The China National Musical Instrument Exhibition Hall, of the
Minhang Museum, has recently opened to the public in Xinzhuang
Subway Square in Shanghai.
A
collection of more than 300 musical instruments span China's
history from the Neolithic Age to today, adding richly to
Shanghai's and China's music culture collection.
The exhibition hall which is sponsored by the Minhang Museum and
Shanghai's No.1 National Musical Instruments Factory, is located on
the 5th floor of the Xinzhuang Subway Square Building, covering 700
square meters.
Both the genuine musical instrument relics and their replicas are
displayed in four categories according to different
characteristics: aerophones, chordophones, idiophones and
membranophones. The musical instruments range from bone whistles of
7,000 BP, Neolithic Age, fish-shaped pottery-holed wind instrument
of 4,000 BP, Xia Dynasty, percussion instruments of the Shang and
Zhou dynasties, pipe instruments of the Han and Jin dynasties,
plucked instruments of the Tang Dynasty and stringed instruments of
the Ming and Qing dynasties, to instruments collected or donated by
famous people of modern times, as well as instruments of 55
minority ethnic groups. The hall also shows statues of renown
Chinese musical figures such as musician and composer Liu Tianhua
(1895-1932) and folk musician Hua Yanjun, also known as Abing
(1895-1950), fully illustrating the diversity of Chinese national
music.
Most of the musical instruments come from the former Musical
Instrument Museum which was subordinated to the Shanghai No.1
National Musical Instruments Factory. For decades, the factory has
dedicated itself to finding, collecting and improving Chinese
national musical instruments. Now we can see a Dunhuang treasured
gong in the exhibition hall, which has a diameter of 1.37
meters, the largest one of the Chao Gong in China. You
strike it once and the sound will linger in the air for one minute.
Also there is a set of chimes in complete detail taken from
Record of Laws and Systems of the Qing Dynasty and the chime
stones from Hotan of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where famous
jade comes from. In the collection of modern times, people can see
the flute with which master Lu Chunling played for the late
Chairman Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth. There is also a drum on a
pedestal, shaped like an elephant's leg, which came from Marshal
Chen Yi, who was given the drum as a gift from former Myanmar Prime
Minister U Nu. The products by the late pipa manufacturing
master Wan Zhichu are also found there.
Besides musical instruments, the hall also displays a lot of
materials on musical history e.g., the four-volume Chinese Music
History compiled by Zheng Jinwen and published in 1928. Also,
the 40 glass negatives taken between 1930 and 1935 on the Datong
Music Society record 143 folk musical instruments which were later
lost.
(China.org.cn translated by Li Jinhui, May 16, 2003)