The impact of Buddhist thought on the music of Zhou Long: A consideration of Dhyana

Abstract

From 1987 to 1994, Zhou Long composed in a manner he declared ‘Buddhist’. A work that exemplifies this period—and its aesthetic preoccupations—is the quintet Dhyana. This article investigates that work in close technical detail, exploring how key concepts inherent in the term ‘dhyana’ are reflected in the music. Most centrally, ‘dhyana’ implies the oneness of concentration of thought and expansion of consciousness—and concentration and expansion prove to be primary opposites in Zhou Long's compositional technique. Buddhism (especially Chan Buddhism) asserts the inseparability of these opposites. So does the great Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, in whom Zhou Long has had an abiding interest. And so does Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy of the arts founded by Eli Siegel, which serves as the methodological framework for this article. Central to Aesthetic Realism is Siegel's statement: ‘In reality opposites are one, art shows this’.