The inaugural Golden Chimes International Composition Grand Prix is underway to solicit chime music works from musicians around the world. According to the plan, the award ceremony and premiere will be held on December 27 this year at Carnegie Hall in New York, USA. From excavation to music theory excavation to performance dissemination, generations of people have relayed for more than 40 years to make Zeng Houyi chimes, which have been sleeping for more than 2400 years, "come alive".
A set of chimes imitated by Li Youping retains its true color - golden bronze color. Photo by reporter He Xiaogang
Type out the first phrase, "It's amazing and shocking."
"The first phrase of "Dongfang Hong" was typed out by us, which was very wonderful and shocking." The 68-year-old Feng Guangsheng still remembers the exciting moment on August 1, 1978.
Less than 3 months after the zenghou yi chime was excavated from the drum pier in Suizhou, Hubei Province, the first performance was held in Suizhou, and Feng Guangsheng, who studied music, was one of the performers.
Feng Guangsheng said that the performance had a sense of historical crossover, and the audience could not believe that the music was played by instruments from more than 2400 years ago.
What Feng Guangsheng did not expect was that the second half of his life was associated with chimes. Even after retiring from his position as president of the Chimes Research Institute, he was still busy with chimes every day.
Back in May 1978, an archaeological team led by archaeologist Tan Weisi carried out excavations of the tomb of Marquis Zeng at Suizhou Drum Dun. It took the team two months to clear the fill. After the water was drained, everyone saw a black wooden pillar surface, followed by a pillar like a 3-story beam, and under the beam hung an ancient bell...
In 1978, Zeng Houyi chimes were excavated in a rehearsal. Dressed in black was Huang Xiangpeng, then director of the China Music Research Institute, and Feng Guangsheng was the one who rang the bell with a stick on his right. Profile photo.
At the age of 24, Feng Guangsheng was transferred from the cultural center in Gwanghwa County, Hubei Province (merged into Laohekou City in 1983) to the front line of the excavation of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. After graduating from the music department of Hubei Academy of Arts (the predecessor of Wuhan Conservatory of Music), he did not know that these bells were chimes.
After cleaning and testing, there are 64 pieces of Zenghouyi chimes, which are woven into 8 groups and hung on a 3-story bell frame, with a total weight of 2567 kg. The chimes were quickly restored and erected after they were unearthed.
Can the chimes still ring? What kind of sound will it make? How about a percussion method? Is it a simple ceremonial instrument or an instrument? What is the inscription on the chimes talking about? At that time, experts in bronze, ancient script, music, etc. from all over the country came, and all physical objects and written materials were open to experts.
There are more than 3700 inscriptions on the bell body, bell frame and wall clock components of Zeng Houyi's chimes, which can be called "performance instructions". Feng Guangsheng said with emotion: "This is simply a ready-made music system, more than 2100 years earlier than the piano known as the 'king of musical instruments' in the West." ”
The performance was held in an auditorium in Suizhou, and the opening piece was the most familiar "Oriental Red" of that era. To this end, Feng Guangsheng and several other performers rehearsed for several days.
In March 1992, a replica of Zeng Houyi's chimes represented the original for the first time to go abroad and be displayed in Japan. Participant Feng Guangsheng recalled: "In 50 days, 150,000 people came to the scene to listen to chime music. The maximum number of people in a day is 10,000 people, and the water is not clear. The charm of the chimes suddenly 'crosses' the borders. ”
"The research is not deep and thorough, we must pay close attention to it"
Professor Li Youping of Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
"Let the chimes continue to 'come alive'!" On March 10 this year, Li Youping, a 59-year-old professor at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, sniffed the smell of ink in front of a reporter from the Yangtze River Daily and unsealed the book "Chimes and Symphonies" that he had just received.
"Chimes and Symphonies" is the latest achievement of Li Youping's research on the creative transformation of chimes. As artistic director, he moved the "Chimes and Symphony Orchestra New Works Concert" affected by the epidemic to be recorded online and has this new book.
"In another 222 days, I'll retire. At that point, all my time will belong to chimes. Li Youping looks forward to having more time to focus on the inheritance, innovation and promotion of chimes after retirement.
When Tan Weisi was hospitalized before his death, he repeatedly wrote to Li Youping: "Our study of Zeng Houyi's chimes is not yet deep and thorough, and we must pay close attention to it." This made Li Youping feel that there was always a sense of urgency, and he even named his two grandsons living abroad "Zeng Houjia" and "Zeng Houyi" to remember his research tasks.
More than 40 years ago, after the chimes of Zeng Houyi were unearthed, Li Youping, who studied at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, began to pay attention to Huang Xiangpeng's research results. In 1997, he became the first doctoral student in Huang Xiangpeng's belt.
Born in 1927, Huang Xiangpeng devoted his life to the study of traditional Chinese music and chinese music history, and was the president of the Chinese Traditional Music Society.
"Research on the Standard Pitch of the Yellow Bell in the Song Dynasty" is the topic of Huang Xiangpeng's doctoral dissertation drafted for Li Youping. However, just a few days before Li Youping received the acceptance letter for doctoral students, Huang Xiangpeng unfortunately passed away. Later, Li Youping took the Northern Song Dynasty Dasheng chimes as the object as a breakthrough in research.
Da Sheng chimes were formulated during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, based on the pre-Qin period "Song Gong Peng" bell unearthed in the Song Dynasty. ZengHouyi chimes and Da Sheng chimes are both bronze chimes, similar in appearance, and can be played, and the main function of the latter is to set the tone as a standard rhythm.
For more than 20 years, Li Youping has found more than 30 Dasheng chimes from home and abroad. A few years ago, a collector in Harbin called and said that he had an ancestral Dasheng chime in his home. Li Youping immediately rushed to Harbin and saw this Dasheng chime, and for the first time saw the words "Shangjindu Monks and Gong bureau flowers" on this chime. This was when the government did something similar to the current census of cultural relics in the people, and the inscription was equivalent to giving an identity certificate.
Li Youping said that the Da Sheng chimes inherit the "soul" of the Zeng Hou yi chimes. Da Sheng chimes epitomize the actual level of research, manufacture and use of chimes by Scientists and Musicologists of the Song Dynasty, inheriting the shape of Zeng Houyi chimes.
Professor Li Youping copied a set of chimes. Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
In 2013, Li Youping took the Song Dynasty Nostalgia Music as the theme and presided over the design of the Da Sheng New Bell on the basis of the Da Sheng Chime. A set of 20 pieces of Dasheng New Clock is more in line with the audio aesthetics of contemporary society, reflects the authenticity of history, and can also be performed on the same stage with global musical instruments.
In 2017, the Song Dynasty Nostalgia Concert was held at the University of Michigan in the United States, and the golden Dasheng New Bell was a sensation, which well restored the Song Dynasty Gagaku.
The most ornamental piece in Li Youping's office is the chimes, and as the director of the Chinese Music Archaeology Research Center, he advocates that he can make a chime before graduating from the graduate school he brings. He also deliberately imitated a set of chimes in its true colors, which were golden bronze in appearance. He said that with the golden chimes, the Chinese sound played in Carnegie Hall on December 27 this year must be very special.
"Further discovery and deciphering, restoration of the Chinese orthography of chimes"
Lin Cuiqing, a professor in the Department of Musicology at the University of Michigan in the United States, believes that the chimes in the museum describe the "dumb music history", which cannot let people hear and see Zeng Guo's works and performances at that time, and it is not an ancient music cognition that is easy for contemporary musicians and listeners to understand and apply.
How to make the chimes restore the Chinese orthography? Many musicians began to recreate through the relevant literature.
Tan Jun, director of the Department of Chinese Instrumental Music at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, said: "So far, no remnants of ancient chimes music have been found, let alone sound left, and the performance of existing chime music is only our speculation and imagination of the ancient chime concept." ”
On the afternoon of March 10, Professor Tan Jun of Wuhan Conservatory of Music taught students the course of "Chimes and Ancient Music Performance". Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
"The information contained in the Zenghou Yi chimes still needs to be further discovered and deciphered in order to restore the Chinese orthography of the chimes." Tan Jun, whose hometown is in Badong County, Enshi Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei Province, has named his studio "Chu Ba Le Gong" and constantly draws nourishment from Ba Chu musical instruments.
Tan Jun, a professor at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, is lecturing on "Chimes ancient music performance". Photo by He Xiaogang, a reporter of the Yangtze River Daily
When more people paid attention to the restoration and development of the chimes, Tan Jun aimed his attention at the hammer of the chimes. "It is very difficult to restore the Chinese zhengyin to have a certain cultural heritage and to be accepted by contemporary people." After all, including music, the aesthetics of contemporary people are not the same as those of ancient people. However, for chimes, percussion instruments of different materials, different weights and different softness and hardness will have a significant impact on the timbre and sound quality of the percussion instrument. ”
In the 1990s, Tan Jun collaborated with the Acoustics Department of the 701st Research Institute of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation to take audio samples of chimes and then perform spectral analysis. After joint research, on the basis of the past wood materials, the hammer material has increased plastics, nylon and synthetic materials.
Solving the material problem of the hammer, Tan Jun quickly calculated that the weight ratio of the hammer to the chime was 0.5 kg: 40 kg. "Neither a big hammer strikes a bell nor a small mallet strikes a bell to get a good sound."
The hammer designed by Tan Jun has formed two shapes, "antique" and "special-shaped", with 5 styles such as T-shaped, round head, long stick, brush, and chopsticks. This brings the chimes to a new level. Previously, chimes could only be played by clicking and double-clicking, but now new techniques such as rolling, shaking, stroke, sweeping, compounding, playing, smouldering, and stopping are derived. These playing techniques quickly attracted the attention of the music industry. In the performance of the Hong Kong Handover Celebration Music "Symphony 1997: Heaven, Earth, Man" composed by the famous musician Tan Dun, Tan Jun played beautiful music on the original chime with various hammers, shocking the world. This performance is also the third time in history that the original chimes have been performed. "The original is purer than any replica." Tan Jun, who had been recording at the Hubei Provincial Museum for 12 hours, did not feel tired at all.
The small bell is ethereal, the Yong bell is round and full, the big bell is majestic... Tan Jun said that as the Yellow Bell Da lu and the right tone of the country, the chimes were not simply musical instruments, but also ceremonial instruments.
"This kind of music is only available in China, there is no reason not to love it"
The Chutiantai of Wuhan's East Lake Moshan Scenic Area is famous for performing chimes and dances, which was planned and designed by musician Jiang Langtou. In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2021, Wang Xiaoyang, a "post-90s" young man from his hometown in Henan, took the stage and listened to "Qin Wang's Broken Array Music" several times in a row, unwilling to leave, and also asked to touch the chimes.
Chimes Ancient Orchestra player Qi Xuexi learned that the young man in front of him was visually impaired, and specially helped him to touch the chimes.
The chime music that excited Wang Xiaoyang came from the hands of Tan Jun, a disciple of Jiang Lang Toad, and Qi Xueqian, who helped him stroke the chimes, was Tan Jun's student. "At the peak, thousands of people come every day to enjoy the chimes. 6 performances per day, each 15 minutes long. The chimes rehearsal was also guided by Teacher Tan. ”
Chu Tiantai also added traditional Chinese instruments such as flutes and flutes to the chimes, integrating chimes with national orchestral music. This point was fully reflected in Tan Jun's "Nine Days of Bell Ringing" composed by Tan Jun for the closing ceremony of the Seventh World Military Games. In "Nine Days of Bell Ringing", Tan Jun integrated chimes with drumming music, selected the jian drums and war drums with the characteristics of Chinese ritual music and at the same time have the temperament of soldiers, as well as more than 20 kinds of ancient Chinese musical instruments such as sheng, pipe, chi, and gong, organically combining the colorful Jiangnan "jasmine" and Jingchu "eight tones", showing the magnificent scene of Yangyang Huaxia.
With the advancement of science and technology, chimes have "created" new heights. In February 2017, the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, the Hubei Provincial Museum, and a musical instrument company in Yantai, Shandong Province, released a new type of chime , a traditional percussion instrument chime " transformed " into an ordinary instrument with a keyboard as an interface , which can be played by piano and electronic keyboard players. Some people believe that due to the pianoization of chimes, It is entirely possible for Chinese chimes to enter concert halls, churches and conservatories in major cities around the world. The sound of chimes entering ordinary homes like a piano spread quickly.
Li Youping said that traditional chimes require four or five people to play, and now one person can complete it. "It is conceivable that a person can perform in a caravan instead of having to carry heavy chimes as in the past, which is time-consuming and laborious."
Since 2000, the course "Chimes and Ancient Music Performance" has been introduced into the classroom of Wuhan Conservatory of Music. In the past 22 years, the number of students attending the lectures has increased from more than 10 at the beginning to 307 this year. Tan Jun, the main speaker of the course, said that liturgy and music are symmetrical, and what kind of music is played. In ancient times, learning music was not a craft, but to educate human nature through art.
At 1:45 p.m. on March 10 this year, after listening to a 90-minute "Chimes ancient music performance" class in the Folk Music Hall of the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, Wang Chunyi from the bamboo flute major and Zhou Zijing from the Yangqin major played the chimes for the first time. "This kind of music is only available in China, and there is no reason not to love it." Wang Chunyi and Zhou Zijing expressed their common feelings.
(Yang Jiafeng, chief reporter of Yangtze River Daily)
【Editor: Wang Yujin】
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