The Music Heard in Far Cathay.
THE OLDEST WRITTEN MUSIC.
Wherever man is molested by dreams of the night, there, in every land,
will be found some form of pacification of the spirits of the dead,
that they may not cause harm to survivors in the land of the living.
The earliest form is generally by conjuration, by magical aid, and then
the mind grown bolder as the years advance, resorts to threats, and the
invocation of curses upon the unfortunate dead should he not hear and
heed; the stage that follows is the intercessory stage when some one is
brought in to render service, one who knows all the powerful magic of
ceremony to compel the spirits, and who making it a special work, is
paid for undertaking the responsibility of pacifying the spirits at due
times and seasons. The person thus called in to render service, whether
known to the people of the tribe as witch, magician, medicine man, or
priest or priest-king, became, in this order necessary and inevitable
in the growth of a civilized life. As the centuries progressed the
secret ceremonies were exalted into pageants, and later took the form
recognised as “Ancestor Worship,” the shifting grades of which over
the known world are innumerable. From various causes familiar to the
student of history, Ancestor Worship, which had its origin as a private
arrangement, was at length transformed into a public function of the
highest importance, with elaborate ceremonials and ritual observances,
wherein such music as was possessed by the people naturally held a
predominant influence.
The Chinese worship “the Spirit of Heaven” and “the Spirit of
Earth,” and in their earlier times having no priest, they delegated
the heavenly part of the observances to their Emperor, and busied
themselves only with the earthly cares, and made the “worship” of their
own particular ancestors the chief of their investments; so onerously
does this observance press upon them that their outlay often beggars
them, the observance has a superstitious hold upon the race, seems to
be strong as heredity, ineradicable. We may smile at the Chinese, but
have we not rife in our own population, superstition equally strong
regarding fortune-telling and charms and palmistry, and the deeply
ingrained belief in the virtue of fine funerals.
The chief duty imposed upon the Emperor is that of rigidly observing
the traditionally prescribed ceremonies of “The Worship of Ancestors”
at which the greatest display of Chinese music, with full orchestra
is made, everything connected therewith being minutely regulated; the
number of musicians, of dancers, of instruments, of vases, and all
kinds of music and genuflexions, and even words rigorously fixed.
Dancing was also associated with the music as equally sacred; in
ancient times it held a conspicuous place in worship, having been first
introduced into the ceremonies by the Emperor Shun, 2255 B.C.
We read that in “the Chinese Classics” a great Duke of one of the Royal
Dynasties, TAN FOO, who lived 1325 B.C., is written of, and in the
ode it is related among other things that “he charged his Minister of
Instruction with the building of the houses and the Ancestral Temples.”
By this confirming the antiquity of Ancestor Worship at a date, far off
as old Egyptian dates, when customs, so similar, existed.
The great age of the Chinese Classics is undoubted, and Mr. Simcox says
even “the most recent document in the Shoo-King belongs to the seventh
century B.C., and of the famous ‘Bamboo Books’ that ‘the annals of the
Bamboo Books’ may rank with the Babylonian Chronicles in authority.”
These books were found after they had been buried 600 years in the
grave of King Seang of Wei, who died 295 B.C. His choicest treasures,
entombed with him according to ancient custom, of which we were
reminded by the recent find of the royal chariot of bronze and gilded
ornaments in the Tomb of Thotmes IV.
Ancient Chinese texts were _printed_ as early as 593 B.C. In a report
by Imperial order at the beginning of our era, the royal library held
165 collections of books on Music, from sixteen different editors.
My habit is to secure dates, knowing them to be of utmost value in an
enquiry such as this. For a due estimate of the relation of Chinese
music to that of other early nations it is well that you should
compare these with the dates occurring in the previous chapters. Not
a shred of knowledge exists of recorded music of Egypt or Babylonia,
the earliest Greek example, the Delphic marble, dates from the third
century B.C. In all countries no doubt certain folk-tunes exist by
tradition of centuries, may be of ages, which ultimately are set down
and put into modern notation.
In China the music of the past was looked after by “The Sect of the
learned” and the responsibility for authenticity rested with the
Emperor, who by dynastic right was chief of the Sect.
The Chinese attribute to an unknown antiquity the music performed at
their great Confucian celebrations, and it may well be that this music
is the oldest written music in the world.
Some musically-minded folk have besought me for specimens of Chinese
music, wanting to see how it looks. This demand I cannot supply, for
Chinese type would be necessary and Chinese compositors; moreover it
would not enlighten, would to us look as columns of hieroglyphs.
This is a bit of Chinese ritual music. It is called the Guiding March,
and is played by two _Sheng_, four other instruments also in pairs, two
drums, and two pair of castanets. The music is played when the emperor,
with the princes, dignitaries, and attendants, passes the second gate
to enter the temple. The circles and dots at the side of several of the
notes are signs that the drums and castanets are to sound. As you would
not understand the march by the Chinese symbols, I have done it into
English, and you have to read from the top of the right hand column,
and then down each column beyond in succession—the gaps only indicate
the holding on longer of the note preceding:—
|go.|Do |co.|A |C. |a |d |
| | |a | |ao |co |d. |
| | |co.|go | |d |a | M
| |Co |d |f. |d |co |co | A
| |ao.|co |D |co |a |d | R
| |C |a. |Co.|a | | | C
| |Do.| |ao |co.|go | | H
| |C |go | |d |f |d. |
| |ao.|f. |d. |co.|D |co |
The small letters are notes within the treble and the capitals for
notes below it. Looks like a very early anticipation of tonic sol-fa.
If you write this down on the treble stave you soon become proficient
in Chinese scoring,—that is, provided you translate the Chinese
characters correctly, and comprehend also the multitude of little signs
used in addition, which to the native are easy of recognition.
I take up a little book that I have of Japanese songs and open it,
beginning at the end, which with them is the commencement, and it
looks, as I scan the page, very much the same in fashion as the English
columns which I have set up before you. The characters are printed in
black, and the signs in vermilion, on a beautiful silkworm paper that
glistens with silvery sheen like a cocoon, and has impressed lines
separating each column of characters; and each page is as a double
page without inner margins, six columns to a page. Strange to say,
the little book, although it measures only six inches by two inches
and five eighths, is quite six feet long, for it folds backwards and
forwards after the fashion of the child’s Jacob’s ladder. And this is
the little book that a little Japanese maiden will take out of her
sleeve and therewith caress her thoughts with music, opening it to
and fro as her fancy leads her, and perhaps finding there her song of
songs, where hiddenly folding there, too, may be felt some flower token
that she cherishes for remembrance, even as we treasure crushed pansies
and violets. Be sure, the nature that we call human nature is much the
same all the world over; in one land it is but a variant of that which
it is in another. The love songs as usual come first in interest, and
occupy a large share in the national music, both of Japan and China;
but sentiment expends itself in many ways. One song is entitled the
“Haunts of Pleasure,” it is an early composition and a still popular
work, the theme of which is ever new in London as in Kyoto and Peking.
Then in due course sentiment displays itself in nuptial songs and in
songs of domestic life,—life, its comedies, tragedies, and what not;
and then in funeral odes and lamentations. I notice how old the custom
is of giving one or two lines of song for the voice, followed by an
interlude for orchestra.
The ritual music of the Chinese is held to rest upon tradition mainly
for its due performance, as there are no distinguishing signs for time
and movement, and little or no attempt at expression; indeed, all
meaning is left to be shown by the attitude of the singers, and what we
should call theatrical movement.
All their music is, in fact, subordinated to the vocal performer,
singer, or reciter; for dancing is with them as much a religious
function as it was to the tribes of Israel in the days of Miriam or
David. The singing as always in unison, or attempted unison, relieved
occasionally by a few fourths. For of harmony they have no idea; no
feeling for it. These people have no conception of the purpose of an
orchestra, as we understand it. The Chinese orchestra is merely a
combination of instruments which for ceremonial use alternate with the
vocal music, each instrument having its allotted place for sounding
at the end of some strophe or line of the hymn, and comes in much as
our snatches of instrumental melody or harmony in recitative. There
is generally some mystic reference understood by the hearers, as
well as the indication of the particular point reached in the ritual
ceremony; such as is conveyed, for instance, in the Catholic service
when bells are sounded a precise number of times, or when at certain
places only is the organ allowed to be heard. So with the Chinese, only
at a certain stage of the progress of the ceremony are the stringed
instruments ordered to play, and at another only the wind instruments,
and at others the instruments of percussion of which they have so many
varieties,—drums and chimes, gongs and cymbals, castanets and tambours,
and tigers. The music exists for the ceremony; not for itself.
The popular love of music is displayed everywhere in daily life,
bands of musicians parade the streets, all the domestic festivals
are celebrated with music, and children in their play are constantly
singing. Girls are taught to play the moon-shaped guitar, and the
balloon-shaped, and the three-stringed guitar, whilst they sing the
ballads which the Chinese say are thousands of years old.
The singing is very peculiar, being a kind of singsong extremely
nasal; so little have the lips to do with the enunciation that it can
hardly be called vocalisation. This we find almost everywhere the
characteristic of barbaric song; the savage and the semi-civilised
seldom get beyond a high pitched nasal chant. Yet, when civilisation
has progressed, the strong conservative instinct remains, and this same
twang is a delicious indulgence, and a sign of long descent and high
breeding. I am told by those who have had the experience, that the only
opportunities of hearing the natural voice of the Chinese and Japanese
in singing are when groups of workmen are starting off to work, or when
soldiers are passing; and then some good musical effect is produced in
unison, the singers joining in their quaintly sounding and well known
melodies, which have been handed down for generations. No decent,
self-respecting, or respectability-loving Chinese would condescend to
the vulgarity of singing in the natural voice: they use invariably
falsetto, emitted mostly through the nose, the mouth almost shut. Male
and female alike cultivate this evidence of gentility.
The music of the hymn in honour of “The Most Holy Ancient Sage
Confucius” is very interesting when we consider the time during which
it has been preserved and handed down, and the national importance
attached to it. It is performed twice a year with great pomp on the
“lucky days” chosen for the worship of Confucius and the spirits of
departed sages in the spring and autumn of each year. Superstition
assigns to the music a particular keynote, in which the hymn is to
be sung, according to the month of the moon; so that in the second
month the _lu_ is _chia-chung_, and in the eighth month the keynote is
_nan-lu_.
This is the first strophe of the hymn to Confucius which they play.
[Illustration]
That is to say, it is as near as our notation can give it. See also
page 151 ante for concluding strophe.
It is called the “Sacrificial Hymn to Confucius,” the altar being
loaded with offerings of meats, grain, fruits, wine, silk, spices and
incense. A characteristic of Chinese worship is the firm inculcated
belief that the spirits in whose honour a ceremony is performed descend
from heaven to receive the offerings prepared for them.
The hymn has six stanzas, divided to accompany the ceremonial stages,
thus,—
1. Receiving the approaching Spirit.
2. First presentation of offerings.
3. Second presentation.
4. Third and last presentation.
5. Removal of the viands.
6. Escorting the Spirit back.
As in Old Chaldea, the people of that vast valley of Mesopotamia, and
from far up in Assyria, crowded their dead to Erech, their primitive
home, and the burial place of all their race; century after century all
who could do so sent their dead down the great river ways to repose
near the mouth of the Euphrates, to Erech the sacred city of the dead.
The dying trusted their kinsfolk to do this last duty. Even to-day the
Chinaman will take his coffin and perhaps a small handful of earth with
him, when he leaves his country for Australia or California, and looks
to some of his kin to send him home when he dies in a foreign land, and
they perform the trust, labelling their countryman’s coffin “dry goods”
to get him home at the cheapest rate.
This worship of ancestors is not only the chief feature of the Chinese
religion; it pervades the daily life of millions, and is believed in
with a strength of sentiment and in a way which we find it difficult
to comprehend. Yet, as we know, ancestor worship is perpetuated with
us to this day,—witness “Almanac de Gotha,” and “Debrett’s Peerage.”
Oddly enough comes slipping into my memory a reminiscence of a day
long past, hearing of an old dame I knew saying to her grandson: “Ah,
Willie, my boy, if your father had only married Miss B—— instead of
your mother; your life would have been very different; you might have
been riding in a carriage.” And she, poor simple old soul, she wondered
why the laugh went round. Yes, the “might have been” is a haunting idea
from which few altogether escape in life. Would you know my thought?
I was thinking that had I lived in antique times—and some would say,
how know you that you did not so live?—then verily I should have been
irresistibly impelled to the worship of one’s ancestors, and should
have comprehended how it entered into the heart and the conscience,
and with music and symbolism set up a real and binding obligation not
to be gainsaid; instead of which I am drawn to worship the offspring
of somebody else’s ancestors, and find that to be the greater mystery.
Ah, me! what a queer topsyturveydom civilization brings about. Did
you ever ever try to get behind a child’s mind, to see into the inner
recesses of its realistic consciousness? Watch the little girl with her
favourite inanimate doll, how she holds important serious conversations
with her; how the doll has to be good, attentive to her lessons,
dressed and undressed, with a most serious belief in its participations
in eating and drinking and playing day after day. What if no words come
in response; if the food prepared is not eaten? The belief suffers
nothing; the little lady will supply the fitting speeches in reply,
and will eat up the offerings of sweets herself. Yes, the bewitching
creature will go on believing. She lives in a world of lunacy all her
own, with which our bigger world has nothing to do; and unless we can
become as little children, it passes our understanding. This is the
stage of mind at which the Chinese stay—checked, undeveloped. The
development of the mind of the child life that is growing around our
feet we watch with never-failing interest, well knowing that childish
things will be put away, and its illusionary world will fade and be as
a world of dream. Yet the future of the Chinese we cannot so interpret
by any signs of the present outlook, nor imagine how many centuries
must pass before their minds can be fitted to work in parallel grades
with European thought and culture.