Chinese Music

Author(s): A. C. Moule
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 48, No. 769 (Mar. 1, 1907), pp. 163-166
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/905029
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 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-MARCH I, I907. I63

The above list may serve as a stimulus to the organist of London's great cathedral. It has been
present choristers of the cathedral in the discharge said that St. Paul's has a melodic school of its own.
of their daily duties. As an illustrated article on Is this true ? The compositions of Attwood, Goss,
the Choir School appeared in THE MUSICAL TIMES Stainer, and Martin furnish an affirmative answer.
of May, 900o, there is no need to enlarge upon For valued help in the preparation of this article
this splendid adjunct to the music of St. Paul's the writer is indebted to the Rev. W. P. Besley,
Cathedral. M.A., minor canon and librarian, and Sir George
The first recorded organist of St. Paul's after Martin, M.V.O., organist of St. Paul's Cathedral,
the Great Fire was Isaac Blackwell, who was and in a special manner to Mr. John S. Bumpus,
appointed vicar-choral on February 7, i686. As whose book 'The Organists and Composers of
he was able to play the organ, he held the office of St. Paul's Cathedral' is a valuable contribution to
organist in I687, when the present cathedral the literature of the subject.
was being built. Until Sir John Stainer's time DOTTEDCROTCHET.
(I872) a vicar-choral's stall always went with the
organistship, as in most cathedrals of the Old
Foundation. Although he is mentioned by
Hawkins, Mr. Blackwell is practically unknown, CHINESE MUSIC.
as no modern English dictionary notices him. That
he was a composer is proved by the second set of A man without virtue, what has he to do with music ?-
Sacra' to which he OLD PROVERB.
Deering's 'Cantica (I674),
contributed two anthems, 'Behold, how good and 'Ceremony and Music'-these seem to have
joyful' and 'Let my complaint come before Thee, been considered, in the life of ancient China, two
O Lord' (both for two voices, cantus and bass), of the most important things. As there were
also a hymn for Good Friday, 'See sinfull soul, 'rules of propriety' to guide a man to the right
thy Saviour's sufferings see.' In John Playford's and seemly manner in which to meet every
'Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues' (1676), situation of his life, so music was the inner
Blackwell's name appears as the composer of force by which this outward form of reverent and
seven songs in that collection. comely action was inspired-music, that is, not
Jeremiah Clark appears to have succeeded merely of drum and bell, of psaltery and flute, but
Blackwell. As composer of the tune 'St. Magnus' also of harmonious thought and word and deed.
Clark is widely known. In consequence of a love Thus music became to be regarded not only as an
affair 'he shot himself with a little screw pistol in Art to be minutely regulated and carefully
the side of the head, as he sat in his chair by the performed, but as itself the great regulating influence
fireside,' as a broadside at the British Museum has in state and family and individual life. One of the
it (see THE MUSICAL TIMES of January, I906, most famous instruments of antiquity was named, it
p. 33, for further details). Upon the death of is said, from the power it had to restrain the evil
Jeremiah Clark, Richard Brind, a former chorister passions. Remembering all this, we are not
of the cathedral, was appointed organist on surprised to find that Confucius, the great restorer
February 23, I708. Beyond the fact that he of the ancient ways of virtue, was a lover of music;
composed a few forgotten anthems he is unknown and there is something very fascinating in the
to fame. .As the next five organists (excepting thought of 'the master' himself as an enthusiastic
John Jones, who held office from I755 to I796) musician, not merely valuing the political and
have formed the subjects of illustrated biographies moral uses of the art, but himself singing and
in this journal, there is no need to repeat what has playing and being deeply moved when he heard
already been set forth in detail. Their names great music. Already in his day (c. 550 B.C.) the
are-Dr. Maurice Greene, Thomas Attwood (a true old music was less practised, and, about a
pupil of Mozart's), Sir John Goss, and Sir John century later, as we learn from the protest of
Stainer, a former chorister of the cathedral, and Mencius, vulgar modern music had supplanted the
Sir George Martin, the present organist.* ancient even in royal performances. But it was
Mention must be made of some of the not, perhaps, till the reign of the vandal Ch'in
sub-organists during the past century: George Shih-huang (c. 250 B.c.) that the old art was lost
Cooper, senior, George Cooper, junior (a beyond hope of recovery.
masterly performer), and William Hodge; also 'How to play music may be known,' said
Mr. Charles Macpherson, a former chorister, Confucius, when instructing the grand music-master
who now holds the office of sub-organist and of his own too degenerate state. 'At the
discharges his duties with distinction. commencement of the piece, all the parts should
Of Sir George Martin, who succeeded to the sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in
organistship in I888, it is sufficient to say that he harmony, but each part distinct and flowing without
is a worthy compeer of those men of genius whose break, and thus on to the conclusion.' We wish
names are household words in English church he had told us in more detail 'how to play music';
music, and who have held the important office of we long to learn what the grand music-master, who
probably, like most of his profession at that time,
* For these
biographical sketches, see THE MUSICAL TIMES as was blind, taught or rather should have taught.
follows: Dr. Greene, February, 1903; Thomas Attwood, December,
Ioo ; Sir John Goss, June, Ig9T; Sir John Stainer, May, 19o ; and
But we are doomed to disappointment. All that
Sir George Martin, July, 1897. has been recovered from that early period, largely
164 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-MARcH I, 1907.

it seems through the research of Tsai Yii,* is
some knowledge of the scales in use and of the
instruments on which the music was performed.
Very early in their history the Chinese seem to
have known the octave and the division of it into
twelve semitones. These semitones were evolved
from a series of perfect fifths, and were
consequently not uniform in dimension (cf. Table,
note a). The legends of the invention of this
scale are variously interpreted; but they point at
any rate to a time before the settlement of the
people in China, and they may indicate, as some
think, that elements were borrowed from the still
earlier tribes through which the Chinese passed or
among which they finally made their home. The
simplest form of the story hints at a truth which
is insisted on by scientific musicians to-day, that
scales were derived from instruments, and that
instruments were not primarily designed to play
known scalest; for when the 'Prime Minister'
* Tsai
Yii, who has been made familiar to European students of
Chinese music by M. Amiot's ' M6moire sur la musique des Chinois,'
was a prince of the Imperial house of the Ming dynasty. His great
book ' Lii lii ching i' was published A.D. I596. He himself gives all the
credit to his father.
t C. K. Wead, 'Contributions to the history of musical scales.'
Washington, 1902.
was ordered to make a scale, his first thought
was to make himself a bamboo flute. The
note of the first pipe he cut was D above
middle C; this, as Tsai Yii tells us, was the
note of Huang Chung, the foundation note of the
whole theory of music in the earliest historical
age. Later, and probably within the second
millennium before Christ, the octave was
artificially divided into equal semitones, and
musicians seem to have given much attention to
the art of transposition+ made possible by the new
equal-temperament (cfr Table, notes b, c). This
mathematical treatment of the scale may have
given rise to the belief, if it were not derived from
the fact, that the pipe which gave the note
Huang Chung was the foundation not only of
music, but of all measures, whether of capacity or
length.
\ Detailed instructions for the transposition of the classical or state
music are given in the official regulations. For instance, although the
actual melody of the Confucian Hymn (on the opposite page) remains the
same for each season, the key is transposed according to the moon
during which the ceremony, at which it is sung, takes place. It is
interesting to remember that Bach's first Twenty-four Preludes and
Fugues were written to show the advantages of equal-temperament
on the 'bundfrei' clavichord-his Wohltemzerirte Clavier.

A TABLE OF CHINESE NOTES AND SCALES.

THE NOTES OF THE OCTAVE LU LU. THE DEGREES OF THE SCALE.

v A

SIZE OF PIPES IN ENGLISH The The

Approximate
INCHES. Op.> Five Note Scale Mongol Scale Equivalents.
WU YIN KUNG CH'E (d)
NAMES. Pg.
N
I

Length (a) Length (b) Bore (c)

Huang Chung... 10'000 I0'000 '353 D Kung ...... Ho ......... Tonic

Ta Li ............ 9-364 9'438 '343 D#
T'ai Ts'u......... 8 888 8 908 '333 E Shang...... Ssu ......... Supertonic
Chia Chung ... 8 '323 8-408 '324 F
Ku Hsi ......... 7'901 7'937 '314 F#
Chiao ...... I ............ Mediant

Chung Lii ...... 7'399 7'49I '306 G Shang ...... Subdominant

Jui Pin ......... 7 023 7'071 '297 G# (Pien Chih) AKou

.........
Lin Chung ...... 6-666 6-674 '288 A Chih ...... Ch'e ...... Dominant
I Tse ............ 6-242 6'299 '280 A$
Nan Lii ......... 5 925 5'946 '273 B Yii ......... Kung ...... Submediant
Wu ............ 5'549 5'612 *264 C
Ying Chung ... 5 207 5'297 '257 (Pien Kung) Fan......... Leading note
Huang Chung... 5'000 '250
D
D Shao Kung Liu ......... Octave

(a) From Lii Lii Ching I, Vol. I, ff. 80-82. Notes found from a series of fifths. In older books the figures are often
not correctly given after the first five steps. The octave, not given in the original, should be 5'ooo as in column 2.
(b) (c) Id., Vol. IV, f. 6. Equal-temperament as restored by Tsai Yii.
(d) The symbols of this scale have also been used to represent fixed notes. The E of the upper octave has a
special name, Wu.

Ancient musicians knew and named the notes had also a scale, WIu Yin, consisting of the well-
of the octave below and of the octave above their known ' five notes' (cf. Table). This pentatonic
original or normal octave. But besides the scale may well have preceded the complete series
thirty-six notes of fixed pitch thus obtained, they of twelve notes; yet as early as it has been traced
 - W J *

THE MUSICAL TIMES.-MARCH I, I907. I65

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NOTATION OF THE FIRST TWO PHRASES OF THE CONFUCIAN HYMN.

EXPLANATION.-Theabove reproduction of a page from The page is also divided into six horizontal sections.
a Chinese ' Full score' is divided into eleven vertical columns The uppermost section gives the vocal part, or rather,
-the first, on the right, gives the description of the vocal the words only; the second the notation (in two forms
part and the names of the instruments; the next four Liu Lii and Wu Yin or sol-fa) for the bells, stone chimes
columns give the vocal part and musical accompaniment and panpipes; the third for the Hsiio (vertical flute),
or the four notes of the first phrase of the Hymn. The Hsuan and Ch'ih; and the fourth for the Ti (transverse
sixth column gives directions for the sounding of the stone flute) and Shgng in Kung Ch' characters; the fifth for the
gong and bell and the beating of the large and small Ch'in, and the sixth for the She. The two latter notations
drums (designated by circles). The next four columns are in a form of tablature. The Lu Lii is a fixed notation.
contain the vocal and instrumental parts for the second See the Table on the opposite page.
phrase, and the last column is for the drums (solo).
I66 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-MARCH
the names seem to indicate not fixed notes, but
the relative position of the notes in a scale,
corresponding to our tonic, supertonic, mediant,
dominant and submediant, and bearing a close
resemblance to the sol-fa system with its movable
Doh. This was subsequently enlarged to seven
notes by the addition of the semitones below the
dominant and the octave. The existence of a
diatonic scale implying or actually using semitones
might show, if proof were needed, that the twelve
equal divisions of the octave were not the first
idea of a scale possessed by the Chinese. For
such a scale might naturally have been divided
into six whole-tones, and evidence of an actual
tendency to do this exists in the fanciful division
of the notes into six pairs, the six odd numbers
being called active, and the even numbers passive.*
Equal-temperament, however, never took firm root,
so that when the study of music began to revive in
the second century before Christ, and efforts were
made to recover the lost ancient art, musicians
declared the modulations and transpositions of
which tradition spoke to be impossible on
instruments of a fixed pitch like chimes of bells
or stone gongs. It is characteristic of the
confusion that now prevails in classical music
(i.e., the music of the state religion) that while the
tunes are duly transposed according to the time of
year, some of the instruments on which they are
played are not conformed to the rules of
equal-temperament. t
The two semitones added to the five-note scale,
moreover, seem never to have become universally
popular, though it is said that they are not
uncommonly used in the north of China; and it
may be broadly stated that the pentatonic scale,
in some form very similar to that already given, has
been continuously the characteristic Chinese scale
from a very remote date. While this is so,
the ancient names of the notes long ago gave
place to names borrowed from a foreign scale
which was introduced, it is said, by the Mongol
tribes with which China had constant intercourse of
peace or war from the beginning of the Christian
era, until the whole country was conquered by
Kublai Khan towards the end of the I3th century
(cf Table). The practical introduction of this foreign
scale was, we may be sure, a gradual process to
which it would be hard to assign an exact date.
It is important, however, to notice that the scale had
seven notes, and that it was nearly the same as the
* This classification did
not, perhaps, affect composition till the
present dynasty, when, Van Aalst says, if a tune (in classical music)
begins on an active note no passive notes may be admitted. This rule
is no doubt connected with the eccentricities of the official manual of
classical music, whose compiler gives a diagram showing a scale of
fourteen semitones-the diatonic intervals all regarded as tones-and is
driven to most curious devices to find equivalents among the ancient
twelve notes for the last two of his fourteen.
t In modern popular music several different keys are used. Little
attention, however, seems to have been paid to them as yet by foreign
students, and, owing to the faulty intonation of voices and instruments,
we cannot be sure whether the difference between one key and another
is merely a difference of pitch or may involve to some extent a different
succession of intervals. Compositions, it should be understood, do not
wander from the limits of the diatonic scale, and there appears to be no
direct evidence that the Chinese have ever used their knowledge of the
twelve divisions of the octave except for purposes of transposition. In
modern popular music even this use is forgotten, and keys are defined
not by the ancient note names, but by the position of the dominant in
each on some instrument, usually the tranverse flute.
I, 1907.
European diatonic scale; that is, that if we use
only the white notes of the pianoforte, and take the
ancient native scale as beginning on F, the first note
of the Mongol scale is C. But there are indications
that the scale, like the nation, conquered the
conqueror. The outward form was changed, but
the scale remained the same. First a new note and
name (kou) were added to represent the augmented
fourth of the old scale; but this seems to have
been too artificial a device, and the new name is
said to be now quite forgotten. The required
result was attained, nevertheless, by treating the
fourth note of the new scale as tonic instead of
the first. Of this arrangement several incidental
traces may be found in various music books; but,
on the other hand, Tsai Yii very carefully gives the
Mongol scale, though using the ancient notation,
as the scale of an almost prehistoric flute.
There seems to be nothing at all like staff
notation in China, nor any attempt to show the
relative pitch of notes by the positions of the
written symbols, though this latter device is, I
believe, known in Thibet. The Chinese represent
notes by words written just as any other words
would be written. For many classical instruments
ingenious special symbols have been used, as is
shown in the accompanying reproduction of the
Full-score of the first two phrases of the celebrated
Confucian Hymn (page 165).
A. C. MOULE.
(To be continued.)
Occasional lRotes.
Why these are very crotchets that he spieaks;
Note, notes,forsooth, and noting.
SHAKESPEARE.
Much Ado About Nothing, II., 3.
The recent death of Viscount Goschen recalls the
fact that he was a connecting link with Weber. In
his interesting book 'The life and times of Georg
Joachim Goschen: publisher and printer of Leipzig,
I752-I828,' the deceased statesman says: 'Weber
became a friend of my grandfather (the subject of
the above memoir) and of my father. The latter
often visited the great composer when he was in
London in 1826, and attended his sick bed during
the illness to which Weber succumbed in that year
in the house of Sir George Smart.' In the life of
Weber, by his son Baron Max von Weber, there is a
charming reference to Mr. Goschen, the late Lord
Goschen's father. Two days before his death,
Weber, fully under the impression that he would
soon return to his native land, asked his friend
Goschen: 'Have you anything to say to your father?
At all events I shall tell him that his son has been
a dear kind friend to me in London.' ' But you leave
many friends and admirers here,' said Mr. Goschen.
'Hush ! hush!' replied Weber, gently smiling, 'that's
not the same thing, you know.' A few hours
afterwards the spirit of the great composer had taken
its flight.