Sounds Exotic: British Perceptions and Representations of Chinese Musicality, 1793 - 1939

我的项目探讨了中国音乐性在英国是如何被理解的，以及在1793年至1939年间，“中国性”是如何以音乐形式呈现给英国观众的。它考察了现代英国人认为中国听起来像什么，以及这些信念如何反映在整个这一时期的英国音乐中。这个项目建立在已经充满活力的学术辩论关于英国对中国的看法，以及中国在现代英国社会中的地位。它通过发掘视觉和文本来源中没有包含的中英相遇的新音乐方面，解决了英国全球过去未被充分研究的声音维度。因此，它超越了现存中英关系历史的文本和视觉偏见，揭示了英国人不仅看到了中国，他们也听到了中国。通过“音乐化历史”，这项研究将有助于我们对过去的感官欣赏多样化，改变我们对英国与东亚相遇的看法。该项目包括两个主要部分。首先，它考察了当代关于中国声音和中国音乐文化的评论，其次，它探讨了中国在音乐环境中获得的特定文化联想。为了了解英国人对中国音乐的看法，该项目将分析英国期刊和学术文献（特别是专业音乐出版物）以及英国游客到东亚的旅行记录。首先，它将考虑中国音乐规范观点的演变是如何受到广泛的文化趋势而不是第一手资料的影响。为了探索英国作曲家如何试图代表中国的声音，该项目将采取案例研究的方法，包括各种音乐流派。例如，其中一章将研究20世纪早期英国艺术歌曲中的中国元素，如班托克的《中国之歌》和李白的《兰伯特四首诗》。相比之下，来自维多利亚音乐厅和早期电影的流行歌曲，如Furber和布拉汉姆的莱姆豪斯蓝调，将揭示当代对中国的更广泛的看法。利用现有的东方主义音乐比喻的理论工作来分析这些剧目，该项目将考虑作曲家如何为特定的观众创作唤起中国。这将表明英国音乐对中国的表现很少是同质的“东方”，而是根据时间和背景而变化。更广泛地说，该项目将探索这些中国音乐对英国文化的意义。首先，它将建立在关于英国音乐，帝国和民族认同的交叉点的更广泛的辩论之上。在整个19世纪和20世纪初，音乐是表达英国特色和英国相对于更广阔世界的地位的基础。随着当代广泛的话语集中在寻找英国的国家声音，中国在这一框架内的存在可以挑战国家认同完全来自内部的假设。虽然中国有时被表现为一个异国情调的“他者”，但它也被融入了更国际化的英国音乐中。这将从根本上探讨，在整个时期，中国性和英国性的概念很少完全不同。

My project explores how Chinese musicality was understood in Britain, and how 'Chineseness' was represented to British audiences in musical forms between 1793 and 1939. It examines what modern British people believed China sounded like, and how these beliefs were reflected in British musical imaginings of China throughout this period. This project builds upon already vibrant scholarly debates about British perceptions of China, and the place of China within modern British society. It addresses the understudied sonic dimension of Britain's global past, by unearthing new musical aspects of the Sino-British encounter not contained within visual and textual sources. Resultantly, it expands beyond the textual and visual biases of extant histories of Sino-British relations, exposing how British people did not just see China, they heard it too. By 'musicalising history', this research will help diversify our sensory appreciation of the past, changing the way we think about Britain's encounters with East Asia. The project comprises two main components. Firstly, it examines contemporary commentary about the sounds of China and Chinese musical culture, and secondly, it explores the specific cultural associations that China acquired in a musical setting. To understand British perceptions of Chinese musicality, the project will analyse British periodical and academic literature (particularly specialist musical publications) alongside travel accounts of British visitors to East Asia. Primarily, it will consider how the evolution of normative views about Chinese music was influenced by broad cultural trends rather than first-hand accounts. To explore how British composers sought to represent the sounds of China, the project will then take a case-study approach, encompassing various musical genres. For example, one chapter will examine the Chinese presence in early twentieth-century English art songs, such as Bantock's numerous Songs from the Chinese and Lambert's Four Poems by Li Po. In contrast, popular songs from the Victorian music hall and early cinema like Furber and Braham's Limehouse Blues will expose a wider range of contemporary perceptions of China. Using existing theoretical work on orientalist musical tropes to analyse these repertoires, the project will consider how composers writing for specific audiences evoked China. This will show how British musical representations of China were rarely homogenously 'Oriental' but instead varied depending on time and context. More widely, the project will explore the significance of these musical evocations of China for British culture more generally. Primarily, it will build upon wider debates about the intersections of British music, empire, and national identity. Music was fundamental to articulating Britishness and Britain's position relative to the wider world across the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. With widespread contemporary discourse focusing on finding a British national voice, China's presence within this framework can challenge assumptions about national identity stemming exclusively from within. While China was sometimes represented as an exotic 'other', it was also incorporated into more cosmopolitan British musical sounds. This will fundamentally explore how, across the period, conceptions of Chineseness and Britishness were seldom entirely distinct.