Research On The Court Music System Of Song Dynasty

This dissertation consists of three parts: the introduction, the main part, and the conclusion.The introduction presents the aim, current status, and the methods of this research, with relativeconcepts are defined.In the main part, the dissertation discusses the court music system in Song dynasty with foursections. The first section discusses the music institution and music officer system, which focuses onthe origin and constitutes of those system. From the study on the history literature, the author thinksthat the court music system of Song dynasty has inherited much content from Sui and Tang dynasty.Meanwhile, there exists three phases in Song dynasty, which differs each other markedly in musicinstitution and officer system. The second section is about the development and function of Yue-Ji(乐籍) system in the music activities. Section three expounds the origin of He-Gu (和雇) system, theperiod which was applied to court music activities, and the function of this system. The fourth sectiondiscusses mainly the ritual content and character in the Ya-Yue (雅乐), Yan-Yue (燕乐) and GuChui-Yue (鼓吹乐), with the different ideas in each activities that was endued with the ruler areconcerned.In the last part, the author concludes that there was distinctly different in the music activities inBei-song and Nan-Song dynasty, while the secular music was in great prosperity continuously.Furthermore, a dividing line was available in Bei-song dynasty which existed during 1078-1085 andshowed the differences between the two phases. Generally, the court music in Bei-Song dynastyrepresented more formality than that in Nan-Song dynasty. The music was more orthodox andseriously, while the etiquette was emphasized especially. But since late Bei-Song dynasty, thereappeared more entertainment and less etiquette factor in court music activities. When it came toNan-Song dynasty, with the decline in quantity and frequency of music activities, the formality wascrippled gradually, while all kinds of secular music came into court music activities by the wanderingmusicians who were not in Yue-Ji register. After that, the music itself got more important than before.Based on the above facts, the author find out that the court music activities in Song dynasty took onnot only ritual and secular character, but also sum up the music activities character in formerdynasties and lead the way for follow -ing dynasties.