Reviewing the Musical Art in a Century of Vicissitudes—Reading “One Hundred Years of Chinese Music History (1900~2000)”

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 53-58
Author(s):  
瑶 苏
1994 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-188
Author(s):  
Joseph S. C. Lam

‘There is no music in Chinese music history.’ This paradox is often expressed by music scholars in Hong Kong, a modern metropolis in which Chinese and Western musics and music scholarship mingle and thrive. Highlighting the contrasts between traditional Chinese and contemporary Western views of music and music historiography, the paradox refers to the scholars' observation that Chinese music histories include few descriptions of actual music, and that performances of early Chinese music are often inauthentic. Published accounts of China's musical past include little hard evidence about the structure and sounds of specific musical works. Thus, the scholars argue, the accounts are more theoretical than factual, and their musical descriptions disputable. Public performances and recorded examples of early Chinese music reveal obvious use of Western tonal harmony and counterpoint, and thus cannot be authentic music from China of the past. The scholars' arguments, however, cannot refute that in Hong Kong many Chinese music masters and audiences find the so-called early Chinese music authentic and its histories credible.


2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Suzanne Marie Francis

By the time of his death in 1827, the image of Beethoven as we recognise him today was firmly fixed in the minds of his contemporaries, and the career of Liszt was beginning to flower into that of the virtuosic performer he would be recognised as by the end of the 1830s. By analysing the seminal artwork Liszt at the Piano of 1840 by Josef Danhauser, we can see how a seemingly unremarkable head-and-shoulders bust of Beethoven in fact holds the key to unlocking the layers of commentary on both Liszt and Beethoven beneath the surface of the image. Taking the analysis by Alessandra Comini as a starting point, this paper will look deeper into the subtle connections discernible between the protagonists of the picture. These reveal how the collective identities of the artist and his painted assembly contribute directly to Beethoven’s already iconic status within music history around 1840 and reflect the reception of Liszt at this time. Set against the background of Romanticism predominant in the social and cultural contexts of the mid 1800s, it becomes apparent that it is no longer enough to look at a picture of a composer or performer in isolation to understand its impact on the construction of an overall identity. Each image must be viewed in relation to those that preceded and came after it to gain the maximum benefit from what it can tell us.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Steven Vande Moortele

This analytical vignette explores the internal formal organization of the subordinate theme in the first movement of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, D. 759 (1822). Drawing both on Hepokoski and Darcy's sonata theory and on Caplin's theory of formal functions, it shows how the entire theme can be understood as a single large-scale sentence. It is further argued that the theme's specific formal organization, as well as the extent to which it does or does not open up to theories originally designed for the analysis of music from the classical era, is characteristic of works from this period in music history.


Author(s):  
Travis D. Stimeling

Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first history of record production during country music’s so-called Nashville Sound era. This period of country music history produced some of the genre’s most celebrated recording artists, including Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Floyd Cramer, and marked the establishment of a recording industry that has come to define Nashville in the national and international consciousness. Yet, despite country music’s overwhelming popularity during this period and the continued legacy of the studios that were built in Nashville during the 1950s and 1960s, little attention has been given to the ways in which recording engineers, session musicians, and record producers shaped the sounds of country music during the time. Drawing upon a rich array of previously unexplored primary sources, Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first book to take a global view of record production in Nashville during the three decades that the city’s musicians established the city as the leading center for the production and distribution of country music.


Author(s):  
Dennis Ping-Cheng Wang

This chapter outlines the historical background and current development of music education assessment in China. Following the revision of the national curriculum guidelines in 2011, the chapter analyzes (1) the value of the national standards at different school levels, (2) how the national standards affect teachers and schools, and (3) how much the teachers read/follow the guidelines in China. This chapter investigates and examines how assessment policy and practice are used in Chinese music classrooms from elementary, middle, and high schools. Furthermore, it discusses how local music teachers assess their music students and the effectiveness of the national curriculum guidelines used in music classes. The author determines that the current practice of music assessment at all school levels in China is too basic and not diversified. Designing a valid assessment that allows students at all levels to demonstrate their learning outcomes seems to be necessary for music education in China.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wing-Wah Law ◽  
Wai-Chung Ho

This article critically examines how interactions between social changes, social harmony, and historical memory shape school music education in China. As a historical review and documentary analysis, it traces the historical development of music education and examines the Chinese government's role in such interactions over time. The article argues that the Chinese government uses music and music education as an influential nation-building system to enrich the politics of memory. In particular, it adapts the nation's past for political ends, and passes on state-prescribed values to its citizens with a view to legitimising its power. The dynamics and dilemmas that challenge school education result from two divergent aims: (1) to combine the functional education of Confucianism and nationalism so as to encourage social harmony and maintain national myths; and (2) to encourage popular and other world music with traditional Chinese music by using multicultural teaching strategies in music lessons. The question remains how to balance ideas of social harmony, musical cultures and nationalism in school music education in the contexts of current Chinese education policies, teacher education and the globally oriented economics of China today.


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