Bulletin Spring 1975

The Future of Chinese Musicology As Seen by Prof. Rulan Chao Pian The Chinese University is greatly honoured by the presence of Professor Rulan Chao Pian as Visiting Professor of Music at the Music Department of Chung Chi College. Dr. Rulan Chao Pian was bom in Massachusetts, U.S.A. in 1922. Professor Pian lecturing However, she received most of her elementary and secondary education in China (Peking, Shanghai, Nanking, Changsha). In 1944, 1946 and 1960, she received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. respectively at Radcliffe College, U.S.A., studying Western Music History and Theory and Far Eastern Languages and Musicology. Her Ph.D. dissertation is on Sung Dynasty Music Sources. She started her teaching career in 1947 as the Teaching Assistant in Chinese in the Department of Far East Languages, Harvard University where she subsequently became the Instructor in and Lecturer on Chinese. In 1960, she won the Caroline 1. Wilby Prize from Radcliffe for her dissertation and in 1968, the Otto Kinkeldy Award from the American Musicological Society for Music. At present, she is the Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Music at Harvard University and the Spring Term Visiting Professor in Music of Chung Chi College. In Spring, 1959, she made a 9-month trip to Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, Japan for the study ol'Gagaku, the Japanese Court Music. Later, she toured Taipei in search of ancient musical treatises preserved in the Palace Museum, taking lessons on the chyn, the Chinese zither, and travelled to Korea to collect materials on the history and performance of, Korean Court Music, narrative songs and folk dances. In summer, 1964, she spent another 3 months taking recordings of live Peking Opera performances and interviewing old opera performers. She also initiated the project of 3 microfilming the Academia Sinica collection ofchapbooks, music scores related to popular narratives (over 20,000 fascicles). Project completed, she then made a trip to Wu Feng Mountain in Central Taiwan to record Taiwan aboriginal music (the Dwarf' Ceremony Songs). Dr. Rulan Chao Plan's academic career has produced a long list ol" publications and has witnessed a series of" activities and field work on music. She has authored two books published by Harvard University Press— Sung Dynasty Musical Sources and Their Interpretations (1967) and A Syllabus Jor the Mandarin Primer (1961). During her stay here, she has given a series of 8 lectures on ‘‘Music and Words ill Chinese Narrative and Dr ama ": 1. Some Basic Features ol" Music in Work Songs 2. Diflerent Styles ol Musical Treatment of Chinese Words 3. The Function of Rhythm in the Peking Opera 4. Word Painting with Traditional Idioms 5. Chinese Musicology 6. Lyricism and Form 7. The Texture of the Accompaniment in Narrative Songs 8. Structural Patterns in the Peking Opera It is to be noted that her primary concern is with the relationship between words and music which complement each other and must be studied together. It is also her belief that the study of music should begin with larger issues and then proceed to smaller problems—like