Church band plays on to keep tradition alive
Source: Xinhua |
May 4, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE sun streams through the church's stained-glass windows, illuminating the yellowing pages of an ancient music book. At the front of the hall, a band plays religious music. But there's an unusual twist - it's all rendered on Chinese instruments.
Thousands of China's Catholics are set to enjoy many such performances over the next few weeks to mark the May Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Huzhuang Church in suburb Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province.
The year-round concerts are more frequent at this time of the year, bringing the art form more into the public eye.
"I call it 'Catholic folk music in China,'" says the band's Gao Yongzhuang, explaining that the group's repertoire comprises 14 church masses from 18th-century Europe. But without violins or brass, they are played by five Chinese reed pipes, two bamboo flutes, three tubas and three cymbals. Although the timbre is familiarly Chinese, the melodies have more of a baroque European air.
"You can still feel the solemnity and holiness in the texture of rackety traditional Chinese folk music," Gao says. "The scores are written in a Chinese way."
These notations have been passed down through three generations. They have been recorded in gongche, an old Chinese music scale using radical forms of Chinese characters.
Gao, however, is worried that the music form may die out if it is not made popular for a new generation. First learning the bamboo flute when he was 22, Gao is now the notation book protector. But he is 79, and 13 of his bandmates are in their 60s.
"Learning to read the abstruse gongche is the basic requirement of each player," he says. "They are much more difficult than ordinary music scores. You cannot learn it by yourself. It requires mouth-to-ear teaching."
Gao recalls that churches in nearby villages once had their own bands, but they disappeared due to a lack of teachers.
Huzhuang Church's is the last Catholic folk music band.
"Young people have no time to study the scores," he says. "We have tried to translate it into staff notation, played with string and brass instruments, but such efforts went sour. It just sounds out of tune."
The band plays at the church every few days and their performances are eagerly awaited.
Guo Hongsheng, the village head, said a German priest designed Huzhuang Church in 1909. It was destroyed in the 1960s and rebuilt in 1998.
Thousands of China's Catholics are set to enjoy many such performances over the next few weeks to mark the May Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Huzhuang Church in suburb Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province.
The year-round concerts are more frequent at this time of the year, bringing the art form more into the public eye.
"I call it 'Catholic folk music in China,'" says the band's Gao Yongzhuang, explaining that the group's repertoire comprises 14 church masses from 18th-century Europe. But without violins or brass, they are played by five Chinese reed pipes, two bamboo flutes, three tubas and three cymbals. Although the timbre is familiarly Chinese, the melodies have more of a baroque European air.
"You can still feel the solemnity and holiness in the texture of rackety traditional Chinese folk music," Gao says. "The scores are written in a Chinese way."
These notations have been passed down through three generations. They have been recorded in gongche, an old Chinese music scale using radical forms of Chinese characters.
Gao, however, is worried that the music form may die out if it is not made popular for a new generation. First learning the bamboo flute when he was 22, Gao is now the notation book protector. But he is 79, and 13 of his bandmates are in their 60s.
"Learning to read the abstruse gongche is the basic requirement of each player," he says. "They are much more difficult than ordinary music scores. You cannot learn it by yourself. It requires mouth-to-ear teaching."
Gao recalls that churches in nearby villages once had their own bands, but they disappeared due to a lack of teachers.
Huzhuang Church's is the last Catholic folk music band.
"Young people have no time to study the scores," he says. "We have tried to translate it into staff notation, played with string and brass instruments, but such efforts went sour. It just sounds out of tune."
The band plays at the church every few days and their performances are eagerly awaited.
Guo Hongsheng, the village head, said a German priest designed Huzhuang Church in 1909. It was destroyed in the 1960s and rebuilt in 1998.
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