The same obstacles exist to-day against change in the music of the Chinese, as in the days of Kang-hi.
This emperor, in his later days added to the long list of his musical efforts, a volume treating of dances, and also a collection of the most celebrated ancient songs. The missionary who mentions this latter work,[104] assures us that he dares not translate it, lest he should be accused of placing the sentiments of the most noble psalms in the mouth of the Chinese.
During Kang-hi’s reign the flute became quite fashionable in China, the people becoming infatuated with it; Kang-hi himself became proficient in its use, but on finding, later, that he had not benefited himself in any way by its use he gave up the practice.
Young-tching, his successor, published new rules for music and assigned a special music in honor of agriculture and husbandry, which was to be performed each year. He did not take to the Jesuits as kindly as his predecessor, for from A. D. 1724 to 1732 he was busily engaged in expelling them from China.
Khian-long, his son, succeeded him in 1736. There is nothing remarkable in the history of Chinese music from his day to the present time.
Lord Macartney’s embassy (1793) took place during the long reign of this emperor. Many persons were attracted to the embassy’s rooms by the European band which each evening gave a concert. Among the most assiduous of these visitors was the chief of the emperor’s orchestra; charmed with the sound of some of their instruments, yet absolutely refusing to accept of them as a present, he sent several painters to take designs of them on paper. These artists laid clarinets, flutes, bassoons, etc., on immense sheets of paper, on which they traced the exact shape and size of each, while underneath they wrote remarks giving the exact dimensions of each aperture, valve and tube.
The chief announced his determination of making similar instruments from these models, but in different proportions, which he proposed to fix for himself. The result of the experiment is unknown.
The later emperors have all had long reigns, and left music in status quo, the last emperor Hien-fung being only remarkable for his constant drunkenness. Let us now examine more minutely the order of music which has inspired such disgust to European ears, and such rapture to the Chinese from the earliest ages down to the present time.
CHAPTER XII.
CHINESE MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
The Chinese have from the very earliest times divided musical sounds into eight classes, and imagined that in order to produce them, nature had formed eight kinds of sonorous bodies. They divided them as follows:—