A Study On The Music Of The Three Gorges Festival In Qing Dynasty

This thesis is a study of the music of the three major festival rituals of the Qing court. It aims at the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty in the Chinese empire. Its focus on the three major festivals of the court festivals. The object of the study is the ritual music.The preface firstly introduces the reasons why I chose this topic. The three major festivals are very important celebratory activities of the Qing court, including the yuandan, dongzhi, and wanshoujie. Their ritual music is so rich that it constituted a major content of the three great festivals. In addition, current academic research lacks studies of the Qing festival music. I, therefore, will explore the Qing court music in a comprehensive way. I will also introduce the essential methodologies used in the thesis.Chapter One is about the formation of the ritual music of the three major festivals of the Qing court. The first section analyzes the definition problems of the three major festival that they belong to the jiali in the "Five Rituals", and explores their origins. The second section sorts out the development of the ritual music of the three major festivals, including their formation process, essential development, and changes.Chapter Two is a study of the celebratory ritual music of the three major festivals of the Qing court. The first section explores the celebratory ritual music based on different people’s identities, namely the emperors (including the emperor’s father who retired from his throne), the emperors’ mothers (including the emperors’grandmothers), and the empresses, and according to the historical documentation the music could be divided into outer and inner court celebratory rituals. It will explore the music teams, performance places, and the detailed process of the ritual music. The second section researches on the music teams, including the zhongheshaoyue and danbidayue. It will also investigate the musical instruments by basing on the currently existing instruments of the three major festivals, and the pictorial resources in the historical documents. The third section is a detailed study of the music movements of the three major festivals, and a translation of the old notations.Chapter Three is a study of the banquet ritual music of the three major festivals of the Qing court. Its structure is similar to that of Chapter Two, dividing into categories of the rules of music rituals, music teams, usage of the musical instruments, and the music movements and notations involved. The music is not only limited to zhongheshaoyue and danbidayue, but also includes zhongheqingyue and danbiqingyue and banquet performance music. The banquet performance includes also the ethnic music of the Qing empire’s neighboring countries and regions. The musical instruments of the ethnic music have many features; and I also supply pictures of the instruments. The pictures includes photos of related musical instruments, which I took in several museums in the U.S., so as to aid in the iconography.The first section of Chapter Four is a comparative study of the ritual music of the three major festivals of the Qing court. The first is the comparison of the features of the ceremony and performance music. Ceremony music embodies the features of the authority and symbolism; performance music embodies the features of the ethnicity and artistry. The second is the status comparisons of the ritual music of the three major festivals; the concrete usage of music embodies the "major" and "minor" principles. The second section is the miscellaneous factors reflected in the ritual music of the three major festivals. The first part is about the inner harmonization of the Han ethnicity musical cultures, and the incorporation of the foreign music and minor ethnicities’ music. The second part explores the relationship between the ritual music of the three major festivals and economic prosperity and downturn.The conclusion part precisely generalizes the main themes of the thesis, and the features and influence of the ritual music of the three major festivals.