Category: Literature

I was searching for some rare recordings on YouTube and came across several performances of Chinese art songs.^[1] I grew up knowing these songs and had studied—both singing and playing—a few of them. Unfortunately, without a Chinese-speaking singer around me, I have not had the chance to introduce them to a new audience here in the States.

The majority of these works were written in the first half of the twentieth century at the dawn of modern China. Their musical and literary structures combine Western and traditional Chinese elements. They are among the best testaments of the vibrant creative spirit during a transitional, at times tumultuous, period of Chinese history.

On September 4, 1839, war broke out between Britain and the Qing Dynasty of China over the control of opium trade.^[2] After a series of battles which lasted for almost three years, the Chinese Imperial court was forced to sign the “Treaty of Nanking.”^[3] Among the terms, China agreed to the cession of Hong Kong. In the following decades, the Qing Dynasty continued to suffer blows from Western colonial powers as well as the newly risen Empire of Japan.^[4] More unequal treaties were signed, more territories lost.^[5]

Internally, these treaties weakened economic growth and caused political upheavals.^[6] While the general public suffered the consequences of these disruptions, the elites became aware of the power that propelled Western invasion. Beyond the guns and boats, there was knowledge of science and culture. There was a struggle to explore these new things while maintaining thousands of years of traditions.

Since the late sixteenth century, Western cultures were introduced in China as part of missionary work, first by Jesuits, and later, other branches of Christianity. During the second half of the nineteenth century, large numbers of Chinese emigrated to Western countries for better opportunities and, consequently, further increased the possibilities for cultural exchange.

By early twentieth century, piano playing and Western style of singing were practiced among the elites. Art song, a genre which explores the beauties of words and music, became a new vehicle for many creative minds. Similar to German Lieder, French mélodies and Italian songs, most Chinese art songs were written for solo voice with piano accompaniment. While the vocal lines bear the characteristics of traditional melodies, the harmonic structures follow the tonal practice of Western music. The singer and the pianist, as in Western tradition, are equal partners in delivering the expressions of the texts.

For thousands of years, there was not a unified spoken language in China. Regional dialects were not mutually intelligible. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, there were various attempts in creating a standardized language. Eventually, the court language—Mandarin—based on the Beijing dialect was chosen as the national tongue.^[7]

Diction of Chinese art songs is based on the phonological characters of Mandarin Chinese. There are four tones—pitches or levels of inflections—dark-level 陰平, light-level 陽平, rising上, departing 去.^[8] In the first two tones, the sounds stay leveled; in the third tone, the sound bends upwards; in the fourth tone, the sound drops. Ideally, the melodic contours should match the tonal inflections of the texts. Following the nature of the language, the melodic setting is mostly syllabic. Melismatic phrases are used mostly as rhetorical devices.

From the late Spring and Autumn Period (c. fifth century BC) to the first decade of the twentieth century, Classical Chinese 文言文 was the formal written language of Chinese literature and documents. A stylized language of precise grammar and vocabulary, it was distinguished from vernacular Chinese. Only highly educated people were able to comprehend and use this written language. During the 1910s, scholars and students led the “New Culture Movement,” revolting against Confucianism and feudalism. They promoted, instead, democracy, individuality, science education and vernacular literature. Beautifully written prose and free-formed poetry became the new norm. Some of these fashionable literary works were used as art songs texts, along with classical poems.

Collectively, Chinese art songs sounded the desires of a generation of Chinese artists to find a new voice. By combining Western and traditional elements, they created a genre which was not only uniquely Chinese but also uniquely of their time.

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^[1] Among the selections was a 1957 recital by bass-baritone Yi-Kwei Sze 斯義桂 in Taipei.
Yi-Kwei Sze & Nancy Lee Sze, Chinese songs_YouTube
^[2] First_Opium_War_Wiki
^[3] Treaty_of_Nanking_Wiki
^[4] First_Sino-Japanese_War_Wiki
Japanese colonization of Taiwan was part of the aftermath of the first Sino-Japanese War.
^[5] Unequal_treaty_Wiki
^[6] Between 1850 and 1864, there was the Taiping rebellion 太平天國, a Christianity-proclaimed Hakka-led revolutionary movement. Taiping_Rebellion_Wiki
In the 1880s, Sun Yat-sen began organizing revolutionary groups and uprisings against the Qing Imperial power.
^[7] Italian language went through a similar unification process. Although Tuscan dialect was used in many great literary works, it became the standard Italian only after the unification of the Italy in 1861. Even today, regional dialects are still used in informal communications.
^[8] The tonal system evolved throughout the history of the Chinese language. The phonology of Middle Chinese, in use from the Northern and Southern Dynasties 南北朝 of the late fourth century/early fifth century to Tang Dynasty 唐朝 (618-907 AD), was the root of the rhyming system in Chinese poetry, described in two important sources: Yunshu 韻書, and Yunjin 韻鏡. The four tones in Middle Chinese are “level 平,” “rising上,” “departing去,” and “entering入.” The fourth— “entering入,” stop consonance—does not exist in Mandarin but is common in many regional dialects.