content, philosophic value or socio-political significance. And there are others that are honorably restrained, and aim at quiet scholarly depth and thoroughness. The quiet, however, veils a great excitement; there are many surprising facts that emerge!
If there is any single feature connecting these articles, it would be the desire on the part of the authors to transcend the false dichotomy so often found in musicological writings: the idea that one can be either ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’, ‘abstract’ or ‘culturally concrete’, ‘coolly factual’ or engaged with ‘the value of’ the music, but not both at once. Well, we are authors committed to the idea of ‘both at once’—and proudly so.
Perhaps, as its editor, I may be faulted as having a vested interest in saying there are no dull articles here, or shallow ones. Yet I say it, because I think it true. Let the reader judge! And I am pleased to say that readers will also be able to judge in Chinese for ‘China and the West—The Birth of a New Music' will be published in Chinese translation by Shanghai Conservatory Press, with permission of Taylor & Francis, in 2008.
Speaking simply for myself, I learned from all these essayists and felt privileged to watch their scholarly work emerge, come to birth. As for this ‘birth experience’, I need to thank not only the authors collectively, but also several persons in particular, for making that birth ‘on schedule’ and relatively ‘pain-free’. (No birth is entirely free of labor pains.) First, Lei Liang, my co-editor. Not only is he one of the important Chinese composers of the new generation, he is also a fine example of something Chou Wen-chung calls for in his article: the rebirth of the venerable wenren tradition—the tradition of the artist/scholar. It is due to Lei Liang's efforts that this volume has its integrity of format, as well as its cross-linguistic precision. He has saved many of us from minor (and often not-so-minor) errors of translation. And his keen thought caught many discrepancies of reasoning that, I now trust, have been set right.
I thank, too, the general editor of CMR, Peter Nelson, for enthusiastically welcoming the concept behind this issue, and supporting it to the hilt. His enthusiasm about our prime point was palpable: Yes, something of large, enduring historical consequence is underway. We are, indeed, witnessing the birth of a new music. Nor will I forget to thank—richly—the indefatigable Charlotte Mosedale, production editor of CMR. She was not fazed in the least by the presence of Wade-Giles and (later) Pinyin transliterations, or a slew of Chinese ideograms; let alone the design challenge of finding the most beautiful way to integrate Chou Wen-chung's original calligraphic art for the cover of this issue with the ‘standard Western’ print needed for its other aspects.
Dr Chou's calligraphy, I believe, is not only beautiful on its own terms (visually), it also embodies a message that is in harmony with the overall perspective advanced in this volume. For those who do not read Chinese, his two-line poem is written in a meter characteristic of the Tang epoch: ‘seven-syllable’ verse. Roughly translated, it reads: ‘A hundred rivers flow in confluence / Singing new songs.’ The text is written from top to bottom, and the two vertical lines are read from right to left:
On the lower left, in red, are four small characters that are printed rather than handwritten. They constitute Dr Chou's signature. More than that, in fact. They are a pseudonym he uses often—one that embodies his artistic philosophy. The Chinese characters, taken together, mean ‘The Four No's’ (
), and also refer (as Dr Chou informed me) to ‘the ancient name of the historic seaport Zhifou
Footnote4 (
) in which I was born’. What are these four ‘No’ principles? Neither East nor West, neither Old nor New. And that is as good a summary of the music we are writing about as any. It is a music that cannot be limited to the East or the West; and it is equally to be distinguished from the Old—from ‘traditional’ Chinese music, as from the New: the sheer modernism (and post-modernism) of the experimental West. Meanwhile, it is a music that quite obviously cannot do without all these factors.
A word ought also to be said about the figure in red in the upper right of Dr Chou's cover art. It is a ‘printed block’ whose four characters say simply: ‘I love flowing water’ (
). As will be apparent in Yayoi Everett's fine article on the recent music of Chou Wen-chung, his love for that aspect of nature—and for calligraphy itself—is deeply reflected in his musical technique.
We feel honored to have Dr Chou so richly represented in this volume, for there is no other figure more important, or more seminal, in the history of the convergence of Chinese and Western culture when it comes to the art of music. Among his many students are several of the composers whose works are investigated in this volume: Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Tan Dun and Bright Sheng. For decades, he has led by example, and the quality of these students shows how powerful is that example. The diversity of their music also shows how liberating an example he provided. And in his own article, Dr Chou makes clear that, in the final analysis, what makes for artistic power is not so much an allegiance to any given cultural heritage, or even heritages, but the sincerity of one's individual artistic vision. There is simply no substitute for sincerity: for thinking things through on one's own, and seeing, deeply and clearly, what one feels about them.
I have not done what is traditional in an Introduction—that is, summarize the content of the articles to come. I see no need for that. For one thing, they all have abstracts. For another, is it not livelier, more adventurous, just to read them through? And I have tried to give them an order that resembles the order (in time) music ought to have: a design with continuity and surprise. Some articles meet others in sweet agreement; others, in relatively strenuous diversity of point of view. And in one article (that of Nancy Rao), the topic is not really a composer, but rather a repository of material (the traditional rhythmic patterns, the luogu dianzi of Beijing opera: patterns very imaginatively reconsidered and creatively reapplied by Chen Yi and Chen Qigang in their music).
I end this introduction with a word of clarification. It is traditional for Chinese names to begin with an acknowledgement of one's family, and only then to follow with one's individual name. Most of the composers written of in these pages do that; however, some use the ‘Western’ order: individual appellation first; family, second. For our authors, however, the proportion is just the other way around: a tendency to the Western way. So I now list the names of all composers and all the authors with the family name given in all capital letters. I also present (courtesy of Lei Liang) all the names with their appropriate Chinese characters. He even was so kind as to provide my name with them!
Composers
CHEN Qigang (
)
Xiaoyong CHEN (
)
CHEN Yi (
)
CHOU Wen-chung (
)
HSU Tsang-Houei (
)
LAM Doming (
)
LAW Wing Fai (
)
Bright SHENG (
)
TAN Dun (
)
WU Zuqiang (
)
ZHOU Long (
)
Contributors
Peter CHANG (
)
CHOU Wen-chung (
)
Edward GREEN (
)
Frederick LAU (
)
Lei LIANG (
)
Nancy Yunhwa RAO (
)
Samson YOUNG (
)
Notes
[1] Act II, sc.1; lines 253 – 254.
[2] Not that there were no earlier forays. For example, Debussy and Messiaen were affected by gamelan. Yet no sustained new genre of music emerged from their encounter with Java and Bali. One can also question the historical viability of the encounter (in the 1960s) of Indian music and Western music—both ‘pop’ and ‘classical’. Did an unbroken river of musical expression arise from the experiments of Ravi Shankar, and others? It seems not. Lovely things, but more like isolated lakes in a musical landscape than a surging river. Many would argue this has not been the case for the interplay of Japan and the West; this will be a matter for future historians to evaluate. And were this a different kind of volume, it could easily be titled East Asia and the West—The Birth of a New Music, or even, considering a master like Chinary Ung of Cambodia, Asia and the West (etc.). Still, disliking cowardly musicology, I will put my cards on the table and say that it appears that at this moment in history (and by ‘this moment’, I mean the last twenty years or so) there is far more vibrant energy, more creative momentum, more ‘life’ in the intersection of Chinese and Western musical principles than in the junction of any other aspect of Asia and the West. Moreover, it appears to be growing in significance. Where a composer like Chou Wen-chung was (more or less) alone in the 1960s as an advocate for the conjunction of traditional Chinese musical values and the experimental modernism of the West, there are now at least a dozen composers of worldwide reputation working in that territory. In the 1960s, by contrast, Tōru Takemitsu had many colleagues exploring the parallel relation from a Japanese perspective. The situation today seems very different. It is hard to think of composers now dedicated to the junction of Japan and the avant-garde West who possess an international stature similar to that held by Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Chen Yi or Bright Sheng—to present only the most obvious names.
[3] In Sheldon Kranz (Ed.), Aesthetic Realism: We have been there – Six artists on the Siegel theory of opposites (p. 111). New York: Definition Press, 1969.
[4] Zhifou is the ancient name of modern-day Yantai (
).