Redirecting Power Gary Zabel The Musical Times, Vol. 131, No. 1771 (Sep., 1990), 484. Stable URL: butp//links jstor.org/sici?sic!=0027-4666% 28 199000%29131%3A1771%3C484%3 ARP%3E2,0,CO%3B2-J The Musical Times is currently published by Musical Times Publications Lid. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.hml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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We ike to believe that serious music 3 Pure and autonomous art» product Ot the human spirit unsulled by stubby, everyday concerns. During the past few years a smal but deter snined group of theorists has set out Undermine these comforting sureties, Following the fad ofthe macheatler but, heroically isolated work of ‘Theodor Adorno such contemporary rmusicologists as Joseph Kerman, Susan MeClary, and Rose Rosengard Subotnik have insisted tha, whether Serious or popular, music ean be lly Understood only when situated in Concrete social and politcal context By employing meth of historical research, semiotic analysis, and socio Togical inquiry, they have ‘ried to tincover the unbreakable connections that tie even the most sophisticated nd raid music tothe untidy out ide word Richard Kraus’ Pinos and Pits China deserves to become a classic in this” newly emerging school ot thought In his masterful and engross Ing book, Kraus subjectstoa devostat ingertique one ofthe most important tesions ofthe automomit interpret: thon of music, namely the view that constitutes an international language’ We ail know how shame: Jesaly that metaphor trated out by Slatesmen who fer something called altural understanding’ as 2. 3ub stitute for the hard compromises and institutional reatrangements that peace ‘between. nations. demands Kraus recognises, but does not dvell pon this pervasive diplomatic shell fame He facuses instead upon a more Eindamental, ideological deception embodied in the international language metaphor What called the international language of music fot realy international ata it represents {he promotion of local musical rad tion that of the West to un “8 BOOKS questioned universal status, Kraus Points out that it music were 8 Zenuinely international ~ medium, then Europeans would be as conver: Sant with traditional Chinese musi, for example asthe Chinese are with the muste of Europe. Now this it Clearly not the case In order to pro vide evidence international musical competence, Chinese musicians must be able to perform, say, 2 Beethoven Sting. quartet However, Western musicians are under no similar com: pulsion to demonstrate their mastery tinternational idiom by performing “Three Variations on the Plum Blos som. The international music scene involves not the equal and reciprocal Interaction of diferent musi eu {ures but the imposition of one of those cultures upon all the rest. The international language metaphor an ‘eological-construction. masking. power claim, itis an instrument of ‘Western imperil domination of the ron. Western world ‘Krsus” entre book is an extended istration ol histhess Hebegins by demonstrating thatthe earlist intro Sluction of Western music into China was a" vehicle of the assertion of power, whether in the form of the fiery musi that accompanied mar. thal expeditions the harprchord con- certs that were intended t0 win the Chinese emperor t0 Christianity, oF the performances ofthe exclusive al. smite Shanghai Orchestra established By that it’s merchant community ‘The: strength of Kraus treatment however, isin his refusal to cat the Chinese peopl as passive victims ina drama written by Europeans. The heart of his story les in an intieate iccount of hat the Chinese di with the music that had originally been foised upon them, of how they acted tmand shaped he very cultura ores Criginally deployed to subjugate them, Kraus shows how Western mnusic was adopted by a native but cosmopolitan middle Cass that was fynomeans» puppetinthecontrol of imperialist masters a class that had its ‘own agenda and set of aspirations ‘That clase used Western music ~ and the quintessentially Western insta tment the piano ina manner similar 10 the early European bourgeoisie, ‘whichis to say, a symbol challeng ing the cultural supremacy of the older feudal aristocracy, and a status shaker indicating distance from the wasantry and proletariat But China's Indl “dass also" attempted "Io reshape Western music into a tool of national selfassertion. Its key repre: sentatives believed that China would be able to shed semi-colonial status only by modernising its culture by ridding itself ofthe dead weight ofits feudal past. Its adoption of the tech. nically" sophisticated, ‘scientific music of the West vas in part an attempt to destroy the conditions re Sponsible for Chinese national ‘humiliation, “The revolutionary process led by the Chinese Communist Party. was bound to have an ambivalent relation to Western music, On the one hand, that music has been used to support native middle class aspirations. for power by lending them the lustre of the supposedly advanced culture of the West. As such, it has been ‘opposed by the worker-and:peasant populism as well asthe ant imperialism of the Chinese revolu tion. On the other hand, Western ‘music has been used by the middle class to combat the backwardness of ‘China’s tenacious feudal tradition. In this respect ithas been embraced by a revolutionary movement engaged in its own battle for _modernisation, Through absorbing porteats of the composer, Xian Xinghai and the pian. ists, Fou Ts’ong Yin Chengzong, and Liu’ Shikun, Kraus explores. this fundamental and often violent ambi- valence, Oscillations in cultura policy dluring the Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the post-Maoist period have some- times elevated middle class practi tioners of Western music toan exalted celebrity and status, and sometimes cast them down into utter abjection. But whatever direction these oscilla tions may take, they underscore just hhow chargeel with social and political energy Western music remains almost four centuries after its introduction into the Middle Kingdom. Kraus shows the different ways in which ‘middle class and revolutionary forces hhavecanalised thisenergy-With vary ing degrees of success, both have redirected. the power of Western ‘music in the service of independent Chinese ends. ‘CARY ZAREL