Why Chinese people play Western classical music: Transcultural roots of music philosophy

International Journal of Music Education

30(2) 161 –176© The Author(s) 2011

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DOI: 10.1177/0255761411420955ijm.sagepub.com

Why Chinese people play Western classical music: Transcultural roots of music philosophy

Hao HuangScripps College, USA

AbstractThis paper addresses the complex relationship between Confucian values and music education in East Asia, particularly its history in China. How does one account for the present ‘cultural fever’ of Western classical music that has infected more than 100 million Chinese practitioners? It is proposed that Western classical music finds transcultural affinities in Confucian traditional values of artful self-cultivation and virtue, while simultaneously acting as a signifier of modernity and individual creativity. The paradigm shift that applies to Confucius’s status change from a despised pre-feudal conservative to a state-sanctioned indigenous philosopher who resists market economy sociocultural destabilization in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is discussed. Corresponding changes in the Chinese Communist Party’s attitudes towards Western classical music are covered, starting with condemnations of politically-suspect foreign cultural practices to current advocacy of an arts discipline that is integral in educating disciplined, high-performing citizens of the modern Chinese nation state. Correlations between ancient Eastern and Western philosophies of music and their consequences for contemporary music education are explored.

KeywordsChina, Confucius, music education, philosophy, Western classical music

IntroductionTo go to the very root of our feelings and know the changes which they undergo is the province of music. (K’ung-fu Tzu [Confucius], 1885/2008, p. 69)

Music educators worldwide have become aware of the accomplishments of Asian and Asian-American students, many of whom trace their heritage to the ‘Confucian zone’ proposed by

Corresponding author:Hao Huang, 1030 Columbia Ave., Music Department, Scripps College, Claremont, CA 91711-3948, USA Email: [email protected]

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162 International Journal of Music Education 30(2)

Samuel Huntington (1993, p. 23), mainly consisting of China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (Marginson, 2010). Many American and European music undergraduate and graduate programs have instituted recruiting strategies directed at East Asia, sending administrators to hold auditions there. A question arises: how will concepts of Western classical music evolve now that more and more of its most accomplished practitioners are ‘Eastern’? Cultural exchange should not be unidirectional – understanding connections between Asian and Western musical education philosophies can help teachers and students to develop a mutual appreciation of music’s integral role in diverse cultures. Our historical moment has passed beyond the postcolonial concept of Western cultural hegemony coercing third world people to ape their ‘betters’. Indeed, current Asian prosperity in comparison to Western economic crises has encouraged a ‘growing realization of East Asians that they can do anything as well as, if not better than, other cultures [that] have led to an explosion of confidence’ (Mahbubani, 1995, p. 100). It is an opportune time to explore how indigenous Asian value systems such as Confucianism have fostered dedicated and successful participation in Western classical music.

Chinese participation in Western classical music

For the purposes of this paper, we will focus on China, the original seat of Confucian thought. Recent articles in the Asia Times and The Independent assert that approximately 36 million Chinese children study the piano today, compared to six million in the United States (Becker, 2004; Spengler, 2008). Another article in the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that another 50 million children in China study the violin and that ‘Chinese parents urge their children to excel at instrumental music with the same ferocity that American parents push theirs to perform well in soccer or Little League’ (Lin, 2008, p. A-1). Such an observation was made more than two decades ago by Howard Gardner (1989), a MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Fellow who remarked:

The importance attributed to the arts in China reminds me of the emphasis conferred upon sports in this country . . . There is also a widely shared feeling that arts education will aid children in becoming good citizens and perhaps even in competing successfully for educational and professional rewards. (p. 220)

Robert Sirota, the president of the Manhattan School of Music, has been quoted in The New York Times as proposing:

I honestly think that in some real sense the future of classical music depends on developments in China in the next 20 years. They represent a vast new audience as well as a classical-music-performing population that is much larger than anything we’ve had so far. You’re looking at a time when, maybe 20 to 40 years from now, Shanghai and Beijing are really going to be considered centers of world art music. (Wakin, 2007, p. E-1)

Similarly, Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic has asserted that:

We need defenders of our tradition of classical music if classical music is to survive . . . It could very well be that one of the most important defenders of classical music will be found in the country of China . . . I think the Chinese people, who have shown their passion and very, very high sense of aesthetics, are an ideal spawning ground for burgeoning interest in classical music. (USA Today, 2008, p. D-1)

Supporting this contention, The New York Times has also remarked that:



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with the same energy, drive and sheer population weight that has made it an economic power, China has become a considerable force in Western classical music . . . The Chinese enthusiasm suggests the potential for a growing market for recorded music and live performances just as an aging fan base and declining record sales worry many professionals in Europe and the United States. (Kahn & Wakin, 2007, p. A-1)

What accounts for such thriving involvement in Western classical music? Rudolph Tang, a music critic based in Hong Kong, believes that:

The recent outburst of classical music frenzy in China is fueled by the one-child policy . . . Parents expect too much from their sole child, squeezing the last drop of their imagination by bulldozing them [to pick] up a musical instrument. (Druckenbrod, 2009, p. E-1)

Indeed, many parents in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today are very keen on discovering and developing their children’s musical talents. Cai Liangyu, a professor of musicology at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, explains that the government’s education policy encourages the study of music, since students who graduate from high school with a ‘special ability’ such as playing clas-sical music have an edge when applying to college. ‘This is very important for some parents,’ Cai said. ‘This is a way for students to get into college, and later to have a better ability to get a job’ (Lin, 2008, p. A-1). Cathy Barbash, a blogger on Chinese musical culture for Musical America, observes, ‘For the past 20 years, Chinese people thought that if you wanted to study in the West, you had to know classical music’ (Druckenbrod, 2009, p. E-1). Western classical music is still perceived as a tool for personal or business advancement for many ambitious Chinese.

Active adult Chinese musicians articulate other motivations for their devotion to Western clas-sical music. Reflecting a historical and aesthetic perspective, pianist and chamber musician Wu Han avows:

I know high culture is actually being celebrated in China. In Chinese culture it’s part of being a great human being to understand high quality culture, not purely for entertainment purposes. That is part of our DNA in the Far East. Look at the time of Confucius: if you wanted a government post you had to write poetry . . . It comes from parents, they really believe if you have classical music training you will have the discipline that’s needed in order to perform. You have to have analytical ability to understand or solve the problem in a highly-skilled profession. It fits the oriental culture perfectly. That’s also a culture that celebrates high performance and high achievement. So classical music goes right in there and fits beautifully. (Morekis, 2009)

As Vogel (1991) has noted, this point of view is ‘analogous to the Protestant work ethic in its power to strengthen the personal drive for achievement . . . It is a restless desire for improvement that looks to the long term and that looks beyond material acquisition’ (pp. 93–101).

A brief history of Western music in China

The next phase in this disquisition on Chinese involvement in Western music involves a historical turn. Particularly in China, one must recall the past to understand the present. Distinguished com-poser Bright Sheng, who was exiled to Tibet during the Cultural Revolution and immigrated to the United States (US) in 1982, invokes an extensive history of China and Western music:

The Asian world has opened its arms to Western culture for a long time, largely because of powerful economic influences . . . In the Tang dynasty, from AD 600 to 900, when the Silk Road was at its peak,




China had an open-door policy and foreigners could go there to make a living . . . Asia’s interest in Western culture today arises directly from the terrific boom in economic prosperity. Let’s face it, culture and the arts always have a close tie to the economy. (James, 2004, p. 16)

In the 16th century, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci hauled a harpsichord across Europe and China from 1583 until he presented it to the Ming Dynasty Emperor Wanli in 1601. Ricci also imported a harpsichordist to train four of the emperor’s eunuch musicians and was said to have composed eight songs in Chinese for the entertainment and edification of the emperor (Spence, 1985, pp. 194–197). The Qing Emperors Kangxi (1654–1722) and Qianlong (1711–99) were familiar with harpsichords and enjoyed brief dalliances with Western music, but these were restricted to impe-rial court entertainments (Mungello, 2009, pp. 26–27). Kraus (1989) suggests that it was only in the 19th century, after European and American power forced the enfeebled Qing Imperial China to hold an open door policy for Westerners, that China was flooded with myriad missionaries with pianos in tow for banging out hymns to save heathen Chinese souls (p. 4). Western music had finally gone public in China.

In 1879, a municipal public band was founded in Shanghai by a German doctor; less than 30 years later, by 1907, the band evolved into the Shanghai Municipal Symphony Orchestra (Harris, 1942, p. 2). Later, the Shanghai orchestra hired an Italian conductor, Mario Paci, who led the ensemble for several decades from 1919 onwards (Zaharoff, 2005, p. 105). Increasingly, Chinese intellectuals began to identify Western music and instruments with a culture of scientific progress and modernization. Enthusiasm for Western music was so great that even the deposed last emperor Puyi took piano lessons as he whiled away his time in exile in Tianjin in the 1920s (Kraus, 1989, p. 26). A short-lived Western-style music school was founded in Beijing in 1922, and the Shanghai Conservatory began operations in earnest by 1927 (Jones, 2001, p. 42). When Alexander Tcherepnin arrived in China from Paris in 1934, in a role as consultant to the Ministry of Education, he brought unprecedented enthusiasm and a new sinocentric approach to the promotion of European music in China. He admonished Chinese musicians to avoid slavishly copying the West, and encouraged them to find alternatives by listening to music of China’s peasants and adapting Western techniques for their own culture (Zhang, 1979, p. 18). This bespeaks a prolonged and active Chinese engage-ment with Western art music before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ‘liberated’ China in 1949.

Under Communist rule, two opposing groups began to stake out positions vis-à-vis the mod-ernization of Chinese musical culture. Both regarded China’s indigenous traditional music as a hopelessly old-fashioned remnant of feudal culture, a nostalgic return for reactionaries. According to Kraus (1989), the first group was solidly pro-Western classical art music, holding that China would become a modern state once it fully participated in international musical culture. These cosmopolitans believed that European music should be emulated because it is scientific, as evident in the advanced technology of its musical instruments, their precise tuning, the use of harmony and the association of this music with scientifically-advanced nations. The other group held that music is modern only when it serves revolutionary causes. As populist musicians, they were interested not in European art music per se but only in its techniques that would serve to update China’s own instruments and singing style, as they made music to mobilize and modernize the peasants and workers of the Chinese nation (pp. 111–112). This latter position held sway during the Cultural Revolution, promoted by the increasingly-powerful People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Upon listening to populist national music performed by the PLA’s Jinan Military Region’s Vanguard Song and Dance Ensemble, a fellow of the Academy of Sciences publicly repudiated the European classics that he once loved: ‘If you listen to more Western bourgeois classical music, it slowly muddles your class viewpoint for understanding problems’ (Ma, 1965, p. 11).



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As early as 1959, a People’s Music article condemned Schoenberg as reflecting ‘the emptiness and cruel heartlessness of capitalist society,’ Stravinsky as ‘reactionary in both content and musical form,’ and Hindemith as expressing capitalism’s ‘declining character and coldness of interpersonal relations’ (Wang, 1959, pp. 37–38). These composers lacked fervent supporters in China, but it is astounding that the CCP cared about discussing the worthiness of these 20th century European composers. Certainly no Western governments reciprocated with critiques of ‘modern’ Chinese music. When Yao Wenyuan chose to criticize Debussy in his campaign against musical impression-ism’s bourgeois features in 1963, the stakes were raised for defining politically-correct music (Yao, 1963, p. 37). President He Luting of Shanghai Conservatory defied the campaign against Debussy and rebuffed Yao as a ‘hatchetman.’ A decade later, as the Cultural Revolution entered its last stages, Yu Huiyong of the State Council’s ‘Culture Group’ ascended to the position of CCP Culture Minister in 1974 and resumed the attack. Under the pseudonym of ‘Chu Lan,’ he argued that the tradition of European music from the late 18th and 19th centuries was a bourgeois invention repre-senting a counter-revolutionary tool for class enemies that was somehow aligned with Confucius.

The appearance of the revisionist viewpoint denying the class character of musical works is:

The concentrated expression of a tendency in society and in music circles today to make a fetish of foreign things and restore the old order of things. This theory of human nature which denies the class character of music is brought over from the European bourgeoisie and can also be traced back to the doctrine of Confucius, the ideological representative of the decadent slave-owning class of China. (Chu, 1974a, p. 19)

In ‘Chu’s’ (Yu’s) view, Western classical music was based on a bourgeois theory of human nature that maintains that art can transcend class. He held Beethoven to be a particularly dangerous musical humanist (Chu, 1974b, p. 21).

Beethoven’s comeback

How drastically the tide changed in little over a dozen years was illustrated by news in 1987 that Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ had been banned in China, cut from a radio show of American popular music due to its disrespect for the esteemed composer (Kraus, 1989, p. 208). The move towards Western classical music was championed by Li Delun, long-time conductor of the Central Philharmonic and one of the few Western-trained musicians to survive the Cultural Revolution. He declared that ‘people need this product of the West to liberate their cultural thinking from 2,000 years of feudalism. Li has taken spreading classical music in China as his mission’ (Wang 1987, p. 9). Turning Yu’s argument back on its head, Li particularly praised Beethoven’s music as of great use in opposing feudal thought, struggling for human rights, and liberating the individual (Renmin Yinyue, 1980, p. 5). Extending his argument to cultural theory Li concluded, ‘If there wasn’t any classical music, there wouldn’t be any modernity’ (Becker, 2004, p. 39).

Hao Jiang Tian, a featured bass soloist for the New York Metropolitan Opera over the past 19 years, observes that:

China opened the door to the world after the Cultural Revolution . . . and now millions of children are studying piano and violin, and thousands of young people are studying singing . . . I have seen more and more people interested in classical music, and so I am, you know, very happy, because the future of classical music will be in China because there are so many young talents. (Griffiths, 2005)

The BBC news estimates that presently there are around four million professional musicians in China. They are benefiting from economic reforms over the past two decades that have led to a




boom in building performance venues. The Chinese government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Western classical music infrastructure. West Australian Symphony Orchestra Chief Executive Keith Venning posits, ‘My view . . . is that they’ve built these fantastic concert halls and they’re now saying to the people “we’ve built these halls, now come and use them”’ (Appleby, 2006). Hong Kong music journalist Ken Smith confirms, ‘China is the sole remaining growth market for classical music . . . You see new concert halls being built and hundreds of thousands of young musicians who want to make a living’ (Druckenbrod, 2009, p. E-1). A recent article in The New York Times avers that ‘The government has a complex bordering on mania when it comes to building concert halls’ (Kahn & Wakin, 2007, p. A-1).

Indeed, during Jiang Zemin’s term as President of the PRC from 1993 to 2003, he ostentatiously displayed extensive knowledge of Western music, often by singing or playing the piano for Western leaders, or taking the baton to conduct orchestras at state banquets (Gilley, 1998, p. 333; Melvin & Cai, 2004, p. 307). Jiang helped to start the current craze in China for extravagant concert halls by commissioning a French architect to design the ultra-modern Shanghai Opera House of glass and steel costing US$157 million while he was party secretary of that city (Becker, 2004, p. 39). In Beijing, the National Center for the Performing Arts, a colossal titanium-clad dome completed in 2007, has been described by its president Chen Ping as ‘a concrete example of China’s rising soft power’ (Ross, 2008, p. 84). It bears an inscription by Jiang, whose enthusiasm for Western classical music was not limited to state occasions. After the death of his predecessor Deng Xiaoping, Jiang even let it widely be known that he had consoled himself by listening to Mozart’s Requiem through the night (Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, 1997).

Music and the new Confucianism

Why has the Communist regime in China ‘changed its tune’ regarding Western classical music? One of the great ironies of modern Chinese politics is that the Confucian identification of music as a traditional means of training citizens has endured, with the revolutionary Communist Party as its chief proponent. Despite Maoist condemnations of Confucian pre-feudal thought, the CCP has always shared the Confucian belief that music is inherently political. In 1986, the Chinese Musicians Association held its first National Music Education Conference, where the function of music education and its role was seriously discussed. The need for music education was recognized as an integral part of developing students’ moral, intellectual and physical capacities. As a result, in 1989 the State Education Commission was restructured by formally establishing separate Social Science and Arts Education Departments. This enabled unified and focused management of arts education for primary and secondary schools. In 1994, one of Jiang Zemin’s earliest actions as PRC President was to dictate that the State Board of Education strengthened high school arts education by setting up ‘music appreciation’ classes. All books used for music appreciation teach the very traditional Chinese concept that good music creates good morals. Western classical music was determined to be better than popular music, warranting state support because ‘symphonies will make their listeners into better people’ (Kraus, 1989, p. 212).

Sociopolitical and material changes in China brought about by economic prosperity have spurred a rethinking of the relevance of Confucian ethics in contemporary education. The official government goal of indoctrinating children to feel a collective obligation to serve the nation clashes with social/economic policies that reward individualism and capitalism. Increased expo-sure to the outside world via the Internet and mass media and concurrent improvements in the standard of living have transformed social paradigms. ‘Creativity and individuality’ are now stated goals for the curriculum (Hawkins, Zhou, & Lee, 2001, p. 204). Nevertheless, traditional



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socialist, collectivist and family values continue to be taught as necessary counterweights to market economy individualism. The PRC government has sanctioned a New Confucian educa-tional agenda to promote a nationalist, conservative sentiment among the masses, as a unifying force that legitimizes its rule; Confucius has become an unlikely ally of late-stage Chinese Communism (Bell, 2008). Many educational policy makers, educators, teachers and parents have turned to the New Confucianism, in ‘an attempt to fill the vacuum of values in modern-day China’ (Zhao, 2007, p. 142).

Huang (1988) has contended that Chinese cultural values have remained remarkably stable, given that China’s education system has long been guided by the teachings of Confucius (Kong Fuzi, pinyin; K’ung-fu Tzu, Wade-Giles; [c. 551–479 BCE]; p. 19). Over millennia, education policies have transmitted core values of civil obedience that least challenge Chinese political authorities. In particular, music education has been valued as a way of harmonizing human beings into the well-ordered Confucian society (Ho, 2003, p. 289). This has developed into promoting a new PRC-endorsed nationalism that is no longer limited to traditional Chinese music, Chinese folk songs, and revolutionary songs, but also encompasses foreign composers of nationalist music. The old Hollywood movie A Song to Remember (1945), produced during World War II to roman-ticize Frédéric Chopin’s patriotism, was chosen less than a decade ago by PRC educators to teach Chinese students to love their motherland. After the viewing the film, students at Suzhou University were inspired to produce a book of ‘more than 3,000 articles’ to express their patriotic feelings (Li, 2004, p. 383). This signifies the power that Western classical music (and the piano) holds for contemporary Chinese youth.

Half a dozen years ago, the Independent announced that South Korea, Japan and China together now make 90% of the world’s pianos (Becker, 2004, p. 39). Why have these nations taken to Western classical music with such a passion while other cultures in India, South Asia or the Middle East have not? Answers may be found by retracing the roots of music education philoso-phy – in China’s case, by reviewing the Confucian Classics, Sishu Wujing (Four Books and Five Classics [Kong Fuzi, 2009]), written before 300 BCE. These ancient texts also have exerted a major historical influence on Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Consider a tale of Confucius – as a music student!

Confucius and music education

In Shi Ji, the ancient Chinese historian Qian Sima (90 BCE/1989) narrates that, after Confucius studied the guqin (seven-string Chinese zither) from the master musician Shi Xiangzi for 10 days, his teacher then said his performance was fluent. Confucius, however, was not satisfied with his progress and said, ‘I may have learned the melody but I haven’t learned the skill.’ After another couple of days, Master Shi told him, ‘You have learned the art,’ but Confucius said, ‘But I haven’t learned the aim,’ because he could not feel the spirit of the melody when he played the guqin. Later, Master Shi praised him, ‘You have learned the aim, you can go on.’ But Confucius responded, ‘I have not learned what kind of person created it.’ It was not until he finally grasped and fulfilled the intent of the composer that Confucius became content (book 47, p. 32). In the Li Ji (Book of Rites), Confucius is quoted as saying:

Music produces pleasure which human nature cannot be without. That pleasure must arise from the modulation of the sounds, and have its embodiment in the movements of the body – such is the rule of humanity. These modulations and movements are the changes required by nature, and they are found complete in music. (K’ung-fu Tzu, 1885/2008, p. 57)




Chinese music traditions have been traced to the Shang Dynasty, dating back to 14th century BCE. From earliest recorded times, the minister of music held a high position in Chinese royal courts. This minister was responsible for maintaining the appropriate ritual music for proper ceremonial functions and, according to Kaufman’s quotation of Qian Sima, was additionally charged to super-vise the education of putative heirs to the throne:

The emperor (Shun) spoke: ‘I command you, K’uei, to be now my director of music. You will instruct our sons (in such a manner) that they become straightforward, yet gentle, big-hearted, yet circumspect, robust, yet not domineering and ardent, yet not arrogant.’ (Kaufmann, 1976, p. 23)

The central importance of music education is confirmed by Confucius’s remark:

In music the sages found pleasure, and [saw that] it could be used to make the hearts of the people good. Because of the deep influence which it exerts on a man, and the change which it produces in manners and customs, the ancient kings appointed it as one of the subjects of instruction. (K’ung-fu Tzu, 1885/2008, p. 65)

In the Lun Yu (Analects), Confucius is supposed to have said, ‘A man who is not Good, what can he have to do with music?’ (Confucius, 2001. p. 86). Not only was Confucius an advocate for music education, but he was also an avid practitioner as a teacher and student. Confucius lived in an uncertain era of feudal transition, when society had fallen into disarray (conditions eerily remi-niscent of our current global economic and political crises). Ritual ceremonies had fallen into disuse or had been forgotten, and music was perceived to have ‘degenerated’ into sensual entertain-ment. Partly in response to the violent turmoil of the previous Warring States period (481–256 BCE), Confucius conceived of music education as a way to address social and political problems of peaceful coexistence. His education rationale involved integrating songs and music in his curriculum to develop students’ sensibility and ethical commitments:

Confucius repeatedly urges his pupils to study the Songs. He believes that the study of the Songs is the best way of awakening the human spirit or human sentiments . . . This means, more than anything else, to arouse humanness in them, so that they may become lovers of ren [the beauty of being human]. (Kim, 2006, p. 114)

On learning music as self-cultivation, Confucius asserts, ‘One is roused by Songs [poetry], established by ritual, and perfected by Music’ (Confucius, 2008, p. 29).

Ancient Chinese and Greek transcultural values in music

Confucius’s Western contemporary, the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE), proposed that an educator must first pay attention to sensory learning, which focuses on developing an aesthetic appreciation of the transfiguring power of beauty. He approached music education as a curative procedure, instilling a sense of proportion and mental balance and countering the irrational tendency toward passion and ill-minded behavior. Rudhyar cites Pythagorean scholarly tradition that holds that he taught music to his students for moral improvement and mental health benefits:

Conceiving, however, that the first attention which should be paid to men is that which takes place through the senses, as when someone perceives beautiful figures and forms or hears beautiful rhythms and



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melodies, he established that to be the first erudition which subsists through music, and also through certain melodies and rhythms, from which the remedies of human manners and passions are obtained, together with those harmonies of the powers of the soul which it possessed from the first . . . (Rudhyar, 1982, p. 167)

Confucius taught his students the ‘six arts’ comprising the fundamental knowledge and skills in ancient China. These six arts were (in decreasing order of importance): ceremonies, music, shoot-ing, driving, writing, and mathematics (Qian, 1988, p. 17). Music was second in significance only to ceremonies, for it played an integral part in educating scholars to understand those same organi-zational principles that pertained to music, the motion of the stars and planets, physical bodily functions and the relationships between various levels and offices of the state. According to Kaufman, Confucius’s vision of music’s role is that it serves to create a harmonious union between heaven and earth, and that perfection in music ensured peace and morality:

One has to know the melodies in order to comprehend music, and music in order to discern and guide the nature of government . . . He who understands music will know the rules and secrets of ceremony. He who understands ceremony and music can be called virtuous. Virtue manifests the realization of the perfect in one’s self. (Kaufmann, 1976, p. 33)

The power of virtue in music is attributed by Rudhyar to Pythagoras, as an essential therapeutic and transformative quality in the music education that he proffered to his disciples:

[He] arranged and adapted for his disciples what are called apparatus and contrectations, divinely contriving mixtures of certain diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic melodies, through which he easily transferred and circularly led the passions of the soul into a contrary direction back to where they had recently and in an irrational and clandestine manner had been formed; such as sorrow, rage, pity, appetites, pride, supineness and vehemence. For he corrected each of these by the rule of virtue, tempering them through appropriate melodies, as through certain salutary medicines. (Rudhyar, 1982, pp. 167–168)

Correspondingly, Confucius suggests that:

Music expresses the delight in what produces it, and ceremonies lead the mind back to the (favours) which originate them. Music displays the virtue (of the framer); ceremonies are a return of the feelings (which led to them), as carrying the mind back to what originated them. (K’ung-fu Tzu, 1885/2008, p. 69)

Cross-cultural agreement that music is indispensable for cultivating a thoughtful intelligence is found not only in Pythagoras but also in Plato (c. 428–347 BCE). In the Republic, Plato promotes music education as essential to the establishment of the good in individual minds:

Aren’t these the reasons, Glaucon, that education in music and poetry is most important? First, because rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else, affecting it most strongly and bringing it grace, so that if someone is properly educated in music and poetry, it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite. Second, because anyone who has been properly educated in music and poetry will sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing and when it hasn’t been finely crafted or finely made by nature. And since he has the right distastes, he’ll praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and being nurtured by them, become fine and good. (Plato, 1992, p. 78)

Furthermore, Plato issues a warning against cultivating physical prowess at the expense of developing musical intelligence:




What about someone who works hard at physical training and eats well but never touches music or philosophy? . . . Doesn’t whatever love of learning he might have had in his soul soon become enfeebled, deaf, and blind, because he never tastes any learning or investigation or partakes of any discussion or any of the rest of music and poetry, to nurture or arouse it?

It does seem to be that way.

I believe that someone like that becomes a hater of reason and of music. He no longer makes any use of persuasion but bulls his way through every situation by force and savagery like a wild animal, living in ignorance and stupidity without either rhythm or grace. (Plato, 1992, p. 88)

This link between civilized behavior and music is supported by Confucius, who proposes that a true knowledge of music distinguishes beasts, common people and ‘superior’ men from one another:

All modulations of sound take their rise from the mind of man; and music is the intercommunication of them in their relations and differences. Hence, even beasts know sound, but not its modulations, and the masses of the common people know the modulations, but they do not know music. It is only the superior man who can (really) know music . . . Hence with him who does not know the sounds we cannot speak about the airs, and with him who does not know the airs we cannot speak about the music. The knowledge of music leads to the subtle springs that underlie the rules of ceremony. (K’ung-fu Tzu, 1885/2008, p. 57)

In defining what constitutes good music, Confucius holds that a beautiful music must have ‘a mag-nificent beginning.’ Furthermore, beautiful music should be ‘harmonious,’ ‘clear,’ and ‘smoothly continuous’ (Ji, 2008, p. 130). One is reminded of his praise of a performance of a famous Chinese classical music work: ‘From the time Music Master Zhi begins, to the closing strains of the ‘Cry of the Osprey’, how one’s ears are filled with a wondrous ocean of sound!’ (Confucius, 2003, p. 83). The Confucian concept of virtue, attained by creating a harmonious order through self-cultivation of discipline, deeply influences Asian musical aesthetics. Performing beautiful sounds on an instru-ment is believed to demonstrate personal virtue; developing artistic skill and sensibility is essential to becoming an ethical human being. Slingerland emphasizes that it is important to keep in mind that Yue (music) and Lo (joy) share the same ancient calligraphic symbol. The ‘Joyous rapture’ inspired by sublimely-beautiful music is one of Shan (the internal goods) of Confucian practice (Confucius, 2003, p. 68):

The blending together without any mutual injuriousness (of the sentiments and the airs on the different instruments) forms the essence of music; and the exhilaration of joy and the glow of affection are its business . . . Hence we have the saying, ‘Where there is music, there is joy.’ (K’ung-fu Tzu, 1885/2008, pp. 61, 67)

Moreover, the Confucian concept of joy involves a moral dimension in that it disciplines, regulates, and uplifts the mind:

Confucius said, ‘Beneficial types of joy number three, as do harmful types of joy. Taking joy in regulating yourself through the rites and music, in commending the excellence of others, or in possessing many worthy friends – these are the beneficial types of joy. Taking joy in arrogant behavior, idle amusements or decadent licentiousness – these are the harmful types of joys.’ (Confucius, 2003, p. 194)



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The concept of the deleterious quality of degenerate music is addressed by Confucius when he reprovingly decrees, ‘Prohibit the tunes of Zheng, and keep glib people at a distance – for the tunes of Zheng are licentious, and glib people are dangerous’ (Confucius, 2003, p. 179). In the Analects, Confucius remarks, ‘Surely when one says “Music, music”, it is not enough merely to mean bells and drums’ (Confucius, 1998, p. 145) finds later echoes in the remarks of Lu Pu-we, author of the ‘Spring and Fall’ poems, who disparages the vulgar, noisy music of the tyrants of Hsia and Yin:

They deemed the loud sounds of big drums, bells, stones, pipes and flutes beautiful and thought that mass effects were worthwhile. They aimed at new and strange timbres, at never-heard-of tones, at plays never seen before. They tried to outdo one another and overstepped the limits. (Sachs, 1943, p. 106)

Likewise, Plato warns against the dangerous consequences of improper music in his injunction against untrustworthy musicians:

They assert that music has no truth, and whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the pleasure of the hearer. And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious . . . they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness . . . (Plato, 1937, Vol. 2, pp. 474–475)

Confucian self-cultivation, self-discipline, and classical music

In many traditional Asian cultures, highly-prized works either exemplify or deviate only slightly from certain classic forms. Participation in Western classical music requires memorization of details of model compositions through disciplined practice and intense concentration; this offers opportunities not only to master technique but also to become imbued with the spirit of the music. Development of these skills by means of close contact with a private teacher (music master) coin-cides very well with Confucian scholarly tradition, which values music study as an indispensable way to train the mind. As has been demonstrated earlier, the apprentice style of learning art and music in China has a long pedigree. Many Asian cultures take a rigorous approach to skill acqui-sition, which involves vigorous parental reinforcement of a regular practice schedule. Most importantly, the art of self-cultivation through the application of self-discipline is valued and practiced in many Asian families. Weiming Tu (1996) writes:

Confucian ethics, instead of being primarily a social or group ethic, as it is often referred to, starts with self-cultivation, and works outward from a proper sense of self to the acceptance of reciprocal responsibilities with others . . . To the extent that these customary observances and consensual modes of conduct were traditionally nurtured in the family and the authority of the family continued to be upheld, Confucian values may have been sustained . . . But even so it may still not be adequate to think of this survival in the 20th century simply as a Confucian form of work ethic; it is only one manifestation of what is more truly a family ethic, ideally built on mutually supportive and emotionally satisfying personal relations. (pp. 33–34)

It is a welcome paradox that investigating ancient Chinese attitudes toward music may help to regenerate pride of purpose for Western music educators. Western classical music has been mar-ginalized by the contemporary entertainment industry as an esoteric genre for a privileged (and increasingly elderly) few. Music students, many with Asian cultural backgrounds, will be entrusted to resist this trend by maintaining Western art music as a living art form. A powerful source of strength in this endeavor is an awareness of the moral and ethical power attributed to




music by the ancients. Well-meaning music advocates attempt to justify music study as a way to enhance intellectual capacities in other subjects. Should music be advertised merely as a means to an end – as has been done with the ‘Mozart effect’? Pianist Yuja Wang, a recent graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, provides a response in an interview: ‘Music, in the Chinese mind, is the most sublime thing you can do’ (Lin, 2008, p. A-1). Music is valuable for itself alone, as a unique art form. When we ask ourselves why we continue to encourage students to make imperfect performances in an age of perfect digital recordings, the answer must be a viable aesthetic philosophy, which may draw from the ancients of both East and West. Unlike the material arts, music does not look back at something that is fixed and finished. It is by its nature a transitory art, coming alive only at the moment of performance. Requiring active participation in the here and now, music transcends mere culturally-determined production, and creates and recreates beauty every time it is interpreted and performed.

‘Music is a living thing, not a fixed medium – it is subject to how performers interpret it.’ This sentiment is not only a familiar homily of Western classical musicians; it is a principle of Chinese traditional music as expressed by Shi Tan, professor of the erhu (two-stringed Chinese violin), at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (personal interview, 12 January, 1998). He faces the same problems of reinvigorating and renewing a venerable musical tradition, whose works date back a thousand years. Here West and East do meet, for classical music of any culture exists as a reminder that the newest music is not necessarily the best or most relevant to contemporary times – it is merely the most recent form. European and Asian art music share the status of lovingly-cherished cultural traditions that have been kept alive only through the most exacting standards of profes-sional training and artistic commitment. If we as musicians contain the promise of music, what better way to keep that promise than to reinterpret the classics?

Claims of music’s emotional and spiritual benefits, beyond mere entertainment value, consti-tute an affinity between Confucian musical aesthetics and Western classical music. Our investiga-tion must go beyond simple assimilationist claims that Asian and Asian-American performers of Western art music are engaging in an exercise to gain status in Western-dominated global culture. Given the current equivocal status of Western classical music, there are easier and less time-consuming ways to integrate into Western cultural practices. Postcolonial cultural theories of the colonized internalizing and mimicking the cultural systems of the colonizer both essentialize and trivialize contributions to the art form made by classical musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Sarah Chang, Lang Lang, Tan Dun and Kent Nagano, to name but a few. Certainly, it is important to acknowledge that Confucian doctrine has influenced Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese in different ways. And yet, cultural distinctions aside, these East Asian countries share an intense commitment to Western classical music.

At the core, true passion for learning how to make music comes from the individual. The transcultural power of Western classical music is felt by many Asians and Asian-Americans who have become passionately devoted to an art form that is far removed in time and place from the ‘authentic’ music defined by their indigenous traditional cultures. World-renowned pianist Yundi Li was initially drawn to the piano as an accordion-playing child, by a chance encounter with a stranger practicing the gangqin (piano), instead of Confucius’s beloved guqin: ‘I had never heard a piano before . . . And this sound, with its rich range of color, was instantly very special for me. I hung outside the window for half an hour, drinking it in.’ Li has been appointed ‘image ambassa-dor’ for Super Boy – China’s equivalent of American Idol. ‘They want to hold me up as an exam-ple of what Chinese children can achieve, so I play for them, to show that the dream is not so far off . . . with talent and hard work, your dream can come true’ (Church, 2010, pp. 28–30).



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Let us conclude with one last tale about Confucius: ‘When the Master stayed in the state of Zi, he heard the music of Shao, and for three months after did not even notice the taste of meat’ (Yang, 2006, p. 89) – a significant effect in a nation devoted to the pleasures of the table! About Shao music he reflects, ‘I never imagined that music could be so sublime’ (Confucius, 2003, p. 68). Confucius attributes his particular love for this music to its qualities of ‘both a good connotation and an artistic beauty’ (Ji, 2008, p. 129). Implicit is the belief that the standard for good music is twofold: first, its value must be of sufficient merit; second, its beauty must be accessible to the senses. It is said that once, when Confucius played the guqin, a man who passed his house exclaimed, ‘This heart is full that so beats the sounding stone’ (Sachs, 1943, p. 106). Two and a half millennia later, we too as music educators should listen carefully to the sounds from within a human being’s heart that blossom into music.

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Hao Huang is Professor of Music and artist-in-residence at Scripps College, Claremont, CA, USA. As a four-time United States Information Agency Artistic Ambassador he garnered critical acclaim in 18 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. He was recently awarded a 2012 NEH Teaching Development Fellowship, ‘Bridging Cultures’, one of nine granted out of 218 applications nationally. In 2008, he was honored to be a Fulbright Scholar in Music and American Studies at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. Over the summers of 2007 and 2008 he has led music faculty delegations by invitation to Xiamen University, PRC. Huang has published articles in American Music Teacher, College Music Symposium, Clavier Magazine, Music Educators’ Journal (MENC), Music Teacher (London), Annual Review of Jazz Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal (UCLA), Chinese Music (North American Society for Chinese Music), Popular Music (Cambridge University), Popular Music and Society (NIU, Routledge Press), Art and Academe (School of the Visual Arts, NYC), National Federation of Music Clubs Magazine, and Asian Folklore Studies (Nanzan University, Nagoya). Dr. Huang authored 10 entries as a member of the international editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Music in the Twentieth Century, published by M. E. Sharpe (London) and has published a chapter, ‘The Oekku-Shadeh of Ohkay Owingeh’ in Voices from Four Directions (University of Nebraska Press).

Abstracts

Pourquoi les chinois jouent-ils de la musique classique occidentale: des racines transculturelles de la philosophie de la musique

Cet article se penche sur la relation complexe entre les valeurs confucéennes et l’enseignement de la musique en Asie de l’Est, portant une attention particulière à son histoire en Chine. Comment expliquer la ‘fièvre culturelle’ actuelle de la musique classique occidentale qui a infecté plus de 100 millions de pratiquants chinois? Nous soutenons que la musique classique occidentale a des liens transculturels avec les valeurs traditionnelles confucéennes de l’épanouissement artistique et la vertu, agissant aussi en tant que signe de la modernité et de la créativité individuelle. Le changement de paradigme qui s’est effectué par rapport au statut de Confucius dans la République populaire de Chine, entre conservateur pré-féodal méprisé et philosophe autochtone sanctionné par l’état pour sa résistance à la déstabilisation socioculturelle qui vient avec l’économie de marché, est abordé. Des changements au sein du parti communiste chinois par rapport à la musique classique occidentale sont discutés, où des condamnations des pratiques étrangères politiquement douteuses se transforment au fil du temps en soutien d’un art qui s’avère indispensable dans la formation des citoyens bien disciplinés de l’État-nation chinois moderne. Finalement, nous explorons des corrélations entre des philosophies de la musique orientales et occidentales et les apports de ces philosophies l’enseignement de la musique.




Warum Chinesen Westliche Klassische Musik Spielen: Transkulturelle Wurzeln in der Musikphilosophie

Dieses Papier wendet sich dem Thema der komplexen Beziehung zwischen konfuzianischen Werten und der Musikerziehung in Ostasien , im speziellen in Bezug zu der chinesischen Geschichte. Wie kann man sich das gegenwärtige ,,Kulturfieber‘ erklären, das über hundertmil-lionen praktizierende Chinesen angesteckt hat? Es wird vorgeschlagen, in der westlichen klas-sischen Musik eine transkulturelle Affinität zu den konfuzianischen traditionellen Werten künstlerischer geschickter Selbstkultivierung und Tugend zu finden, aber gleichzeitig als Künder der Moderne und individueller Kreativität zu agieren. Der Paradigmenwechsel, der auf den konfu-zianischen Status in der Volksrepublik China zutrifft wird diskutiert, vom verachteten, vorfeudalen, konservativen zum staatlich sanktionierten einheimischen Philosophen, der der Marktwirtschaft und der soziokulturellen Instabilität trotzt. Entsprechend den Veränderungen der Einstellungen der chinesischen kommunistischen Partei gegenüber der westlichen, klassischen Musik werden folgende Themen behandelt: Die Verurteilungen von verdächtigen fremdländischen kulturellen Praktiken und die gegenwärtige Befürwortung eines Kunstgebietes, welches dazu beiträgt disziplinierte, leis-tungsstarke Bürger einer modernen chinesischen Nation zu erziehen. Zusammenhänge zwischen östlicher und westlicher Musikphilosophie und deren Konsequenzen für die heutige Musikerziehung werden erforscht.

Por qué los chinos tocan música clásica occidental: Las raíces transculturales de la filosofía de la música

Este artículo analiza las complejas relaciones entre los valores confucianos y la educación musical en el lejano oriente, y en particular en su historia en China. ¿Cómo se comprende la actual ‘fiebre cultural’ de música clásica occidental que ha infectado a más de un millón de ejecutantes chinos? Se sugiere que la música clásica occidental encuentra afinidades transculturales con los valores tradicionales del confucianismo acerca del desarrollo personal artístico y la virtud, mientras actúa simultáneamente como un significante de modernidad y creatividad individual. Se analiza el cambio de paradigma que se aplica al estatus de Confucio en la República Popular China, desde el desprecio como conservadurismo pre-feudal a filosofía indígena oficialmente instituida de resist-encia a la desestabilización por la economía sociocultural de mercado. Se comentan cambios paralelos en las actitudes del Partido Comunista Chino hacia la música clásica occidental, desde condenas de prácticas culturales foráneas políticamente sospechosas a la actual defensa de una disciplina artística como aspecto integral de los disciplinadamente educados y eficientes ciudada-nos del moderno estado chino. Se exploran correlaciones entre las filosofías de la música orientales y occidentales, y sus implicaciones para la educación musical contemporánea.



Why Chinese people play Western classical music: Transcultural roots of music philosophy

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