UNESCO first proclaimed Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2001, later subsumed under “elements” to a Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; its expressed goal was to preserve music whose survival was being threatened. Not surprisingly, East Asian nations embraced UNESCO's actions with enthusiasm, for many of them had decades earlier enacted laws for that purpose, attesting to the nations' strong sense of history through the arts.
Such a sense is treated in this fine volume, which presents ten case studies of musical genres from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, with an introductory chapter by Keith Howard on the ideology and policy of UNESCO and of individual nations. The central issue that most of them focus on is “preservation,” as is shown in six of the titles. The musical genres chosen were designated as endangered and in need of “preservation” by either UNESCO or the nations themselves.
That may sound straightforward; but as the authors show, it is far from being so in actuality. Music changes with each performance; a musical genre may have many variant forms depending upon musicians from different generations and regions. Thus, what does “endangered” mean? What exactly is to be “preserved”? Who make such decisions? What are the ideological bases for doing so? The case studies show again and again that there are no easy answers.
The major decision-makers are the national governments and some local authorities, which set policies and establish institutions to realize the goal of preservation. Such actions often become political and economic platforms for contestation. One reason is that the designation, with concomitant funding, can elevate some musicians' financial well-being, social status and artistic influence over others, as in the case of artist Yi Ŭn'gwan of Korea in the performance of the narrative genre called paebaengi, reported by Roald Maliangkay. The same can be said of a few nanguan ensemble clubs in Taiwan that were given “heritage” designation, leaving the other clubs and musicians outside the system, as reported by Ying-fen Wang.
Top-down decisions to promote some musicians and musical activities over others can have consequences that may not necessarily promote “preservation.” Olivia Kraef, reporting on the mouth harp of the Nuoso-Yi people of Sichuan Province, observes that such policies may in fact have led to the music's downfall. Catherine Ingram reports on the case of the big songs of the Kam people in Guizhou, which were performed in two different venues and styles: the “staged performance” and the “village tradition.” After the genre received both national and international recognition, the staged performance became dominant, threatening the survival of the village tradition. Helen Rees strikes a more positive note in her report on the qin music of China. She writes that “a top-down initiative … has had a huge impact on the number of people involved in the art,” and that “it is surely the intangible cultural heritage policies and publicity that brought the instrument to their attention as something worthy of their time” (p. 49).
When a regional or national authority designates a particular musical genre as an intangible cultural heritage, the goal is often to create or enforce a regional or national identity, or to further some other political agenda. Such is the case of the three-stringed plucked lute of Okinawa, as reported by Matt Gillan, who observes that the designation by the Tokyo government served to underline the islands' membership in the Japanese nation. For centuries-old musical genres with ample documentation from the past, such as Korea's state sacrificial ritual and music, Keith Howard reports on how practitioners of contesting versions argued about which is more “authentic” based upon historical documents. Jane Alaszewska brings home the crux of the matter: while laws to protect individual property rights are well established in several nations, there is no law yet to protect collective rights over musical genres generated and practiced by the community. She refers specifically to the Chichibu festival of Japan, but her observation is equally valid to most of the other “endangered” genres, which are community-based.
Two authors take different approaches. Lauren Gorfinkel provides a detailed discussion of how local and minority musical traditions are given meaning by mass media in a way that then sends messages about China's ethnic composition across the nation. Shino Arizawa, on the other hand, probes the dichotomy of “classical” and “folk” music, a distinction that forms the basis of Japan's law on Intangible Cultural Properties.
This brief review can single out only a few issues raised in this rich volume – issues that have long interested ethnomusicologists, cultural activists, policy setters and others. The volume is delightfully free of jargon and technical terminology so that it should be easily readable by non-music humanists and social scientists who may normally steer clear of a book on music.
