Pilgrimage to the Temple: A Global Music Expo

Author: Fang Liping, Yu Qiujiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1997-11-01
Features: In human history, there is an interesting phenomenon: the passage of time often renders originally important people and events gradually insignificant, while conversely making originally unimportant things appear significant. Layer after layer of filtering, the final group of people who emerge in history is largely composed of artists. Back then, how could the powerful and wealthy officials have regarded these musicians, painters, poets, and scholars with any respect? But centuries later, in people's minds, that era is often named after the names of artists, and the nobles and officials are merely "contemporaries" of the great artists. Why does time omit so much of the heavy historical ink and show special favor to art? I believe this reveals some of humanity's ultimate pursuits. An early American statesman once left behind the following words: "We who ride on horseback in battle today are fighting so that our sons' generation may engage in science and philosophy, and so that our grandchildren's generation may pursue music and dance." His concept of legacy is, of course, a metaphor, conveying the humanistic goals in his heart.
Excerpt: The Glorious Past
When it comes to Western music, people usually trace its origins back to ancient Greece over two thousand years ago. There is no detailed record of earlier scenes, nor any clear archaeological discoveries. Therefore, despite the passage of ages and the changes in the world, the "living information" of the music itself from ancient Greece has not been passed down, yet people still regard the music of this little-known era as "a once-glorious and developed" period. In reality, based on the materials currently available, compared to ancient Chinese music, this "Greek obsession" in the history of Western music appears much less impressive. Generally speaking, musical instruments do not represent music itself. The famous line from Su Shi's "Poem on the Zither" in the Northern Song Dynasty, "If the zither has the sound of a zither, why doesn't it make a sound when placed in a case?" already makes this point very clear. However, the dozens of surviving fragments of ancient Greek musical scores written in an unfamiliar ancient alphabet cannot tell us much; the aesthetic discussions on music left by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece also offer little insight into the secrets of the music itself at that time. In contrast, the more verifiable and identifiable musical instruments can better show us some glimpses of ancient Greek music. Thus, we should take a look at two of the most important musical instruments in ancient Greek music: the lyre and the aulos.
The lyre is the most frequently mentioned musical instrument in ancient Greek literature. Take Greek mythology, for example; many gods and goddesses, such as Apollo, the sun god; the satyrs, forest deities; Amphion, the half-divine, half-human king of Thebes; and Orpheus, the singer of Thrace, often held it in their hands. There is a legend about the birth of the lyre: Hermes was born at dawn and left the Cavern of Curnae a few hours later. He killed a tortoise, strung ox hooves and sheep intestines onto its shell, and thus created the lyre. The sound of the lyre was so beautiful that later, when Hermes, this "musical instrument-making prodigy," stole a herd of cattle from his half-brother Apollo to sacrifice and was pursued by the wrathful sun god, Apollo himself was so captivated by the music of the "little thief's" lyre that he even made peace with him. Such legends may no longer hold much appeal for modern civilized people and prove nothing. However, from the perspective of Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher who, with his mathematical thinking and the view that "everything is number," conducted experiments on one-stringed instruments and discovered the pentatonic tuning law, (those familiar with ancient Chinese music will notice that this "pentatonic tuning law" is essentially the same as the "" invented by Guan Jian during the Spring and Autumn period in Qi, albeit through different means. The specific experiment is as follows: Starting from a pure tone, one raises the pitch by a pure fifth, then lowers it by a minor third, and so on.