At the same time that European composers were producing vivid programmatic works, a parallel tradition of program music was flourishing in China. We will consider two examples from the literature for solo instruments, which is predominantly programmatic. One piece will portray a historical battle, while the other will reflect on the contents of a famous poem. Although Chinese music follows different rules than European music, is it not difficult for a Western listener to understand what this music is about. This is due both to the use of mimesis and to a cross-cultural agreement about the representation of calm and energetic moods in sound. 

When we discuss this music, however, we will have to do so in slightly different terms than we have so far. Although Chinese musicians have developed a variety of notational systems that have allowed musical compositions to be preserved, they have not always prioritized notation or valued the authority of the composer. Individual pieces are usually passed down directly from performer to performer by means of oral tradition, while the names of composers are seldom recorded. As a result, we are not always able to identify the authors of this repertoire or determine when the pieces were written. 

The history of music in China extends back for thousands of years, and some of the instruments date to antiquity. This is not to say, however, that the music has remained unchanged, or that all of the repertoire items are old. As we saw in Chapter 4, Beijing opera dates only to the late 18th century, and alternative opera traditions have continued to emerge and change. In the sphere of instrumental music, the use of individual instruments—as well as their physical structure—transformed with the passage of time. We will encounter two instruments, the pipa and the guqin. In doing so, we will consider their history, construction, and use in the performance of program music.

Pipa: Attack on All Sides

The pipa is a type of lute used in a variety of Chinese musical traditions. It dates back to at least the 3rd century, although it did not acquire its modern form until the 20th century. Like most of the instruments commonly used in Chinese music, the pipa was probably imported from Central Asia or India along the Silk Road trade route. At first, it was used only to accompany singing and dancing, but during the Tang dynasty (618-907) a repertoire of solo pipa music emerged. As such, the pipa repertoire is among the oldest in the Chinese tradition. The instrument was historically favored by both aristocrats and working musicians, and was long associated with women—specifically, courtesans. 

The pipa has a distinctive, pear-shaped body and is played in an upright position. Modern instruments have twenty-four frets spaced according to the Western chromatic scale. The frets on the neck have a unique wedge shape, such that a player’s finger does not in fact touch the neck when the string is depressed. The pipa’s four strings can be tuned to a variety of pitches. Although they used to be silk, the fact that pipa strings have been manufactured out of steel since the 1950s gives the modern instrument a powerful sound. This is further accentuated by the fact that the player wears picks on the fingers of her right hand.

A great deal of the traditional pipa repertoire has survived into the present day due to the publication of four collections in the 19th century. The notation used in these collections, known as gongche, is completely unrelated to Western staff notation. Instead of mapping pitches and rhythms onto a graph, as staff notation does, it represents pitches with numbers and rhythms with dots and lines. In the context of a tradition that is primarily aural, however, such notation was used only to document music for preservation or reference. It was not used to learn unfamiliar music or in performance. 

Attack on All Sides is the most popular piece in the pipa repertoire. It is also very difficult, however, and is usually only performed by the most accomplished players. The earliest notated version appears in an 1818 collection, but it is impossible to say when (or by whom) it was in fact composed. Attack on All Sides is an example of a “large” composition, containing many distinct sections. (The pipa repertoire also includes “small” compositions, which are shorter and have a single section.) While Attack on All Sides can always be recognized and identified, some published versions omit sections that are included elsewhere. Therefore, not every performance is identical. No single version can be identified as “correct.” This can be contrasted with most music in the European concert tradition, for which there is generally understood to exist a single authoritative version. 

As with Beijing opera, pipa solos are divided into “civil” and “martial,” the latter having to do with military themes. Attack on All Sides is most certainly a martial composition. It portrays a famous battle that took place in 202 BC between the armies of two Chinese provinces, Western Chu and Han, who were fighting for dominion over China. The conflict ended with the Battle of Gaixia, in which the Han troops kidnapped the Chu general’s wife and used her to lure the enemy troops into a canyon. There, they fell victim to the “ambush from ten sides”—another common title for this piece. The battle itself hinged on musical warfare, for the Han sought to defeat their enemy by psychological means. To this end, they sang Chu folk songs throughout the night, with the effect of making the demoralized enemy homesick and inspiring soldiers to desert. The Chu general, Xiang Yu, is said to have composed a song of his own that same night. His lament, The Song of Gaixia, is still performed today. Tradition holds that he first sang the verses in alternation with his wife, who, feeling that she was at fault for the defeat, subsequently killed herself with his sword. The battle ended with Xiang Yu’s suicide on the banks of the Wu river. 

All of this is captured in Attack on All Sides. The fact that this composition is made up of many sections allows the performer to explore the various emotions and activities of the battle scene. In the first sections, we bear witness to the assembling Han troops. The energy of the music communicates their vitality and resolution, but we also hear the drums and bugles of battle. The battle itself is captured by a variety of virtuosic pipa techniques that produce rapid sequences of notes. After the battle, however, the music becomes mournful—a reflection of Xiang Yu’s sorrow at his loss. The final word goes to the victor, however, and the piece concludes with a representation of the Han general’s triumph. 

Guzheng: Peng Xiuwen, Spring River in the Flower Moon Night 

The oldest extant guzheng dates to about 500 BC. The guzheng is a type of zither, and its plucked strings run along the face of a resonant wood box. Each string passes over an individual wooden bridge, which can be moved to adjust the pitch. Players use picks on the fingers of the right hand to pluck the strings to one side of the bridges, while using the left hand either to pluck strings on the right-hand side or to press or pull the strings on the other side. This causes pitch fluxuations, which are carefully controlled and used to ornament the melody. As with the pipa, the strings of the guzheng, once silk, have been made of steel since the 1950s. They increased in number from thirteen to twenty-one around the same time. The strings are tuned to the pitches of the pentatonic scale, which is common in Chinese music. We might think of these as the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth notes of the major scale. 

Because the modern guzheng is so different from the ancient instrument, performers tend to favor recently-composed pieces that make use of its full range. Such is the case with our example, Spring River in the Flower Moon Night, which is the work of Peng Xiuwen (1931-1996). Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Peng became a leading figure in the development of post-revolution Chinese music. In particular, he contributed to the development of the Chinese orchestra—an ensemble type that dates only to the 1930s. In most traditional forms of Chinese ensemble music, only one of each instrument is included, and the performers are granted the freedom to embellish their individual parts. In a Chinese orchestra, on the other hand, instruments of the same type are gathered into sections, and they use notated music to play in unison under the leadership of a conductor. This approach is obviously modelled on the European orchestra, and its popularity at first reflected Chinese admiration for Western technological achievements. 

Peng became director of the China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra, one of the most important ensembles of its type, in 1956, when he was only twenty-four years old. In addition to improving the tuning and balance of the orchestra, he arranged a large number of pieces from the European repertoire for Chinese orchestra and composed original pieces. One of these was Spring River in the Flower Moon Night, which soon became even more popular with solo guzheng players. As we will see, its pentatonic pitch content and meditative mood suit the instrument well. 

The title Spring River in the Flower Moon Night refers to a famous poem written by Zhang Ruoxu around the turn of the 8th century. The poem has inspired countless artistic interpretations over the centuries, including paintings and musical compositions. As the title might suggest, Zhang’s poem describes the moonlit Yangtze river. After several evocative passages that conjure the beauty of the scene, however, he turns to themes of longing and loss, meditating on the ephemerality of life and the sorrows of travelers who leave their loved ones behind. 

In his composition, Peng strives to evoke the full range of emotions contained in the poem. The guzheng version of Spring River in the Flower Moon Night requires a variety of techniques, including rapid tremolo picking on a single string, strums (both delicate and energetic), left-hand bends that add notes to the melody, and left-hand bends that are merely ornamental. Peng’s ultimate goal is to leave the listener in the same state of sorrowful tranquility that they would experience upon reading the poem.