Conference Agenda

In a specific genre of Chinese television period dramas set in ancient China, aliens are found, presenting a striking temporal disjuncture. This paper argues that music in modern China, particularly after the Cultural Revolution, exhibits precisely this temporal disjuncture in hybrid compositions that combine Chinese melodies with Western tonality, post-tonality, and instrumentation. Composed in 1992, Eternal Regrets at Lin’an is a concerto for Chinese zither guzheng and Western symphony orchestra, written by He Zhanhao of the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto (1958) fame. Like the latter work, Eternal Regrets also largely adopts Western tonality, but opens with a striking parallel diminished chord movement (F dim 7-F# dim 7) that immediately steps out of the B minor tonic, forming B-C-C# as an inner voice. I argue that this singular moment of dissonant disjuncture, that is not found in other musical materials in the work, sounds out precisely the temporal disjuncture of tradition and modernity, which is under-recognized in East Asian music studies. The extant research often reflects a unilinear conception of both historical and musical time, wherein tradition gives way to modernity, and musical time is conceived as an unbroken line (e.g. in “intercultural” musical studies premised on the work’s unity). Disputing that point of view, I argue that the temporal coexistence of tradition and modernity, long recognized by writers such as Chakrabarty (2000), results in temporal disjuncture. The modern opening parallel diminished chords in Eternal Regrets are not just tonally but temporally disjunct, in the historical sense, from the guzheng tune that was originally a song with lyrics, with multiple matchings of different versions of tunes and lyrics stretching back over a millennium to the Chinese Northern Song dynasty (960-1127 CE). This paper examines unresolved temporal, harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and structural contradictions in Eternal Regrets, intervening in the facile “interculturalism” assumed in musicological East Asian studies, as well as in scholarly dismissal of the twentieth-century tonal East Asian repertoire as anachronistic (“not yet modern enough”). I show how consideration of other cultures helps us to expand upon extant work in Western music and temporality (Berger 2007).

The 1937 manifesto Kokutai no Hongi dictated the modern national mission: “to build up a new Japanese culture by adopting and sublimating Western cultures with our national entity as the basis, and to contribute spontaneously to the advancement of world culture” (Hall, ed. 1949, 183). Encapsulating the paradoxical joint projects of Japanism and Westernization, the text essentializes a loyal citizenship in which modes of thought, everyday practice, and even the imagination embodies a “Japanese Spirit” that is fundamentally united with “the Way” of the Emperor. It critiques “abstract thought” as the peril of Western liberalism and extols instead, “concrete creation” as a Japanese artistic practice—a distinction also found in musical discourse, which claimed composition in the realm of “creation” [創造/sōzō] rather than the homonymic “imagination” [想像/sōzō]. Curious, then, that a large fraction of contemporary compositions was titled fantasies [幻想曲/gensō kyoku] and that some composers theorized fantasy as one of three compositional categories. Fantasy, to be clear, indexes a European art music category purporting a freedom of expression and fancifulness of thought that arguably lies antithetical to the warring nation’s heightened control over the imagination and indeed, fantasy. How was fantasy conceived as an appropriately “Japanese” music?

In this paper, I analyze Sōkichi Ozaki’s Phantasie und Fuge (1936) and the extensive Formenlehre penned by his teacher Saburō Moroi. Examined relative to the Kokutai and Alan Tansman’s theory of “the rhetoric of unspoken fascism,” I show how musical fantasy upholds an imperial philosophy of form as one explanation for the state support of musical fantasy production. My archival research shows how Japanese composer-theorists justified musical fantasy as concrete creation rather than abstract form, all the while romanticizing European tonality within debates on a “Japaneseness” of sound. Joining the conversation on German-Japanese musical relations and an anticolonial re-disciplining of comparative musicology, I ultimately propose that musical fantasy is both a fantasy of music and of the nation.

In her liner notes to her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Chinese-French pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei (born 1949) highlights the work's “cyclical character,” invoking the Taoist philosopher Laozi's saying, “The return is the movement of Tao.” She connects the piece to Chinese Taoist philosophy, underscoring the work's capacity to transcend cultural boundaries. This unusual interpretation is grounded in Zhu's extensive performances of the piece, which culminated in a 2014 recital at the Thomaskirche, establishing her as the first pianist to play at the site of Bach's burial.

Taking Zhu’s interpretation of the Goldberg Variations as a case study, this paper examines how her Taoist approach shapes her musical choices. The Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoism written by Laozi in the 4^th century BC, describes water as a natural force that, exemplifying the principle of wu-wei, flows with effortless efficiency and embodies virtues of calmness and spontaneity. Zhu acknowledges that her approach to the Goldberg Variations aligns with the water-like attributes of Taoist wu-wei, but how she embodies this philosophy in her performance remains unexplored. To address this gap, this study closely analyzes Zhu’s memoir, documentaries, and Thomaskirche recording to elucidate the influence of Taoist principles on her use of dynamics and ornamentation, suggesting that these elements are not just rhetorical choices but reveal how Zhu’s learning process and perception of the Variations as inherently Taoist enrich her performance.

Drawing on studies of Bach (Williams 2001; Fabian 2017) and of classical music performance (Neumann 1982; Mathew 2020; Bandy 2022), this paper argues that Zhu shapes her performance of the Goldberg Variations to convey specifically Taoist images and ideals, notably the metaphor of water’s flow, serenity, and spontaneity, and the concept of return as a transformational process. Although the sounds Zhu produces fit within the conventions of classical pianism, her words about her own aesthetic choices invite us to hear them as a Taoist’s engagement with Bach. This study seeks to illuminate the interplay between musical expression and spiritual beliefs, contributing to the scholarship on classical music performance practice within a global context.