Abstract:In the mid-seventeenth century, China entered its last dynastic heyday of economic prosperity and territorial expansion. This special period in Chinese history is called the High Qing, when China was ruled by three generation of Manchu Emperors. This was also a period of fast-growing Catholic expansion in the Far East. At that time, influenced greatly by Western missionaries, China saw a metamorphosis in its traditional thinking about the investigation of the natural world. In many fields, Western scientific endeavour made rapid progress in the High Qing. Western music, as a traditional European discipline, was for a time widely introduced into China in various theoretical and practical forms. On the one hand, skilled missionary musicians such as the Jesuit Tomás Pereira and the Lazarist Teodorico Pedrini joined with High Qing officials in fruitful collaboration to produce the first treatises on Western music theory in Chinese. On the other hand, performances by European musicians brought Western music to the court in such forms as instrumental sonatas, while a wider public particularly relished the sound of the organ. The spread of Western music in the High Qing widened Chinese intellectual thought and enriched imperial multiculturalism. However, the growing interest in Western music coincided and intertwined with a disastrous succession of imperial bans on the preaching of Christianity in the High Qing. This gave rise to a complex web of interactions between missionary musicians and Manchu Emperors, mixing intriguing anecdotes of exotic musics and complex personal relationships. This thesis attempts to explain how and why the twin phenomena happened during the two centuries. Moreover, it will examine this current of exuberant foreign music against the religious impact on Chinese society, grounding this on a balancing of diverse Chinese and European sources, and emphasizing that this was to some considerable extent a mutual exchange.--Source: Jesuitica.be website.

Local access dig.pdf. [Jia-Western Music High Qing.pdf]

During the reign of Kangxi (r. 1662-1722), the second Manchu emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Western music began to take root in the Manchu court. There is abundant evidence that the missionaries performed Western music before Kangxi and the emperor looked upon the Jesuits Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) and Tomas Pereira (1645-1708) as his music tutors. In 1713, Kangxi commissioned a treatise on music, Yuzhi Lülü Zhengyi (A True Doctrine of Music, by Imperial Authority), which was completed in 1714. Begun by Pereira but completed by the Italian Lazarist Paolo Felipe Teodorico Pedrini (c. 1670-1746), the third part of this musical treatise Xieyun duqu, is devoted exclusively to Western music theory. This treatise is the earliest official Chinese source concerning Western music theory.

Evidence that Western theoretical writings were included in Lülü Zhengyi raises an important question: why did Kangxi demand that Western music theory be incorporated within his imperial treatise? There are only a limited number of studies on Western music in the early Qing court, and this research fills in a serious lacuna. This study will argue that it is not simply due to Kangxi's open mind and fondness for European knowledge that leads to the incorporation of Western music theory in Lülü Zhengyi. Kangxi's goal was to use Western music as a tool to restore the lost Chinese ancient music.

The reign of Kangxi witnessed the elevation of Western music in the Qing court. After the reign of Kangxi, Western music continued to be performed at the court, however, its prestige diminished, and it served solely as entertainment for the emperors. Indeed, in Yongzheng's preface to Lülü yuanyuan (1723), Western music theory was regarded as that of the Western barbarian. Later, when Qianlong ordered the compilation of the sequel to Lülü Zhengyi in 1741, no Western music was included.

Local access dig.pdf. [Chiu-Music.pdf]

“The scope of this study is to illustrate the music and musical instruments sent as a gift in 1719 by Pope Clement XI to the Emperor of China: they included harpsichords, organs, automata, flutes, bowed and plucked string instruments, as well as their stringing. Various music scores were also brought to Beijing, but the only ones named together with their composer are the sonatas and concerti grossi by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), whose published collections are all present, from Op. I to Op. VI. This will be viewed against the background of conspicuous musical activities at Court carried out by the missionaries sent from Rome during the last years of the reign of Kangxi (1710-1722). An excursus on the positive organs sent to other oriental missions in the same period is also provided.”

Local access dig.pdf. [Barbieri-Musical instruments.pdf]