Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/120

RV 115 (THE PEAR GARDEN) was caught up. It echoed in the trees. Other men all over China joined in the chorus. No longer was the spirit of the people in prison. They found their release in music. Courage, joy, strength, hope.

In the T'ang Dynasty, under Ming Huang, music received its greatest impetus. The Bureau of Music gave way to the Chiao Fang for popular music and the Pear Garden for Palace Music. That section set aside for young women was called the Everlasting Spring Garden. However, at musicals and festivals, they both took part with the result that the term Pear was used in a broad sense to cover all secular music of the Palace. As a rule young women chose string instruments. Drums and reed instruments were for men. Occasionally drummers were on horseback. But all rules everywhere are made to be broken so that even these rules were not strictly adhered to.

Ming Huang was a music lover. Not infrequently he led the orchestra, or became one of the musicians, playing a reed pipe for which he had composed a special song entitled "Inverting the Cup." For drum music, he composed ninety-five pieces. The repertoire of the Pear Carden included martial songs, dirges of war, repetitive choruses and love songs. Many were derivatives of peasant music wrought under the impact of overwhelming emotion.

Ming Huang decreed that there should be a Festival of Rejoicing at the Palace to mark the continuance of RV 115 (115)