Abstract
During the first half of the twentieth century, the Chinese people were preoccupied with seeking renewal and liberation. In the early part of the century, from the 1910s to the 1920s, China underwent a New Cultural Movement following a period of great pain and significant losses under the Qing Dynasty. During this difficult time, young Chinese intellectuals studying abroad introduced Beethoven’s music to the Chinese masses. The music became widespread in major cities as many urban intellectuals considered that studying Beethoven and his music would strengthen China’s sense of national purpose.
The learned Chinese intellectuals promoted the music through their artwork. Li Shutong was the first to present Beethoven to the public, followed by Lu Xun, Wang Guanqi, Feng Zikai, and Fu Lei. Cai Yuan-Pei, Wu Meng-Fei, and Zhou Yang promoted Beethoven’s music through educational and artistic activities.
However, the response to Beethoven’s music seemed unstable and inconsistent. During the 1930s and 1940s, when China was at war, the appeal of Beethoven’s music experienced a significant decline. The peasant Chinese, acting as warlords, preferred anti-Japanese nationalist songs and traditional Chinese music, which led to the rise of Xian Xinghai and Nei Er. The communists, under the leadership of Mao, suppressed Beethoven’s fame by punishing those who listened to his music.
Introduction
China suffered a string of defeats in the middle and latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The period was characterized by the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) (Cai and Melvin 2). The dynasty suffered significant losses beginning in the nineteenth century when China lost the First and Second Opium Wars (1842, 1860) and the First Sino-Japanese War (1895).
In the early twentieth century, the Chinese Republic, established in 1912, collapsed (Cho and Huang 15). There was the cessation of Hong Kong, and the Republic lost five Treaty Ports to Europe before the United States took control. Due to these failings, China’s self-described status as the most civilized society worldwide was transformed into one marked by internal and external crises.
Due to these problems, China’s population began to strive for political freedom and economic and cultural development. The primary need of the Chinese at this time was to eliminate the remnants of their semi-colonial and semi-feudal history and to regain their status as the great nation they believed themselves to be. One of the ways the Chinese people sought to reestablish themselves was through music, primarily influenced by the work of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Beethoven is a composer who can be credited with single-handedly transforming the institution of classical music, both during and beyond the 19th-century Europe. Beethoven was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany, and died in 1827 (Clubbe 12). His father inspired his musical journey, even as Beethoven used music as a means to support his family financially. During his youth, Beethoven spent time in the company of well-educated individuals who exposed him to Enlightenment ideas and the great literary works of the time. That is why Beethoven, as a person, alongside his music, is seen as a symbol of freedom and democracy.
Beethoven’s music composition was incredibly varied, which earned him the title of a “creative genius” from music scholars (Janz and Yang 67). His compositions include 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, nine symphonies, and five concertos for piano, as well as other songs, chamber music, and chorale works. His actions and work make the study of his life, career, and influence particularly relevant.
In China, Beethoven’s compositions stand for tenacity and strength. According to Clubbe (34), his personality, which is admirably portrayed in his writings and the accounts of his life, merits the respect of everybody. They held Beethoven in awe as the “God of Music,” a glorious embodiment of human progress and civilization (Chong, 55).
Today, Beethoven’s music is regularly performed by foreign orchestras in China. During the early twentieth century, the Chinese were delighted with his spirit of overcoming hardship, as demonstrated in his Fifth Symphony. He was considered tenacious in facing unforeseen challenges in his Emperor Piano Concerto (Cai and Melvin, 4). The Chinese populace admired the mastery of composing a grand-scale record, as the Appassionato Piano Sonata proved. That sums up the rationale as to why his music is the most performed by any composer and is also the most prevalent in popular culture worldwide.
Different aspects of Beethoven’s music have long been recognized by Chinese listeners, despite the music’s popularity in China fluctuating throughout the 20th century. During the New Cultural Movement of the mid-1910s and 1920s, Beethoven’s music was introduced to the Chinese and initially received their approval. Then, during the 1930s and 1940s war, the music endured a period of neglect (Clubbe, 12).
After that, it saw a brief period of regaining popularity in the 1950s before coming under fire during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s (Cho and Huang, 23). The Chinese have historically prioritized the practical over the aesthetic, viewing music as a tool only valuable when it serves a specific purpose. This has led to these dramatic shifts in how Beethoven’s music is received, which may be the root cause of these dramatic fluctuations.
Perceptions of Beethoven Through the Writings of Chinese Intellectuals
As the Chinese Republic sought to reinvigorate itself, several prominent intellectuals believed that the best way to rejuvenate the nation was to abandon the uncritical adoration of traditional Chinese culture. They showed an excellent preference for cutting-edge Western ideas. Although the academics who promoted this viewpoint had received a classical Chinese education, they revolted against Confucianism and what they saw as antiquated elements of Chinese culture (Cho and Huang, 30). They demanded the establishment of a new Chinese culture based on Western values, cultures, technologies, political systems, and economic structures.
The Chinese intellectuals sought to save an impoverished and weak China from itself. They aimed to bring about China’s renaissance by drawing on their imagined visions of the West. Top thinkers like Yan Fu and Kang You-Wei started China’s New Culture Movement in this setting between 1910 and 1920 (Chong, 17).
Most of the intellectuals who made up the core of the New Culture Movement had studied or worked abroad, where they were exposed to Western cultures and technologies. Europe was their primary option for such educational trips, though many visited Japan. The latter had already undergone a significant amount of Westernization, so the Chinese intellectuals could learn cutting-edge Western culture and technologies without having to incur the price of travelling to Europe.
Western music emerged as a vital way of rejuvenation, as it was considered grand and powerful. Chinese people have long treasured soothing, calm musical genres. However, leading intellectuals sought to employ ferocious, passionate music to awaken the Chinese from their despair. They desired to breathe new life into the old Chinese culture and encourage the Chinese people’s desire to fight for their country and a better life.
The Chinese tended to overvalue the utility of music to an even greater extent during this age of vigorous social transformation. Clubbe (57) notes that music was favored for its capacity to energize and unite the Chinese people. Similarly, the aesthetic aspects of music and its capacity to delight and inspire were also underrated in China. The intellectuals greatly admired Beethoven’s music, which they considered influential in the Chinese social, cultural, and philosophical landscape.
Li Shutong (1880 – 1942)
Li is a renowned Chinese Buddhist monk among the earliest champions of Chinese rejuvenation. People called him Guang Hou, Wen Tao, and Shu Tong, but his most common name was Hong Yi, which is Buddhist.Li was a learned individual with varied skills, including drama, painting, music, poetry, and calligraphy. He was born in Tianjin but got his education in Shanghai.
In 1905, Li moved to Japan, where he advanced his studies at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He specialized in Western oil painting and music due to his special interest. Li was attracted to the work of Beethoven, and in 1906, while in Japan, he translated the book The Biography of Beethoven: God of Music into Chinese (Cai and Melvin, 4).The book depicted Beethoven as a special person who was an outstanding intellectual.
In 1907, Li composed a brief essay about Beethoven called “The Sage of Music.”It was part of a collection under the Little Music Magazine Li had launched in 1906 that was issued in Shanghai, even though it was printed in Japan. The cover of the writing was painted with the image of Beethoven. In this instance, Li was the first to introduce the German composer to Chinese culture publicly through his artwork.
Li portrayed Beethoven as a relentless person who fought significant financial and health challenges, especially his hearing loss.Beethoven developed the problem in his mid-20s, which frustrated him all through adulthood as he desired to become a great musician (Janz and Yang, 24). Nonetheless, Beethoven continued to compose major masterpieces into his old age.
Even though Li Shutong had presumably never heard a single measure of Beethoven’s music, he was strongly enlightened by the composer’s boldness in times of hardship. He connected the story of Beethoven to the challenges bedeviling the Chinese Republic in the early twentieth century. Most of the Chinese who heard his story were swept away by the “image of this person who went through turmoil, obstacles, difficulties [who] at the end, was triumphant” (Cho, 185). They started to see Beethoven as a real fighter who heartened the whole Chinese society and encouraged them to keep fighting through the impediments confronting their country.
Beethoven’s story is perfectly connected to the Chinese embodiments of invariability. At the onset of the 20th century, China was undoubtedly going through severe political misfortunes. The Chinese people violently turned against foreign and Christian influences under the “Boxer Rebellion,” also known as the “Yihequan Movement” (Cho and Huang, 94).
In addition, the centralized dynastic power of the Qing was overthrown in the Republican Revolution of 1911.After the 1919 Versailles Peace Agreement, a burgeoning nationalism called the May 4th Movement eventually led to the Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party. Beethoven’s struggles and apparent genius struck a chord in a country trying to find its place in a new world that held both promise and threat. His image as a person who went through upheavals, obstacles, and hardships, but finally succeeded, seemed to seize China’s heart.
Lu Xun (1881–1936)
Lu Xun is another prominent writer from China known as the “Father of Modern Chinese Literature.” Because of his childhood difficulties, Lu’s adventures started young. He survived the Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion (Schmidt and Schmidtpott, 65). The family had to pawn their possessions to pay for his father’s medication, a scholar who suffered from a chronic disease. Before traveling abroad to Japan and Germany and eventually returning to China, he studied at various institutions in Hangzhou.
Lu had a great belief in the ability of music to transform individuals and entire societies in China. He published an article titled “The History of Science” in the He-Nan journal in 1907 while studying Western medicine in Japan (Cai and Melvin, 17). In the article, Lu made the case that improvements in a country’s technology, literature, and art should follow advances in science.
Lu concluded his writing by saying his goal was to rescue his home country through science. He believed that besides the great Western scientists, the Chinese also needed to be aware of the great Western masters of music, art, and literature, including Shakespeare, Raphael, Carlyle, and Beethoven. He asserted that Beethoven should be a key figure in China’s New Culture Movement, calling him “one of the most influential characters in Western culture, the equal of Kant and Shakespeare” (Chu and Petrus, 135). Lu learned about Beethoven while studying Western medicine in Japan.
Wang Guanqi (1892–1936)
Wang Guangqi was born in Sichuan, China, but spent most of his adult life in Germany from 1920 until he died in 1936. He initially focused on international law before shifting to musicology and writing in 1922, after which he personalized Beethoven as an authentic hero for the Chinese population. He attended school in Germany, where he studied music at Berlin University for several years before eventually moving to Bonn, Beethoven’s birthplace, to pursue a doctorate (Chu and Petrus, 157).
During the Chinese Republican era, Wang was one of a group of Chinese students who served as a social and intellectual bridge between China and Germany. Wang studied music extensively in Western literature while continuing his studies in Western music and musicology. At this time, he started producing books and essays on all facets of Western music in China. He published sixteen volumes and just as many essays from 1923 to 1931, covering every facet of Western and Chinese music.
Given his exposure to Germany’s vibrant musical tradition, Wang came to feel that classical music could assist his own country in redefining itself as the “new China.” He considered that music played a significant role in Germany’s transformation into a modern, dynamic state. Janz and Yang (37) state that the Ninth Symphony is an enduring masterpiece that Beethoven created despite being plagued by deafness, poor health, pain, anguish, and wrath, according to Wang’s Guide to Well-Known Western Musical Masterpieces.
By contrasting Beethoven with Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BCE), a revered historian castrated for his defense of a general wrongfully charged with treason, Wang provided context for Beethoven in Chinese culture (Cai and Melvin, 5). Sima chose to undergo castration out of obligation to finish his father’s epic work, Records of the Grand Historian, even though it was regarded as a sentence worse than death. Nevertheless, Wang argued that Beethoven and Sima had triumphed to become cultural icons despite terrible adversity.
Feng Zikai (1898-1975)
Feng Zikai was raised in Zhejiang province, where he attended Zhejiang First Normal College to study Western music and painting. He studied under Li Shutong before continuing his education at the Kawabata Painting School in Tokyo, Japan, in 1921. He described his work, which mostly consisted of cartoons depicting the actions and personalities of children, as being in the tradition of the painters Hokusai and Takehisa Yumeji.
In Japan, he discovered manga art and developed strong humanistic concerns and the ability to combine Western and Eastern trends. Feng believed that while preserving the core of indigenous culture, China should adopt the best aspects of Western culture. He created a distinctive style by fusing humanistic themes, Western painting techniques, and Chinese lyricism.
In 1922, he returned to China and began teaching in Chongqing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang (Cho and Huang, 129). He compared Beethoven to the Chinese people because he was successful despite going deaf. He thought that to overcome the cultural sadness caused by being torn between semi-colonialism and semi-feudalism, the Chinese needed to use Beethoven as an example of bravery and perseverance.
Fu Lei (1908–1966)
Fu Lei is one of China’s most renowned translators, literary critics, and art aficionados. He became famous when he translated Romain Rolland’s Life of Beethoven, released in 1931, into Chinese; Camel Press published both works. Fu studied in France during his youth, systematically learning Western music theory.
On March 3rd, 1934, Fu finished reading Romain Rolland’s original draft and wrote to Rolland: “By accident, I read your Life of Beethoven, and I found myself in tears after that. I experienced a supernatural illuminating candle, a new force of life, and a miraculous uplift. This is a real spiritual life event” (Cho, 188). Fu’s translation of Rolland’s work inspired such an emotional response that it caused a Beethoven craze in China.
Amid their relentless struggle against poverty and pain, the Chinese people found inspiration in Fu’s writings on Beethoven. Cai and Melvin (28) state that his words gave them new psychic power and inspired a sense of heroism. Fu’s translation, which used the most exquisitely beautiful Chinese phrases of any of the translations, emphasized Beethoven’s heroic persona over specific historical facts. During wartime, Fu was denounced and suffered dramatically in the Cultural Revolution, and he committed suicide.
Beethoven’s Music Influence on Artistic Activities in Early Twentieth-Century China
Education was an essential medium for the promotion of Western music in China.Both Western and Asian cultures’ principles inspire examples of overcoming adversity; it is a fundamental principle of Confucian self-cultivation.To develop the ability to persevere long enough to achieve great things, Chinese parents have long encouraged their kids to learn Chi Ku, which means to eat bitterness.
The Chinese people acknowledged the West’s military power and technological progress. They believed the primary path to reforming China was through adopting Western knowledge. Cai and Melvin (24) indicate that prominent scholars such as Liang Qichao (1873-1929) and Kang Youwei (1858-1927) advocated serious reforms to the Chinese education system. Thus, Chinese students were sent abroad to study Western knowledge, which is essential for education reform because they could apply it upon returning home. Aside from directly going to the European states, many students were sent to Japan to acquire Western knowledge.
At home, musical institutions and associations were established to teach and practice Beethoven’s music. Many academics supported this approach because they thought it might motivate Chinese people to adopt progressive attitudes and defend their country. China’s educational system underwent a significant transformation during the New Culture Movement, becoming more accessible and eradicating the previous social divisions between the upper and lower classes.
Many intellectuals promoted that “the nation’s citizens can become more civilized and make good efforts to develop our country only by providing equal educational opportunity” (Schmidt and Schmidtpott, 72). In the 1920s and 1930s, when their conception of education changed, China’s educational system, including piano instruction, experienced a brief period of prosperity. As a result of the establishment of numerous professional music centers and institutions, many piano instructors received training.
Cai Yuan-Pei (1868-1940), the president of Beijing University, was one of the strongest supporters of Beethoven’s music, especially in integrating it into the Chinese education system. He was a pioneering educator and philosopher, having studied in Leipzig, Germany, twice in 1907 and again in 1913. His goal was that “any kind of person, at all times, should have the opportunity to come into contact with art” (Cai and Melvin, 10). He was keenly interested in aesthetic education, which he saw as free, progressive, and universal. He also fervently believed in the transformative power of art. Cai studied music in Leipzig, where he also learned the violin and the piano and developed a passion for Beethoven.
In 1917, he urged the university’s students to explore extracurricular pursuits in music. Moreover, he presided over the student body at the Music Research Institute of Beijing University. Cai also pioneered the establishment of an authorized Music Learning Institute of Peking University, which was inaugurated in 1919, becoming China’s earliest influential music establishment.
Later in 1920, the Shanghai Normal College, which changed its name to the Shanghai Normal Art Institute in 1922, was set up by Wu Meng-Fei (Cho, 207). At the same time, St. Mary’s Hall School was built to encourage interaction between Chinese and Western cultures. The girls’ school further promoted talent development through different skill-oriented music clubs, such as the piano club.
Cai’s love for Beethoven’s music continued, and in 1929, he articulated his honor of Beethoven’s music in a poem. In the poem, Cai indicated that Beethoven’s music could inspire China to become a powerful nation because it is packed with profound and uplifting ideas. He further proclaimed his desire to popularize Beethoven’s music in China.
In the mid-1930s, the communists supported founding the Lu Xun Academy for Arts and Literature. The school began its operations in the spring of 1938 to introduce the communist community to art, music, literature, and drama, even though they also used it to spread propaganda (Cho, 184). The school was headed by a leading Marxist literary critic, Zhou Yang, who became Mao’s main emissary on cultural issues. The Lu Xun Academy started with a class of only 300 students, but the school expanded quickly and opened branches across several independent regions.
Change in Perceptions of Beethoven in Wartime
Beethoven’s music had some presence in China before becoming widespread. Western bands largely propagated the music, particularly in the late nineteenth century. The middle-class Chinese people who frequently interacted with Westerners could attend the performances of Western bands performing Beethoven’s music.
The elite Chinese citizens who preferred Western music would buy Western instruments, such as a piano or a violin, for themselves. They would then practice or try to play some of Beethoven’s music with their family because he was one of the most popular Western composers. However, a few Chinese students who had studied abroad, especially in Japan, helped establish Beethoven’s in China during the New Civilization Movement of the 1910s and 1920s (Cho and Huang, 43). Music emerged as one of the most deeply appreciated examples of Western culture among the Chinese people.
However, the New Culture Movement was interrupted by two major wars. These were the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Liberation War (1945–1949). Over this period, the Chinese people relegated Beethoven’s music to the edge of their culture.
The Japanese invasion of China in 1931 saw a significant rise in anti-Japanese sentiment in the country in the early 1930s (Chu and Petrus, 87). In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War became full-blown as China engaged with Japan militarily to defend itself following its six-year invasion. As soon as the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in 1945, the Liberation War began, putting the Chinese Nationalists against the Chinese Communists. The two warring factions were contesting to become China’s ruling party.
Therefore, for nearly a decade, the Chinese people were distracted by war, leading to a notable decline in the quantity and variety of writings written about Beethoven. Cho (188) states that just a few biographical works, such as Romain Rolland’s Life of Beethoven, remained fairly widespread. Beethoven’s works were less frequently performed in Beijing and Shanghai during the war. Besides, most of the performances of his music took place in the rural southwest of China, which was under the governance of the Nationalist regime.In the face of a declining frequency of performances, people changed their attitude towards Beethoven’s music. The Nationalist administration was the only one to advocate for Beethoven’s music during the conflict, and they did it only to raise the standard of public awareness.
During wartime, Beethoven’s music was received very differently in China than it had among his contemporaries. His outstanding productions were mainly inspired by the French Revolution and conveyed a powerful spirit of passion and enthusiasm. The music has a spirit capable of stimulating the morale and self-confidence of even the most oppressed (Melvin and Cai, 126). It would be expected that the Chinese, who were waging their wars in the 1940s, would turn to Beethoven’s music for steadfast psychological reinforcement as they fought the Japanese for their country’s independence.
However, compared to the widespread acclaim his music had received during the New Culture Movement of the 1910s and 1920s, Beethoven’s music declined in popularity in China as the war continued. A possible explanation for the decline would be the challenging environment that made it difficult for artists to perform substantial musical works during the war. Nevertheless, this was not the primary cause of the decline in the popularity of Beethoven’s music (Schmidt and Schmidtpott, 87).
Neither did the cultural differences between Easterners and Westerners lead to the decline in favor of Beethoven’s music. If so, his music would never have attained the level of rage it did during China’s New Culture Movement. Instead, a shift in the fundamental needs of the Chinese population was what ultimately contributed to Beethoven’s decline in popularity during the war.
In particular, the Chinese desired to become victorious and liberate their country from the ravaging wars. The necessity to serve the cause of war wholeheartedly drove all members of Chinese society, especially those engaged in culture and the arts. The citizenry became more preoccupied with fighting for the survival of the country as a whole, which superseded the New Culture Movement’s ethos of enlightenment and individual liberty. Cho and Huang (67) note that the needs of the Chinese people changed during the war. The inner rich expressions of emotion required different music that could arouse anti-Japanese sentiments and inspire as many Chinese citizens as possible.
Simply put, the Chinese people at this time required music to further their new political objectives, leading to the domination of anti-Japanese, revolutionary, and Soviet songs at the front lines. Similar to earlier times, the Chinese placed less importance on the aesthetic enjoyment of music than they did on its potential to advance their country’s political goals. It was not the emphasis on utility, but the needs that determined that utility changed.
Additionally, Beethoven’s music experienced some decline due to a theatrical inversion in the class order. The New Culture era was dominated by a ruling class of scholars who appreciated Beethoven’s music. For them, his music evoked the West’s cutting-edge, trendy cultural spirit that met the Chinese people’s desire for civilization (Chu and Petrus, 123).
The intellectuals popularized Beethoven’s music among urban highbrows, students, and superstars. However, the economic, political, and cultural divide between China’s urban and rural regions and its various social classes persisted even as the music blossomed. During the New Culture Movement, peasants, workers, and rural residents did not look up to Beethoven’s music at any time. Instead, this category of individuals has been considered for a long time to have their needs and abilities overlooked and even disliked.
Consequently, the outbreak of the war rapidly changed the course of the country’s attention to attaining victory and national independence.At the same time, the war significantly reduced the intellectuals’ social status. They were no longer regarded as pioneers but rather as worthless individuals. Meanwhile, workers and peasants who had long been ignored became soldiers, the same people the country could depend on to win the war. When these workers and peasants got hold of power, they banished Beethoven’s music.
Lastly, there was a strong sense of nationalism among the Chinese during this period, which reduced their prospects of appreciating Beethoven’s music. According to Melvin and Cai (143), there was an even greater predisposition to reject Western and Japanese cultural elements. In short, the war interrupted the appreciative reception of Beethoven’s music in China. During this time, Xian Xingha and Nei Er emerged as strong providers of alternative music to fill the gap created by the fall of Beethoven’s Music. Mao Zedong, the leader of the communists, encouraged Beethoven’s Music among the top leaders, but ordinary people were castigated for listening to Western music.
Xian Xinghai (1905–1945)
Xian Xinghai was called the People’s Composer because of his musical mastery.He was highly regarded and lived among the fishermen of Guangdong province before passing away tragically in Moscow. He studied music in Paris and was acclaimed for his ability to blend the feelings of the masses of workers, peasants, and intellectuals into his music.
Cho and Huang (116) state that he came from lowly class origins and had a good formal education. This made him the perfect instructor at the Lu Xun Academy in Yan’an, where he taught the young cadres how to write songs and form or lead choral choirs. Xian’s orchestration abilities are in question, but he is said to have written the Production Movement Cantata and the play The Soldiers Advance. In1939, he wrote the anti-Japanese Yellow River Cantata, his most well-known work.
As part of the celebration to mark Xian Xinghai’s 80th birthday in 1985, he was honored with a stamp. Xian Xinghai is depicted as a Chinese Beethoven on the stamp, complete with stylized hair and deep eyes. This comparison is supported by the fact that the Yellow River Cantata is frequently referred to as the Eastern equivalent of Beethoven’s Ninth (Choral) Symphony, even in scholarly writings.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which features the energetic “Ode to Joy” chorus as its rousing climax, is regarded as his most artistic and philosophical work. One of China’s most iconic and well-known choral compositions is the Yellow River Cantata by Xian, which has the well-known “Ode to the Yellow River” (Melvin and Cai, 157). This claim can be taken in two different, contradicting directions, perfectly capturing the central dilemma that New Chinese Music constantly wrestles with: either Xian Xinghai is an equally accomplished composer to Beethoven, or Xian is merely a Chinese version (or imitation) of Beethoven.
Nie Er (1912–1935)
Nie Er, born in the province of Yunnan, is best known for his passion for the violin. He carried the musical instrument with him wherever he went so he could practice whenever he felt like it. Cai and Melvin (16) state that Nie relocated to Shanghai as a teenager and joined the “Bright Moon Opera Society,” where he learned composition, harmony, and the piano by himself.
Only a few years later, the shock of Shanghai being bombed by the Japanese prompted Nie to reconsider the significance of European classical music for China. The dismissal of Beethoven in his journal entry from March 1932, which foreshadowed the ferocious attacks on Beethoven during the Cultural Revolution more than three decades later, marked a pivotal turning point in China’s perception of the composer.
By politicizing the significance of praxis for music and musicians, Nie argued in favor of using music as a political tool. He rose to prominence as the movement’s leading ideologue in China. The party-state nurtured Nie’s public character throughout the Maoist era by highlighting his moral uprightness and philanthropic ideals. His rise to prominence in 1949 was sparked by his selection of “March of the Volunteers” as China’s national song (Cho and Huang, 75).
However, the foundation for his legendary position was laid over a decade earlier, immediately after his passing in 1935. His fame was made possible by the Communist Party’s cultural programs and the grassroots organization of the National Salvation Song Movement. The organizations thought Nie’s work was a crucial aspect of Chinese nationalism.
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
At the centenary celebration of Communist Party leader Mao Zedong’s victory in the 1949 civil war, Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony was performed. Yang and Saffle (150) state that many academics and musicians who loved Beethoven during the war suffered consequences. However, throughout the darkest hours of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the top echelons of the Communist Party, headed by Mao, his wife, and Premier Zhou Enlai, secretly listened to and studied Beethoven’s music.
Conclusion
In summary, the first half of the twentieth century was quite eventful as the Chinese people experienced a mixed moment of renewal and war. During the early decades of the 20th century, particularly between the 1910s and 1920s, China experienced the New Culture Movement. The period succeeded in moments of pain and huge losses the country endured under the regime of the Qing Dynasty. The country lost two Opium wars, the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Republic tumbled down following Hong Kong’s cessation and the loss of five Territories to Western powers.
In this challenging period, young Chinese scholars who had studied overseas brought Beethoven’s music to the broader public in China. The intellectuals hailed Beethoven as a heroic inspiration for national “self-strengthening” (Janz and Yang, 59). His music became widespread in major cities, including Shanghai and Peking. Many urban intellectuals thought engaging with Beethoven and his works was a way to reinforce China’s national identity and sense of purpose. Chinese intellectuals revered Beethoven as a tenacious liberation champion whose heroism could quicken China’s emancipation from reactionary feudalism.
Beethoven was presented as a role model for moral behavior as early as 1906 by Li Shutong, who argued that the composer had succeeded musically despite a strict upbringing that included an abusive, alcoholic father and total deafness. Through their artwork, Beethoven’s music was further promoted by Lu Xun, Wang Guanqi, Feng Zikai, and Fu Lei. Cai Yuan-Pei, Wu Meng-Fei, and Zhou Yang advocated for musical and artistic activities as Beethoven’s music inspired them.His music was introduced to schools at all levels and in every region, which used textbooks that cite his music as representing one of the crowning achievements of classical music. In addition, the Chinese people considered that they could mainly reform China by acquiring Western knowledge. Thus, on the one hand, Chinese students were sent abroad to study Western knowledge; on the other hand, schools teaching Western knowledge were established in China.
However, the attitude toward Beethoven’s music seemed changeable and inconsistent. Only some people admired the Western composer, as holdouts opposed the Western musical hegemony in favor of preserving traditional Chinese music. Later, during the 1930s and 1940s, when China was at war, the admiration for Beethoven’s music became overshadowed by the widespread appeal of anti-Japanese nationalist songs. Under Mao’s leadership, the communists diminished Beethoven’s popularity by penalizing those who listened to his music. The happenings introduced new Chinese musicians, particularly Xian Xinghai and Nei Er.
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