Eight old Buddhist monks hold ancient music secret

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 29

Eight old Buddhist monks hold ancient music secret

NZPA-AP Peking For 28 generations, Buddhist monks at Zhihua temple in Peking have passed down the secret of how to play hypnotic music that once graced the Ming Dynasty Court

After China’s Cultural Revolution only eight of the musicians survive. They are aged 60 to 84 years old. But the gold-robed monks are back together again, practising twice a week at another temple and preparing to pass on their secrets to a new group of novices, says the Chinese Buddhist Association.

The occasion included a rare chance to hear the Buddhist musicmakers, who in spite of their age, produce a robust, harmonious, organ-like sound with an orchestra of five traditional Chinese instruments.

Using a five-note scale reminiscent of Medieval European music, the monks play from memory. The melody moves relentlessly, in waves, without repeats.

The instruments include a 17-pipe mouth organ called a Sheng that pro-

duces a droning sound, a transverse bamboo flute, the oboe-like Kuan, a “cloud gong” with 10 bronze gongs in a decorative wooden frame, and a kettle drum. Forced to work at an iron and steel mill during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when all religion was banned, the flute player Zhao Xiang, aged 62, said he began learning his instrument at the age of 13.

It took him 15 years to master the stately music passed down by his order, he said, and it’s all he can Play.

“I have heard of Beethoven but I don’t enjoy his music,” he answered when asked about more modem musical classics.

Chen Jiewei, secretarygeneral of the Peking Buddhist Association, said that during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards burned musical instruments and smashed Buddhist statues as feudalist relics. “The monks ceased to play music but they didn’t forget how,” he said. Ling Halcheng, in charge of the association’s arts section, helped retrieve the ancient music

and regather the monks in 1980.

The Chinese Government now permits religious activity although many temples and churches remain in desecration.

“There used to be 20 or 30 monks who could play in the early Liberation days (early 19505),” Ling said. “Since then, many have died ,and the others are aging and ailing.” Some of the Zhihua temple music exists in old notation, but nuances have to be passed from teacher to pupil, and only about 20 of the original 150 strains remain extant, Ling says. He explained that the music stems from Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD) folk tunes, which by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), survived only in the repertoire of imperial musicians.

The eunuch Wang Chen, adviser to the fifteenthcentury Ming Emperor Cheng T’ung, ordered monks to play the music for his enjoyment when he built Zhihua (Growth of the Intellect) temple for himself in 1446.

Three years later, he was slain in a coup.

“The monks had no means to live on, so they began to play for wealthy families. After that, the music was passed down from generation to generation,” Ling said. Zhihua temple was closed in 1966 and the monks now live at Guanghua Temple In north-west Peking, a complex that dates from the fourteenth century. Not a note was changed over the centuries, and to preserve their musical secret, the monks refused to teach anyone outside their temple or to let novices learn more than one instrument

Combining folk, court and temple styles, some of the music depicts angling and hunting, other melodies once, accompanied the arrival of the emperor in a sedan chair, while chant-like passages have more spiritual content Ling says. “Before 1949, the music was played at funerals. One part was called the Short-Lived Ghost but bereaved families didn’t know that” he said. The Buddhist Association is arranging for young musicians to carry on the tradition.