Conceptualizing the Reception of the Western Musical Tradition: Philosophical Comparative Studies and Methodological Issues of Chinese Musicology

2019 International Conference on Religion, Culture and Art (ICRCA 2019) Conceptualizing the Reception of the Western Musical Tradition: Philosophical Comparative Studies and Methodological Issues of Chinese Musicology A.K.I. Zabulionite1,*, Tao Jiang1 and Shengxin Lu2 1Saint-Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia 2Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia *Corresponding Author Keywords: New Chinese music, musical form and content, hermeneutics of music, typology of music cultures, comparative music cultures, musicology and culturology. Abstract: Reception of the Western music tradition and a search for "harmonic synthesis" has invigorated comparative studies in Chinese musicology. Comparing the two traditions of musical art, Chinese researchers pay attention to a number of differences: the subject, the functions of music, the emotional impact on the listener and the musical language. However, the Chinese musical tradition in these studies is presented much more thoroughly than the Western one (its selected features remain unintelligible through its existential and ideological horizon), which has a limiting effect on comparative studies. This paper presents the main conceptual views of musical and aesthetic thought of the West on the issue of the relationship between the form and content of a musical work. It is noted that the meaningfulness of the musical form in Western thought can be understood not only in the aspect of the analysis of the language of music, but also in the metaphysical sense, which is fundamentally important in comparative studies. In order to reveal the inner connection of the musical form with the metaphysic of Western culture, the meaning of the Western idea of humanitas and the connection of man with the world are revealed. Special attention is paid to the dimension of the tragic/dramatic in the Western worldview. It is associated with the dynamic nature of Western civilization. The Chinese "harmonic attitude" and the Western "drama" are two fundamental types of the relationship between man and the world, which largely determine the characters of the two musical cultures. Prospects for the development of the methodological apparatus of musicology are seen in the interdisciplinary approach and the introduction of modern algorithms culturology in the field of musicology. Introduction In Chinese antiquity, ideas about the world-forming essence of music and its harmonizing effect on the surrounding world were recorded in written artifacts known as the "Five Classics" (Wujing). Since then, Chinese thinkers and various philosophical schools worked unceasingly on musical-theoretical systems, having created during the period of Spring and Autumn, 722 – 481 BC, a carefully developed holistic concept of "perfect" Guoyue music, designed to embody the greatness of the state and the power of the Published by CSP © 2019 the Authors 213 ruler, to perform regulatory and educational functions. Guoyue music reached the peak of its development during the Song (581 – 618) and Tang eras (618 – 907), but in later ages it gradually lost its sacral functions, becoming part of palace ceremonies. As is known, by the end of the 19th century, due to internal problems and the international context, Chinese civilization was forced to accept Western forms of culture. Describing this momentous turning point for Chinese civilization, Jin Zhaojun, chairman of the editorial board of the magazine People’s Music noted that the power of Western culture was largely connected with political and economic superiority: “China’s development lag since the times of modernity forced the country to accept both material forms of civilization and the culture of the West. Such a process of China’s consumption of Western culture over the years was unrequited.” [1] The turn toward Western music coincided with a number of particularly important historical, political and social changes. The Revolution of 1911 and renunciation of power by the last emperor opened the way for radical reforms. Chinese music, as Liu Zaisheng put it, "changed its form and melody" [2]. The times made new demands on traditional Chinese Guoyue music, which until then had been an elitist art, available only to the highest strata of society. It was supposed to become the music of the whole nation – folk music, accessible to the broad masses, expressing their feelings and uniting Chinese society. However, this did not mean the restoration of Guoyue in its old canonical form, but its development by means of expansion owing to a mastering of the advanced achievements of the Western musical tradition. The general policy in the renewal of the Chinese musical tradition was clear, but the means of its implementation in a professional environment gave rise to different ideas and discussions. Already in the 1920s and 1940s, one of the most discussed problems in mastering Western compositional techniques and principles of formation was the question of correlation of a musical work’s form and content: is the musical form internally related to national content, or is it autonomous? A number of famous theorists of the time advocated the idea of "universalization of musical art" (Xiao Youmei [3], Huang Zi [4], Chen Hong [5], etc.), which meant form autonomy. The well-known theorist Li Ling approached this issue more thoroughly and critically. He believed that lack of connection between the content and the form of a musical composition leads to the loss of its internal logic. The theoretical problem of the form-content correlation has been pervasive for more than a hundred years in comparative studies. Its various aspects brought to the foreground a clear direction for development – a dialogue of musical cultures. In this regard, well-known musicologist and theorist Yang Yinliu, in his work ‘Prospects for National Music and Its Research’ [6], noted that in the training of professional music specialists, their education should consist in an equal proportion of a study of national traditions and European musical achievements. Speaking about today’s comparative studies of music, we pay attention to the basic parameters by which Chinese researchers compare the two musical cultures in terms of theory and methodology. First of all, they note the thematic difference: Western music expresses the emotional world of a person, his personal thoughts and feelings, whereas Chinese classical Guoyue music, influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, expresses the unity and harmony of "man and nature" [7]. The interconnection between man and the world is also different: a western man as an autonomous being opposes the world (conflict of the subjective and objective) [7]. Chinese classical music in its essence is a reflection of the world in a person’s feelings, and it realizes the fusion of the subjective and the objective. Music has different emotional impacts on the listener: Western music is a means of transmitting the emotional state of the composer and performer, whereas Chinese classical music has an applied character – it focuses on harmonizing the public life of people, so Chinese classical musicians are calm and their works calm the listener [8]. There are also differences in musical language: the multidimensionality of western music (harmony, polyphony, the desire for completeness of musical color, three-dimensional thinking) and the single melody, the beauty of linear thinking of Chinese classical music [8]. Chinese musicologists compare not only musical forms, but also aesthetic thought. However, it should be noted that in these comparisons they pay great attention to the Chinese tradition, while Western 214 aesthetic thought is presented rather simplistically as a confrontation between two theories: “heteronomy” (according to which the beauty of the music predominates over form) and “autonomy” (the beauty of the music comes only from the very form of music, which emphasizes the content). At the same time, it is believed that the main achievements of Western musical-aesthetic thought of the 20th century are associated with the ideas of autonomy of form, and the study of the regularities of the structure of the art form is the main methodological breakthrough [9]. In fact, the theoretical thought of Western musicology is richer, and the question of the content of musical forms is more complex to formulate. In the framework of our review of musicological comparative studies, it seems that the Western musical tradition (both in comparison of the musical forms themselves and musical philosophical and aesthetic thought) is not sufficiently represented. Further analysis is required. It should also be noted that the methodological principles of comparative studies have not been sufficiently developed and there is no discussion of them. Turning to these issues, we will attempt to make a contribution to the development of comparative studies of the musical traditions of the two cultures. Methods of analysis of the content of musical forms: the musicological and the cultural-typological approach The question of the content of musical forms – one of the cross-cutting theoretical issues – in Western musical and aesthetic thought has a long history of discussion and is put in a somewhat different problematic context. Without presenting its history in detail, we note the most important moments and stages in its understanding that are relevant to the issue under discussion. The source of interest in this problem dates back to the aesthetic thought of the 18th century. After J. Mattheson’s ‘Der vollkommene Capellmeister’ and the detailed doctrine of the affections, based on the idea of the connection of specific expressive means of music (melody, rhythm, harmony, etc.) with certain feelings and emotions, the story of the discussion of the content and form of the musical work begins. The alternative of form and content from that time becomes the central theme and the main polemic of musical and aesthetic thought of the 19th and 20th centuries, involving the prominent theorists of their time: H.C. Koch, E.T.A. Hoffman, R. Schumann, A.B. Marx, A.W. Ambros, A. Halm, J.C. Lobe, H. Riemann, H.

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