Ru
EnFu Xiaojiao
Western European theory of music in the 18th century chinese treatise “Yuzhi Lülü Zheng Yi”
The article is devoted to the Western music theory in the Chinese treatise of the 18th century “Xu Bian”, which is the third volume of the well-known joint work of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors – “Yuzhi Lülü Zheng Yi”. The problematics of the article is focused around the reasons for the inclusion into the text of the treatise the information relating to the Western music theory, as well as the ways of interpreting it in the context of traditional Chinese classical music theory and philosophy. Western missionaries who served at the court of the Qing Dynasty became the main distributors of knowledge of the theoretical foundations of European music. The author emphasizes that the Kangxi Emperor himself showed great interest in Western musical culture, striving to adopt all the best that Western civilization has achieved, and also to make this knowledge extremely useful for national musical art. The article highlights the facts of the creation of the book, mentions the names of a group of scientists who were directly involved in the writing of “Yuzhi Lülü Zheng Yi”, as well as fragments of the translation of the original text of the treatise with scientific comments. The book contains information about notes, staves, rhythm, clefs, accidental signs, etc. The author notes that the graphic representation of a number of signs differs from the traditional European one, which is due to the difference in musical cultures and thinking patterns of China and the West. As a consequence, these symbols are being reinterpreted by the Chinese scholarly musicians of the Qing Dynasty. The author comes to the conclusion that although Western missionaries managed to spread the European musical theory at the court of the Qing emperors, it did not find wide application and remained practically mothballed in the treatises of the first third of the 18th century. To date, not a single Chinese piece from the Qing Dynasty of the “Golden Age” recorded with Western musical notation has been discovered.
Key words
treatise “Yuzhi Lülü Zheng Yi”, Chinese musical and theoretical treatises, Jesuit missionaries.
For citation
Fu Xiaojiao. Western European theory of music in the 18th century chinese treatise “Yuzhi Lülü Zheng Yi“ // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2023. No. 2. Pp. 43-49.
