Research Catalog

Title

A contemporary history of the Chinese zheng / Ann L. Silverberg.

Author

Silverberg, Ann L.

Publication

Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, [2023]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvii, 231 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

This book traces the twentieth- and twenty-first-century development of an important Chinese musical instrument in greater China. The zheng was transformed over the course of the twentieth century, becoming a solo instrument with virtuosic capacity. In the past, the zheng had appeared in small instrumental ensembles and supplied improvised accompaniments to song. Zheng music became a means of nation-building, and was eventually promoted as a marker of Chinese identity in Hong Kong. Ann L. Silverberg uses evidence from the greater China area to show how the narrative history of the zheng created on the mainland did not represent zheng music as it had been in the past. Silverberg ultimately argues that the zheng's older repertory was poorly represented by efforts to collect and promote zheng music in the twentieth century. This book contends that the restored "traditional Chinese music" created and promulgated from the 1920s forward - and solo zheng music in particular - is a hybrid of "Chinese essence, Western means" that essentially obscures rather than reveals tradition.--

Subject

• 1900-2099
• Zheng > China > History > 20th century
• Zheng > China > History > 21st century
• Zheng > Hong Kong > History
• Zheng > Taiwan > History
• Zheng music > China > History and criticism
• Folk music > China > History and criticism
• Folk music > Political aspects > China
• Musical instruments > China > History
• Zheng
• China

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Cultural and theoretical context -- The zheng's history prior to 1949 -- Zheng art in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 -- The zheng in Hong Kong, 1949-1979 -- The zheng in Taiwan, 1949-1979, Zheng music in the "Opening Up and Reform" era -- Conclusions.

ISBN

• 9789888754342
• 9888754343
• 9789888754380 (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

• 1351691951
• on1351691951
• SCSB-14478819

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library