A Performance Fit for an Emperor

"After kowtowing to the Son of Heaven, they may have once again executed a quick prostration before the clavichord, silently pleading with it not to fail them on this occasion."

"For the first time ever, the sounds of a European instrument playing European music in a formal recital filled a chamber in the Imperial Palace of China."

The second of a two-part extract from Rhapsody in Red, a history of western classical music in China by American music journalist Sheila Melvin and Stanford University music professor Jindong Cai.

The year is 1601 and Jesuit missionaries, Father Matteo Ricci and Father Diego Pantoia are in Beijing to teach the Emperor's eunuchs to play a clavichord, an early keyboard instrument presented to Emperor Wan Li in the hope of being granted permission to stay in the capital and open a Catholic mission.

When the lessons were complete, the eunuchs presumably gave a recital for Emperor Wan Li. It is pleasant to imagine the Emperor seated on one of his smaller thrones, surrounded by attendants and a few favoured concubines and children, giving the order for the musicians to enter his presence. The Emperor was not known for his patience - Ricci wrote that "For a eunuch to make a mistake in the presence of the King is equivalent to placing his life in danger" - and the eunuchs must have been extremely nervous as they crossed the threshold into his presence. After kowtowing to the Son of Heaven, they may have once again executed a quick prostration before the clavichord, silently pleading with it not to fail them on this occasion.

Then, one of the eunuchs - probably the 72-year-old who had the greatest difficulty learning - would have sat down and begun to play from memory, his fingers moving across the keys with increasing confidence as he caught the murmur of pleasure that rippled through the imperial party. The gentle tones of the clavichord - compared by writers of old to the sound of moonlight or the breathing of the heart - rose up to the painted rafters where they were joined by the voices of each eunuch, singing the lyrics penned by Father Ricci.

For the first time ever, the sounds of a European instrument playing European music in a formal recital filled a chamber on the Imperial Palace of China.

Each eunuch was certainly given a chance to play the tune he had mastered, and perhaps even played twice so that all eight songs could be sung. But when the recital was over, no further lessons were requested of Father Pantoia, making it safe to assume that once the novelty wore off, the clavichord was set aside like so many other gifts.

But if the music that Father Pereira taught the eunuchs was ephemeral, Father Ricci's songs proved longer lasting. Indeed, they became so popular that a number of literati began asking for copies of them, many apparently believing that the Emperor would do well to emulate the virtues they expressed. To meet the demand, the Jesuits put the songs together with several other pieces and printed them as a musical booklet called Songs of the Clavichord. Though the original, bilingual edition from 1603 has been lost, a second edition edited by the Catholic Convert Li Zhizao and published in 1608 is still extant. It contains a foreword in which Father Ricci tells the tale of how a clavichord - never before seen in China and never before heard - intrigued the Emperor. Songs for the Clavichord stayed in circulation for many years, and was even included in a list of China's best literature creations that was compiled in the late 18^th century.

True to form, Emperor Wan Li never formally answered any of the petitions that his officials sent asking what they should do about the foreign priests and their request to live in Beijing. Indeed, when Father Ricci died nine years later, they were still waiting for the Emperor's response to their petition.

While lying on his deathbed, Father Ricci told the sorrowing priests and brothers who surrounded him, "I am leaving you on the threshold of an open door that leads to a great reward, but only after labours endured and dangers encountered." Unfortunately the door that Ricci had opened nearly swung shut in the tumultuous years that followed his passing.

Indeed, it was not until three decades after his death, in the 13^th year of the reign of Emperor Chongzhen, that a rectangular wooden box was found in a treasure room of the Imperial Palace. At first it was thought to be a container holding some other forgotten gift, but when it was opened and discovered to be a musical instrument - the clavichord - the Emperor's curiosity was piqued. Like his grandfather before him, Emperor Chongzhen decided that he wanted to hear the strange instrument.

The box-like contraption was covered in dust and sorely in need of repair and it was soon discovered that nobody in the palace had any idea what to do with it. The eunuchs who Father Pantoia had taught to play it were long gone, as was Father Pantoia himself, since he had been expelled from China is an anti-Christian edict issued by the aged and bitter Emperor Wan Li in 1617. The quest for someone who understood the clavichord had to be extended outside the vermillion walls, where it led straight to one man: the German Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell or Tang Ruowang.

Rhapsody in Red by Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai is published by Algora Publishing (ISBN 0-87586-179-2) can be ordered online at http://www.amazon.com and http://www.barnesandnoble.com.