Yayue (Court Ritual Music)
Court ritual music of ancient China, the counterpart of secular music
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Yayue is the ritual music of the Chinese court, performed at sacrifices, audiences and state ceremonies, and defined against suyue, secular music. It valued balance and gravity, with bells, lithophones, sheng, xiao, chi and se, and ensembles ranked by status; the Zhou dynasty's making of ritual and music set the model for later ages.
Yayue is not an aesthetic label for "elegant music", nor an opera genre or a single instrumental genre, but a music system bound to ritual. Its repertory, modes and instrumentation changed with each dynasty, and today it survives in texts, excavated instruments and the yayue of Japan and Korea. To hear yayue is to hear occasion and order, not the joys and sorrows of a melody.
Read deeper → Suyue (Secular Music)
Sources
- 雅乐作为宫廷礼仪音乐的用途、乐器编制与历代沿革，参《中国音乐词典》与 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "China" 相关条目；本文为原创表述
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