Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China: Abing, His Music, and Its Changing Meanings (Eastman Studies in Music) Review

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(More customer reviews)This work is a combination of the anthropological and historical study of Chinese society and the musicological analysis of Chinese music. Abing was a key Chinese traditional musician who lived in the city of Wuxi from the 1890s to 1950. Initially a Daoist priest, Abing went blind and became a street musician. It was in this guise that he was recorded by a visiting team of musicologists in 1950. (Recordings from that session are on the CD with this book.)
His music, which analysis shows to have been improvisatory in nature, was then taken up by players of erhu (two-stringed fiddle) and pipa (four-stringed lute) in the Chinese music conservatories. In this process the music became fixed in notation and turned into set compositions to be performed in concert-style renditions, often arranged with the accompaniment of other instruments. Meanwhile, the details of Abing's life have been reinvented several times by the cultural establishment, and he became (after his death) variously a hero of the downtrodden masses, an outspoken class revolutionary, a romantically inspired composer (like Beethoven).
In short, the book shows how one echelon of Chinese musical culture was transformed in the twentieth century, on the one hand by imported Western musical ideas (the composer, the piece), and on the other by the social and political currents of the day.
As a contribution to ethnomusicology, it argues for a greater attention to the analysis of music as a means of unlocking historical clues. It is also one of the first books to fully apply the cross-cultural perspectives of ethnomusicology to Chinese music. (Of course, I have to choose 5 stars!)

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This work examines the multiple and conflicting interpretations created around the life and music of the blind folk musician Abing (1893-1950). Abing is a household name in China, but despite the central place he holds in Chinese music, he is little known, and his music rarely heard, abroad. This detailed study of Abing, and the accompanying CD compilation of his most well-known works, reveal much both about this unjustly neglected composer, and about the recreation of traditional music in contemporary China. Particular attention is given to the problematic category of the musical `work' in a tradition which relies heavily on improvisation and creative reworking of material; Abing's music has also taken strikingly different shapes since his death, notably in arrangements, some involving Western instruments, which have adapted his music to changing tastes and ideological trends, both in mainland China, and in Taiwan and overseas.Dr JONATHAN P.J. STOCK is Lecturer in Music at the University of Durham. Contains audio CD

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