Twentieth-Century School Music Literature in China: A Departure from Tradition

Abstract

Introduction The development of music and music education in modern China through the entire twentieth century was predominantly governed by the development of the nation in that same period. The political, social, and psychological changes that occurred in Chinese society at large within that particular period deeply influenced the development of music and music education. The Chinese musical heritage, a profound human cultural legacy, encompasses a variety of genres, a wealth of repertoire, and a style that is all its own. For thousands of years Chinese folk songs, operas, narrative music, and instrumental music--with their pentatonic tonal expressions--revealed and expressed the suffering, joy, and human nature of a people. This musical expression includes, among other things, tales about the Kunlun Mountain, the Yellow River, spectacular ancient wars, and the peaceful and quiet farming lives of the people. It tells stories or describes nameless sentiments through its own tone, its own mood, and its own attitude. It provides an aesthetic experience that is different from that of the music of other cultures in the world. Chinese music is unique because of its particular way of putting together musical sound patterns in compositions. Its musical foundations, elements, idioms, structural processes, and stylistic devices together form the compositional common practices that have been consistently recognized and understood by Chinese listeners throughout history. The knowledge of and ability to comprehendthese compositional common practices in traditional Chinese music is the Chinese music literacy. This music literacy is based upon a type of pentatonicism that is unique to Chinese music. The advent of the twentieth century brought not only the threat of European colonialism to China, but also saw an influx of Western culture that led to the development of a Westernized system of music education in China. The diatonic music of Europe has permeated and dominated the classrooms of modern China since that time. For the past one hundred years, music and music education in China have, in other words, been colonized by Western music. The Westernization of Music and Music Education in Twentieth-Century China The mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century was a critical and difficult time for China, as the Qing dynasty tried to protect its heritage from the growing influence of Western missionaries, stave off European and Japanese colonization, and put down increasingly violent citizen revolts. Growing internal economic pressure, the Opium War (1839-1842), and the Boxer Rebellion (1900) all contributed to the downfall of the Qing Empire and establishment of the new Republic of China in 1911. It was a time of change between two centuries, two societal systems, and two cultures with very different values and tremendous misunderstandings. (1) When the Opium War ended in 1842, the British with their modern weapons had not only won the war, but also had blown open the closed doors of the Qing Empire. China now had to face the reality of dealing with the scientifically advanced cultures of Japan and the West. The Treaty of Nanjing (1842), in which China ceded the island of Hong Kong and granted unprecedented trade advantages to the British, was the first of a series of inequitable treaties the Qing government signed with Western nations. (2) The Boxer Rebellion, an officially sanctioned peasant uprising that attempted to drive out all foreigners, ended in 1900 with imperial leaders agreeing to more trade concessions and granting more control to Western powers who sought to carve up China into many colonies. (3) The Movement of Westernization and Educational Reform (1860-1911) The fear of being colonized led Chinese intellectuals and government officials to pursue self-strengthening through a movement of political and cultural reformation. These leaders agreed that China should learn from the West in order to fight against the West. …

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