Huángyòu xīn yuè tú jì 皇祐新樂圖記
Illustrated Record of the New Music of the Huáng-yòu Era by 阮逸 (Ruǎn Yì) and 胡瑗 (Hú Yuán)
About the work
A three-juan illustrated record (tú jì 圖記) of the music reform commissioned by Sòng Rénzōng 宋仁宗. In Jǐngyòu 3 (1036) the throne, dissatisfied with the speculative reforms of Lǐ Zhào 李照, commanded a fresh recension of the bell-pitches (zhōnglǜ 鐘律) on the basis of Zhōulǐ and the historical music monographs. The completed system was presented in the second half of Huángyòu 5 (1053), and the present work is the official illustrated record. Juàn 1 specifies the lǜlǚ 律呂, lengths, capacities and weights from black-millet grains laid horizontally; juàn 2 and 3 give measured drawings and verbal specifications of the bells, sonorous-stones, and Jìn drum 晉鼓, together with the three-victim sacrificial cauldrons and the luán 鸞 ceremonial knife. It is the classic Northern Sòng monument of imperial yuèlǜ 樂律 design.
Tiyao
[Your servants] respectfully report: Huángyòu xīn yuè tú jì in three juàn, by Ruǎn Yì and Hú Yuán of the Sòng dynasty, presented by imperial command. In the second month of Jǐngyòu 3 (1036) Rénzōng, judging the music of Lǐ Zhào 李照 to be wilful and forced, issued a special edict ordering the recensification of the bells and pitch-pipes, basing the deliberations on the Zhōulǐ and the music monographs of successive dynasties, and casting the bronzes from gold. By Huángyòu 5 (1053) the music was complete and presented to the throne; the present work is its illustrated record. The old recension was copied out of the Wényuāngé in the Míng. There is a colophon by Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 of Jiādìng jǐhài (1239) which states that he had the work transcribed from a copy at Hǔqiū 虎邱 monastery — evidently a copy presented to the míngshān repositories at the time of the original promulgation. There is further a Yuán Tiānlì 2 (1329) colophon by Wú Shòumín 吳壽民, and a Míng Wànlì 39 (1611) colophon by Zhào Kāiměi 趙開美 narrating the transmission of the book in considerable detail. Examining the original founding of the bureau: Ruǎn, Hú, and Fáng Shù 房庶 had all been summoned by post-stations to take part in the deliberations. Each school was commanded to fashion its own bell-pitches and present them to the throne, but the disputes ran to opposite poles. Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 backed Ruǎn and Hú; Fàn Zhèn 范鎮 backed Fáng. Their exchange of memoranda on the matter is preserved in Sīmǎ Guāng’s Chuánjiā jí; Fàn Zhèn’s Dōngzhāi jìshì also preserves the gist. In sum: Ruǎn and Hú held that the huángzhōng 黃鐘 pipe has a volumetric area of 810 fēn and contains 1200 grains of millet; computing it by the round-field method of the Jiǔzhāng suànshù, every fēn of length of the huángzhōng contains 9 fēn of volume and 13⅓ grains of millet, with a hollow diameter of 3 lí 4 háo and a circumference of 10 fēn 3 lí 8 háo, treating the diameter as 3 and the circumference as 9 — the ancient ratio. To convert that 9-fēn circumference into 9 square-fēn (i.e. into a square nine-fēn unit of area) is, however, an arithmetical accommodation. Sīmǎ Guāng said: “The ancient pitch-pipes are lost. Without millet there is no way to demonstrate the linear measure; without the linear measure there is no way to demonstrate the pitch-pipe. The pitch-pipe does not arise from the linear measure, and unless the linear measure and the millet did so, then from where would they have arisen? — But this is not to say that in high antiquity the pitch-pipe was actually produced from the linear measure. It is only that, since the ancient pitch-pipes of recent ages no longer exist, we must work backwards from the linear measure.” His argument is the clearest. Fàn Zhèn’s reproach that they had “produced the pitch-pipe from the linear measure” is excessive. Yet Fàn’s contention — that black-millet, the pitch-pipe scale, the yuè 龠 measure, the fǔ 鬴 and hú 斛 capacities, the arithmetic, the weights, and the bells and chime-stones must all be brought into mutual agreement and not stand in contradiction — is not without merit either. To produce the linear measure from the pitch-pipe and to produce the pitch-pipe from the linear measure are at root one method, not two; both schools, however, were imprecise in their arithmetic. Ruǎn and Hú succeeded in the horizontal-millet measurement and failed in the diameter; further, by piling up large millet for the linear measure but using small millet to fill the pipe, they fell into self-contradiction. Fáng Shù took 1200 millet-grains and packed them into the pipe, then cut the pipe to length so that it formed a 9-cùn pipe, and took one-third of that for the diameter; but on this scheme the diameter no longer arises from the millet, but from a separate quantity used as the linear unit, so that millet need not even be packed into the pipe at all — this is hardly to be called a sound general principle. The book’s first juàn gives in full the methods of lǜlǚ, of the millet-foot, of the four capacity-measures, and of the weights — all of them deriving the linear unit from horizontally-laid millet, hence its musical pitch is at fault on the high side. The middle and lower juàn deal with the structure of bells, sonorous-stones, Jìn drums, and the three-victim cauldron and luán knife: these are precise and merit acceptance. Respectfully edited and presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-Generals: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Editor-in-chief: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Huángyòu xīn yuè tú jì is the official illustrated report on the second of three Northern Sòng music reforms (after Lǐ Zhào’s failed reform of Jǐngyòu and before Wèi Hànjīn’s of the Yuánfēng era). The bureau was constituted in Jǐngyòu 3 (1036) with Ruǎn Yì 阮逸, Hú Yuán 胡瑗, Fáng Shù 房庶, and roughly twenty Tàicháng music officials and reform commissioners; the resulting bells were cast and the music presented in the autumn of Huángyòu 5 (1053). The dispute that runs through the document is the perennial Han–Sòng question of how to derive the huángzhōng 黃鐘 pipe-length: by piling up millet horizontally (as Ruǎn–Hú argued, following the Hànshū yuèlǜ zhì) or by determining length from a fixed-volume packing of 1200 grains (as Fáng Shù argued). Sīmǎ Guāng wrote the polemic for the RuǎnHú side and Fàn Zhèn for the Fáng side; their exchange of memoranda is preserved in Sīmǎ’s Chuánjiā jí and in Fàn’s Dōngzhāi jìshì. The book transmits the RuǎnHú position. The text was copied out of the Wényuāngé in the Míng; substantial colophons by Chén Zhènsūn (1239), Wú Shòumín (1329), and Zhào Kāiměi (1611) reconstruct its transmission in considerable detail. The commission to date the work to 1053 (Huángyòu 5) reflects when it was presented; the catalog meta gives 1027, evidently the year of Ruǎn Yì’s jìnshì — the work itself is two decades later. The Sìkù compilers credit the lower two juàn (specifications for bronzes, chime-stones and sacrificial vessels) as precise and useful, but criticize the arithmetic of the upper juàn, in particular the inconsistency between using large millet for the foot-rule and small millet for filling the pipe.
Translations and research
- Lenoir, Yves and Nicolas Standaert. 2005. Les danses rituelles chinoises d’après Joseph-Marie Amiot. Brussels: Éditions Lessius. — Treats the Sòng-to-Míng yuè-lǜ literature as the proximate source of Zhū Zàiyù’s later musical reforms, of which the Huáng-yòu xīn yuè tú jì is the seminal precedent.
- Standaert, Nicolas. 2006. “Ritual dances and their visual representations in the Ming and Qing.” East Asian Library Journal 12.1: 68–181. — Frames the present work as the major Northern Sòng visual archive on which Míng dynasty yuè-tú literature draws.
- Howard L. Goodman. 2010. Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third-Century AD China. Brill. — Includes substantive comparative discussion of Sòng-era pitch-pipe metrology.