Music in the Age of Confucius.

• Author: Kroll, Paul W.
• Position: Book Review

Music in the Age of Confucius. Edited by JENNY F. So. Washington, D.C.: FREER GALLERY OF ART AND ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, 2000. Pp. 152, illus., tables, figs., maps. $30 (paper). [Distrib. by Univ. of Washington Press]

Meant to complement the 2000 showing in the U.S. of the musical instruments from the now famous excavation (carried out in 1977) of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 B.C.), in Leigudun, Suizhou, Hubel province, this large-scale, lavishly illustrated book offers far more than the usual exhibition catalogue. The five essays that form the core of the book are each fine, highly informative contributions, and some are outstanding. John S. Major and the exhibition curator, Jenny F. So, begin with an article on "Music in Late Bronze Age China" (pp. 13-33), followed by Robert Bagley writing on "Percussion" (pp. 34-63), Bo Lawergren on "Strings" (pp. 64-85), Feng Guangsheng on "Winds" (pp. 86-99), and Lothar von Falkenhausen on "The Zeng Hou Yi Finds in the History of Chinese Music" (pp. 100-113). There is also an illustrated "Checklist" of items exhibited (pp. 117-37), larger illustrations of many of which also appear in the essays, a glossary of Chinese characters, a bibliography, and an index. Most of the illu strations throughout are in color, and they alone would be worth the price of the book, even if there were no essays at all. The high quality of the essays makes the volume a double treat.

The article by Major and So provides the necessary introduction to the ensemble of Zeng Hou Yi instruments, taking pains to discuss--and illuminate with apt quotations from classical texts--the cultural and cosmological environment in which music operated in early China. The most imposing and beautiful of the instruments are unquestionably the grand sets of musical bells and chime-stones that have stimulated so much study since their discovery. Bagley's essay on them, by far the longest contribution in the book, is as much the centerpiece of this volume as the bells and lithophones themselves are of the instruments excavated at Leigudun. This article teems with detailed information not only on the items themselves but also on related subjects pertaining to the casting of such tuned, two-toned bells, their pitches and scales, the inscriptions on them and what these can and cannot tell us, as well as the evolution of helis from signaling instruments to musical instruments. These thirty pages by Bagley, richly a...