Recreating the lost sound of ancient music
Painstaking mission to recreate stringed instruments depicted in Mogao murals proves rewarding
When music teacher Zheng Ruzhong visited the Mogao Caves in Gansu province in 1986, he was amazed by the numerous murals of the pipa (a four-stringed Chinese lute). More than 600 images of the ancient Chinese plucked instrument, in hundreds of caves, were portrayed at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, a complex of grottoes adorned with Buddhist frescoes.
Ever since, Zheng has dedicated himself to the research of music and dance in relation to the Mogao Caves, and also took on a special project — transforming the painted musical instruments, portrayed in the murals, into real ones.
In total, 245 items from the 97 types of musical instruments have been made based on the images depicted in the Mogao murals, including plucked and bowed stringed instruments, as well as percussion items. However, this is still a very small number of the musical instruments depicted in the frescoes, which, according to Zheng’s research, totals more than 4,000.
“There are no other such caves in the world that have as many musical instruments painted in the murals. It reveals a rich musical landscape in ancient China,” said 88-year-old Zheng, who set up a music and dance studio with the Dunhuang Academy — an institution responsible for overseeing the Mogao caves — in 1986.
A UNESCO heritage site, the Mogao Caves are carved into cliffs on the edge of the Gobi Desert at Dunhuang, a trade hub on the historic Silk Road. Many of the murals record exchanges between the East and the West. A large number of the musical instruments depicted in the murals have never been seen or even recorded in other forms. This creates a huge challenge to artists who want to reproduce them.
“Painters only portrayed the appearance and didn’t explain how they made sounds,” said Ma Chenghu, a young man from Lanzhou, Gansu, who leads a team attempting to make these musical instruments a reality. “That’s the biggest difficulty when reproducing these painted musical instruments as real objects.”
For instance, a kind of ruan (a fourstringed round lute) appears twice in the murals. Unlike the ordinary ruan, this one resembles a lotus flower with seven petals.
Consequently, Ma said, the special type of ruan means craftsmen have their work cut out, no pun intended, to make it playable. They have tried many times to make one that can be played.
Of the 245 musical instruments, only one remains unplayable to musicians —a curved lute with one string. Zheng has recorded 20 instances of the lute appearing in murals painted across different dynasties. He could not find any other information about it except for what is shown in the murals at the Mogao Caves, which
were built by Buddhist worshippers between the 4th and 14th centuries.
“I think it was created by painters. It never existed in real life,” said Zheng.
Both the curved lute and the lotuslike ruan are depicted floating in the sky with ribbons.
Zhu Xiaofeng, a researcher with the
Dunhuang Academy, said there are hundreds of musical instruments that appear to be floating in the murals. Also, bands of musicians playing different instruments are illustrated.
Among the bands, the most-seen instrument is the pipa, which is depicted as having more than 600 shapes, according to Zheng.
In the 1980s, Zheng and his team counted each individual image of a musical instrument that appears in 492 caves to get accurate statistics, taking photos of them as they went. They found that the pipa was the most painted.
“Since the Han Dynasty (206 BCAD 220), the pipa has been a symbol of music in China. Painting it means painting the music scene,” explained Zheng.
Ma’s team has produced 44 kinds of pipa based on Zheng’s research. It took them almost half of 2018 to replicate these selected instruments from the murals.
Ma’s team traveled to many cities to find luthiers talented and skillful enough to reproduce these ancient instruments, which were shown to the public at the 2018 Dunhuang culture expo, and musicians playing them drew huge audiences.
In 2019, these instruments were played by musicians from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music while performing at the Chinese New Year’s Concert held in Vienna, Austria.
It is not the first time that ancient musical instruments depicted in the Dunhuang murals have entertained the modern public. In 1992, Zheng and his team created some of the musical instruments, and that same year, Chinese musicians played them in Japan, but due to a lack of funding and experience, some of the instruments did not sound all that good when played.
Zhang Hongyan, a professor from the Central Conservatory of Music and a pipa player, recalls that the instrument she played did not feel right in both sound and weight. Zhang was the first to play the replica instruments made in 1992. She was also invited to play the pipa produced by Ma’s team, the fourth generation of the reproduced ancient instruments.
Now the instruments are ready to be heard. “The newly-released musical instruments are good enough to play. They will hopefully attract people to learn more about the stories behind them, especially the story of the Mogao Caves and its history,” said Zhang.
It is also the reason Ma puts such an effort and passion into the restoration and production of these ancient instruments — to attract young people and the next generation to learn more about the culture of the caves.
Ma’s team often uploads videos about the instruments on popular short-video apps. They also plan to cooperate with schools to offer music classes to students.
The 35-year-old described his role as a type of “translator”, transforming old images from the murals into playable instruments.
“The caves are far away from people’s lives, but I hope the music and the instruments will bring visitors closer to the caves,” said Ma.