Hearing the twilight of an empire:  A soundscape study of Dianshizhai Pictorial and late 19th Century Sino-Western cultural exchanges, 1884-1898

Abstract

In the twilight of the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, an essential chapter of Chinese music history was enshrouded in silence due to the scarcity of textual materials, and it became obscure due to the absence of visual documentation. Among the salient resources unearthed is the Dianshizhai Pictorial, initiated by Ernest Major, a British merchant and editor, during his tenure in Shanghai. This periodical, pioneering the pictorial genre in China from 1884 to 1898, emerged as a pivotal influence in the Late Qing epoch, offering rich insights for historical musicology research. This investigation further incorporates a synthesis of visual and auditory data, notably Berthold Laufer’s Collection of Chinese recordings from Shanghai and Peking, circa 1901-1902, postulated as the earliest instances of Chinese sound recording. The aim of my PhD thesis is to reconstruct an overlooked chapter in the late 19th-century Chinese musical narrative. Positioned at the confluence of music iconography, philology, historiography, and ethnomusicology, this study endeavors to unravel the complexities of Sino-Western musical interrelations and their enduring influence on subsequent intercultural exchanges. This study sits at the crossroads of music iconography, philology, historiography and ethnomusicology. Finally, this study will discuss the intersection between Sino-Western music cultures and its inspiration to later generations of cross-cultural material.

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ORCID for Teng Chen: orcid.org/0009-0005-4894-3651

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