Contexts - The Rough Guide to Beijing - page 284

MUSIC
ThecasualvisitortoChinacouldbeforgivenforthinkingthattheonlytraditionalstyle
of music to compete with bland pop is that of the kitsch folk troupes to be heard in ho-
tels and concert halls. Beijing opera, however, is now famous across the globe, while a
very different, edgier sound can be heard in certain smoky city bars - the new Chinese
rock, with its energetic expressions of urban angst.
Beijing opera
Chinese musical drama dates back at least two thousand years, and became overwhelmingly
popular with both the elite and common people from the Yuan dynasty onwards. Of the sev-
eral hundred types of regional opera, Beijingopera , a rather late hybrid form dating from the
eighteenth century, is the most widely known - now heard throughout China, it's the closest
thing to a “national” theatre. Many librettos now performed date back to the seventeenth cen-
tury and describe the intrigues of emperors and gods, as well as love stories and comedy. The
rigorous training the form demands - and the heavy hand of ideology that saw it as the most
important of “the people's arts” - is graphically displayed in Chen Kaige's film Farewell My
Concubine .
While Chinese opera makes a great visual spectacle, musically it is frankly an acquired taste,
resembling to the uninitiated the din of cats fighting in a blazing firework factory. The singing
style is tense, guttural and high-pitched, while the music is dominated by the bowed string ac-
companiment of the jinghu , a sort of sawn-off erhu . It also features plucked lutes, flutes and -
for transitional points - a piercing shawm . The action is driven by percussion, with drum and
clappers leading an ensemble of gongs and cymbals in an assortment of set patterns. Profes-
sional opera troupes exist in the major towns but rural opera performances, which are given
for temple fairs and even weddings, tend to be livelier. Even in modern Beijing, you may
come across groups of old folk meeting in parks to go through their favourite Beijing opera
excerpts.
Indie and electronic music
Controversial local legend CuiJian , a sort of Chinese Bob Dylan, was China's first real rock
star, giving up a job as a trumpeter in a Beijing orchestra to perform gravel-voiced guitar
rock with lyrics as risqué as he could get away with - look out for his albums Power to The
Powerless and Egg Under the Red Flag . Cui Jian is now seen as the granddaddy of Beijing's
thriving indie music scene. Nobody makes any money out of it - venues and bands struggle
to survive against all-pervasive pop pap, and when an act does take off, piracy eats up any
profits the recordings might have made - but fierce dedication keeps the scene alive. Most
bands of note, many of which perform in English or have a mixed set, are on the Scream,
Badhead or Modern Sky labels. Bands to look out for include Rolling Stones-wannnabes