Liuyangwenmiaojikong Music
01 · Historical Records
Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music, also called "Liuyang ancient music", is a form of sacrificial music that integrates music, song, dance and ritual. It was created in the ninth year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing (1829) by Qiu Zhilue, a government student who served as chief instructor of the Liuyang Ritual Music Bureau, and was performed at the ding-sacrifice grand ceremony of the Liuyang Confucian Temple. The basis of Qiu Zhilue's compilation was the eleven poems recorded in the Southern Song collection Twelve Airs and Elegantiae by Zhao Yansu: Yao You Lu Ming, Si Mu, Huang Huang Zhe Hua, Nan You Jia Yu, Nan Shan You Tai, Guan Ju, Ge Zhi Tan Xi, Cai Cai Juan Er, Wei Que You Chao, Cai Fan and Cai Ping. In the 1960s the Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music was recorded by the noted musicologist Yang Yinliu, which is of some value for the study of Confucian culture and of the social, political and humanities history of the time.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Historically the Liuyang Confucian Temple had the tradition of sacrificing to Confucius every year on the ding days of the first ten-day periods of the second and eighth lunar months, and on the twenty-seventh day of the eighth lunar month, the birthday of Confucius; the sacrifice generally began at daybreak and was conducted by the magistrate of the county. The ceremonial singers and dancers take their cue from the master of ceremonies; the eight kinds of materials sound together, the sung verse and the melody match, 64 dancers rise into the martial and civil dances, and ritual, music, song and dance work together in close coordination. The grand ceremony lasted two hours and about 200 people took part; it was large in scale and magnificent in momentum. The instruments are made of the eight materials — gourd, clay, hide, wood, stone, metal, silk and bamboo; the gourd xun, drum, zhu, yu, stone chime, bell, chuan, qin, se, xiao and flutes are brought together in ensemble, and the tone is elegant and restrained, quiet and gentle. The dance equipment includes the di (feathered plume), the yue and the gan; there are also music-making books, a complete set of the ceremonial dancers' headdresses, and a woodblock edition of the Lüyin Huikao in the collection. Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music comprises the sacrificial ancient music and dance, six movements in all. First, the movement Welcoming the Spirits in Harmonious Brightness. Second, the movement First Offering in Blending Harmony. Third, the movement Second Offering in Radiant Harmony. Fourth, the movement Final Offering in Deep Harmony. Fifth, the movement Withdrawing the Offerings in Peace and Prosperity. Sixth, the movement Seeing Off the Spirits in Virtuous Harmony. Besides setting music to the five notes, it also used a notation of sound characters, which made it usable by ordinary people. Qiu Zhilue made up for the missing gourd tone of the "eight materials" after the Qin and Han; he corrected the pitch pipes and re-arranged them, solving the difficulty that a further set of twelve pitch pipes had to be used to fix the pitches. He changed the stiff score in which one phrase carried one note and each character four beats into one beat with three subdivisions, and used syncopation, dotted-note extension and melodic ornamentation, enriching and diversifying the sacrificial music. Zeng Guofan personally wrote and presented the plaques "elegant, restrained and peaceful" and "deeply exploring the correct music". The Qufu Confucian Temple also used this music score. Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music made substantial revisions to the formerly stiff and dull movements of sacrificial music and ritual, translated the ancient pitch notation into a notation of sound characters, re-created the vocal lines, broke with the traditional method of fixing the pitch of the wind flutes by twelve pitch pipes, corrected the confused and misplaced placing of the pitch pipes, and formed a musical system that fixes the pitch with the twenty-four pipe wind flute; at the same time, in the process of reforming the ancient music it perfected a complete ancient music system covering the eight materials, making the ensemble of the instruments more harmonious and vivid.
Welcoming the Spirits
One of the six movements of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music.
First Offering
One of the six movements of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music.
Second Offering
One of the six movements of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music.
Final Offering
One of the six movements of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music.
Removing Offerings and Farewell
Two of the six movements of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music.
Twelve Airs and Elegantiae
A score of poems recorded by Zhao Yansu in the Southern Song, and the basis on which Qiu Zhilue compiled the Liuyang ancient music; the pieces it records include Yao You Lu Ming, Si Mu, Huang Huang Zhe Hua, Nan You Jia Yu, Nan Shan You Tai, Guan Ju and others.
Lüyin Huikao woodblock edition
A woodblock edition of a music-making book held by the Liuyang Confucian Temple, preserved together with the complete set of ceremonial dancers' headdresses and the instruments.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The instruments of Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music are made of the eight materials — gourd, clay, hide, wood, stone, metal, silk and bamboo; the gourd xun, drum, zhu, yu, stone chime, bell, chuan, qin, se, xiao and flutes are brought together in ensemble, and the tone is elegant and restrained, quiet and gentle; the dance equipment includes the di (feathered plume), the yue and the gan; and there are also music-making books, a complete set of the ceremonial dancers' headdresses and a woodblock edition of the Lüyin Huikao in the collection.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music has been handed down generation by generation for more than a hundred years, and is the comparatively complete traditional musical form preserved among the ritual music for sacrifices to Confucius known today. Qiu Shaoqiu (official archival record of the associated inheritor): male, Han, born in June 1931, native of Liuyang City, Hunan Province. At the age of nine he entered the Liuyang Ritual Music Bureau and learned the ancient ritual, music and dance of the sacrifices to Confucius. Under the instruction of Mr Tao Zhenqi he learned the ancient dances, the gan-ji dance and the yu-yue dance. After 1944 he learned to blow the chuan under the influence of the many music instructors headed by Mr Liu Puxian, and for ten consecutive years afterwards he served as the chuan player in the music band at the sacrifice ceremonies. In the 1960s he reproduced a complete set of the ancient instruments and collected and organized a complete set of the ancient music and dance scores; this provided a large amount of detailed material for the book Liuyang Ancient Music published by the Liuyang City Cultural Centre, and also provided relevant material for the Liuyang City Museum on renovating the Confucian Temple and on the restoration of the original appearance of the ancient temple. In the work of restoring the grand sacrifice ceremony to Confucius in Liuyang in 2014 he served as chief instructor, training and guiding the entire process and presenting the grand sacrifice ceremony complete. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the Liuyang Confucian Temple sacrificial music intangible cultural heritage project.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Qiu Shaoqiu 05-2180
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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