Chinese orchestra
The term Chinese orchestra is most commonly used to refer to the modern Chinese orchestra that is found in China and various overseas Chinese communities. This modern Chinese orchestra first developed out of Jiangnan sizhu ensemble in the 1920s into a form that is based on the structure and principles of a Western symphony orchestra but using Chinese instruments. The orchestra is divided into four sections – wind, plucked strings, bowed strings, and percussion, and usually performs modernized traditional music called guoyue. The orchestra may be referred to as Minzu Yuetuan or Minyuetuan in mainland China, Chung Ngok Tuen in Hong Kong, Huayuetuan in Southeast Asia, or Guoyuetuan in Taiwan.
The term modern Chinese orchestra is sometimes used to distinguish the current form from ancient Chinese orchestras that existed since the Shang dynasty and was used in royal courts and later during Confucian ceremonies.
Ancient Chinese orchestra
Archaeological findings suggest that ancient China had a highly developed and sophisticated music culture. Music was an important element in traditional ritualistic ceremonies during the Shang dynasty, and it reached one of its peaks during the Zhou dynasty. The ancient orchestra of the Zhou dynasty played a form of ceremonial music known as yayue.It featured a great abundance of percussion instruments. There were also several wind instruments, but only a few zither-type string instruments were used. All the bowed string instruments and many plucked string instruments first came to China from Central Asia after the Han dynasty.
The Six Dynasties era following the collapse of the Han dynasty saw a wave of musical influence from Central Asia, and Central Asian Music became very popular during the Sui-Tang dynasty period. The Tang period was a very important epoch in the evolution of Chinese music, and court banquet music called yanyue was the dominant form of music during this era. The number of orchestras in the Tang court may reach ten, each playing a different form of music including yanyue, qingyue, and music of other places such as Kucha, Kashgar, Samarkand, Korea and India. The Tang imperial court also had a large outdoor band of nearly 1,200 performers. Chinese music then continued to evolve during the Song dynasty with major development in yayue, and a yayue orchestra in this period may have over 200 instrumentalists.
Aside from the orchestras found in the court, musical ensembles, for example those in the sizhu and nanguan tradition, were also found among the general population to provide popular entertainment, and religious groupings may perform music in festivals and other religious settings.
Traditional Chinese musical instruments were classified into eight groups according to their materials: gourd, earthenware, hide, wood, stone, bronze, silk and bamboo. It is said that there were more than 70 different musical instruments, but many of them have been lost or are obsolete today.
Modern Chinese orchestra
The modern large Chinese orchestra is a 20th-century development and is based on the Western symphony orchestra, but uses Chinese instruments in place of Western instruments. It also emulates the Western orchestra in terms of the seating position of its musicians and composition techniques. The music produced by the Chinese orchestra however is unique and very distinct from any Western counterpart. Such orchestras usually perform Chinese orchestral music called guoyue or minyue, although its repertoire may occasionally include adaptations of Western orchestral pieces or music originally composed for Western instruments.Origin and development
In the early 20th century a number of Chinese musicians became interested in improving traditional Chinese music. While some such as Xiao Youmei, Yuen Ren Chao and He Luting promoted Western music, others defended traditional Chinese and worked to improve it. After the president of Peking University, Cai Yuanpei, proposed using the best of the Western musical tradition to compensate for the perceived weaknesses in Chinese music, the Peking University Music Society was formed in 1919. The interest in improving traditional Chinese music along Western model led to a number of music club and ensembles being formed in various cities. An early pioneer was Zheng Jinwen who founded a music institution in Shanghai in 1921, the Great Unity Music Society, to develop and maintain Chinese music in the modern age, recreating ancient music and instruments as well as creating new ensemble music for Chinese instruments. Zheng experimented with increasing the number of player in a Jiangnan sizhu ensemble to 35, and separated the instruments into different sections. He began to standardize the instruments, for example inventing methods to resolve the problem of traditional instruments such as dizi where the fundamental tuning for various instruments may be different. He also updated traditional instruments such as the sheng by increasing the number of pipes to increase its range and allow it to play harmony and chords. In the past, each player would embellish their parts at will, but in this new orchestra, Zheng wrote specific music for each instrument or sections. An early signature tune of the music club was "Spring Flowers on Moonlit River", arranged for the ensemble by Liu Yaozhang in 1925 based on an older tune for pipa.Another important figure of this period was Liu Tianhua who also formed a sizhu ensemble as part of the activity of the Society for Improving National Music he established at Peking University in 1927, and a periodical, the Music Magazine, was founded. Breaking from a tradition where each part is played by only one player, he formed an ensemble where more than one player may play a part. He made changes to traditional instruments such as huqin and wrote music for it, turning a folk instrument into one suitable for concert performance. Liu also wrote for the ensemble and expanded on traditional musical notation so it may be used for an orchestra, specifying ornamentation details and tempo and the use of particular instruments in specific sections.
In 1935, a music ensemble was formed at the Broadcasting Company of China in Nanjing for the broadcasting of traditional Chinese music. Due to the Sino-Japanese war, the ensemble later moved to Chongqing, where it held its first public performance in 1942. The ensemble also held classes, and it quickly expanded. In order to increase the pitch range, extra instruments were invented and added to the ensemble, such as the middle-to-low range zhonghu, dahu, dihu. An eleven-hole dizi called xindi that can produce a complete chromatic scale was also invented. It became known as the BCC Chinese Orchestra, which is considered to be the first Chinese orchestra formed. The orchestra was organized along the line of a Western orchestra into a form that is recognizable today, with a conductor, full scores for musicians, and four sections – wind, plucked strings, bowed strings, and percussion. The plucked string section is unique to Chinese orchestra due to the large number of traditional Chinese lute-type instruments. The orchestra moved to Taiwan after the Communist victory in 1949.
A number of folk ensembles were established in the 1950s in the PRC, the first of these was the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. In 1953, the PRC government established a Chinese orchestra for the broadcast of Chinese music, the 35-member Central Broadcasting Station Orchestra in Beijing, which included some former members of the BCC Chinese Orchestra and is based on the earlier orchestras but with further changes. The tuning of the instruments was shifted to the equal-tempered tuning system, improvements were made to instruments, and further various newly created instruments based on traditional instruments, such as gehu, daruan, zhongsheng, were added to enhance the sound and range of the orchestra. Traditional pieces, as well as regional ensemble music were rearranged for a large orchestra. Peng Xiuwen, who became the conductor of the orchestra in 1956, adapted many pieces for the orchestra. Another significant orchestra was the Vanguard Chinese Folk Orchestra that added instruments such as liuqin, zhuihu, datongsheng, disuona, yunluo and paigu. By the 1960s, a largely standardized and modernized form of Chinese orchestra had emerged, although experimentation with the orchestra, compositions and instruments used continues to the present day.
The modern Chinese orchestra has since become a cultural institution in China as well as Chinese communities outside of mainland China. Amateur Chinese orchestras are commonly found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia where they may be organized by clan associations, community centres and schools, and some professional orchestras are also formed. For example, in Singapore the first amateur Chinese orchestra was formed in 1959, and its professional Singapore Chinese Orchestra was founded in 1974.