From ‘Chinese Music’ to ‘Guoyue’: Shanghai Musicians and Translated Traditionality, 1919–1937

Abstract

ABSTRACT To explain the formation of guoyue (today also called huayue, minyue, or zhongyue) as a genre of music, I propose the concept of ‘translated traditionality’. I define traditionality as Shanghai musicians’ ideal of traditional Chinese music shown in their cultural enterprises named guoyue. By ‘translated’, I highlight that these musicians exercised the power of agenda-setting by actively debating and shaping the concept. First, I describe how different regional musics were gathered together under the title guoyue, analysing the socio-economic backgrounds that contributed to this convergence. Second, I examine guoyue musicians’ various approaches to conceptualizing ‘tradition’ and re-presenting these musics in the mediasphere. By investigating the gap between musical discourse and practice, I highlight the agency of guoyue musicians in utilizing such a difference to incorporate seemingly contradictory elements. In the end, with traditionality, musicians transformed guoyue into a genre that encompasses more than merely traditional Chinese musics.