Zhonghe Shaoyue

Introduction

Named by the Ming founder after he revised the court ritual music; the highest-ranked music of the Qing court

Zhonghe Shaoyue was the court ritual music of the Ming and Qing dynasties, used at sacrifices to Heaven, Earth and the ancestors and at court audiences, and it joined rite, music, song and dance. Early in the Hongwu reign the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang revised the ritual music and gave it this name; the Qing kept it, and it ranked highest in the Qing system of court music. It calls for all eight sounds: sixteen kinds of instruments made of metal, stone, silk, bamboo, clay, wood, gourd and hide, with gilt bronze bells among the principal ones. Each piece begins with strokes on the wooden zhu box and ends when the yu scraper is struck three times and the conductor's banner is lowered. Its main home of transmission is the Divine Music Office in the outer precinct of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The Temple of Heaven began recovering the music in the 1980s, public performances in the Ningxi Hall began on the first day of the lunar year in 2006, and in 2021 it entered the national list of intangible heritage.