著者
松浦 晶子
出版者
東洋文庫
雑誌
東洋学報 = The Toyo Gakuho (ISSN:03869067)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.100, no.3, pp.1-29, 2018-12

This article attempts to clarify the realities of Song Dynasty court music in terms of music history rather than as part of scientific, intellectual, or political history. It focuses on changes to the form of chime bells (bianzhong)—the core court music instrument—discussed in great detail by Northern Song Dynasty bureaucrats, and analyzes their musical significance. Since pre-Qin times, chime bells had a form that featured rows of studs or bosses on the bells’ surface that served to deaden reverberations. Their sides were flattened, and they were hung at an angle. Consequently, the bells had little sustained and in musical performance did not blend in with the other instruments. However, during Northern Song Emperor Renzong’s reign (r. 1022-1063), the official charged with reforming music institutions, Li Zhao, altered the instrument by making bells rounder and hanging them straight down. This changed their sound. The notes now lingered much longer and the sound became one that shrouded those of the other instruments. Two of Li’s successors, Tuan Yi and Hu Yuan, made further alterations of the same sort. They also changed the sizes of the bells. While the sizes of individual bells since pre-Qin times had varied, Tuan and Hu now divided them into two size-based classes and changed individual bell size so they roughly conformed to one or the other class. Some previous research on these instruments has been skeptical about these changes, wondering if they had made the bells impossible to play as musical instruments. However, it is clear from the historical record that—regardless of whether those made by Li or those made by Tuan and Hu are the subject—these changes were made with due consideration given to the bells’ musical function. The true significance of these alterations is that they indicate there was a change in the elements that comprise music, namely rhythm, harmony, and melody; namely, they show that the role of the bell-chimes in the musical performance as a whole had changed. We may surmise that the musical sensibility of people during Song had changed in a way that would have been unacceptable going back to pre-Qin times, and that this was accompanied by a major change in the musical landscape of court music.