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CHINESE MUSICAL COMPOSITION'S. 169
their faces to the earth as often as the refrain was sung:—M Bow down your heads ye inhabitants of the earth, bow down your heads before the great Kien-long."
The emperor was not visible during these ceremonies.
Among the secular pieces, collected by Amiot, is one which demands especial notice; it is an instrumental representation of a battle. It will be recollected that fifty years ago, many popular European compositions took this shape. " The battle of Navarino," "the battle of Prague," "Waterloo," etc., were the out-crops of this mania: the Chinese certainly have better instruments than we had, wherewith to represent the din of combat.
In the accompaniment of songs, the Chinese seem to stand, as regards their harmony, about where Europe stood in the middle ages, for they use as sole and only harmony, when playing on the kin, a succession of fourths and fifths.*
The constant use of instruments of percussion, in slow and monotonous songs, is one of the most tiresome institutions of the Chinese music; almost all the tunes are taken at an andante or adagio pace, and it is but just to say, that the Chinese chiefly dislike European music because it is often played quickly.
" To what purpose " they ask, "should one dance and hurry in this manner, and how can sucb
• Acalot, p. 171. |
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