Chinese Tradition

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 758, 29 January 1954, Page 10

Chinese Tradition

N contrast to the almost gaudy passion of Europe there is a delicacy of sensibility and sentiment to traditional China which can be soothing and delightful. Sometimes, too, a western person is able to understand Chinese feeling so wel] that he or she acts as a spiritual ambassador on China’s behalf, as Samuel Merwin did in his wonderful book Silk, and as’ Rhoda Power has done in her excellent presentation of "Mowtan the Tartar and the Chinese Princess," heard over 3YA. This story, delicately supported with most important musical effects, tells of a Chinese monarch who, desiring to placate Mowtan when he lay encamped beyond the gate of the Great Wall of China, finally sacrificed both his daughter and that of his chief adviser. Through the ingenious repetition of ritualistic phrases such as "Tush! tush! Pish! Pish! I must

think," delivered by the adviser, and the quaint use of drums describing steps taken by the army to accomplish the Emperor's will, the mental images were finely but securely wrought in the mind of the listener. With that strange alchemy which art does possess, the tragic element jis replaced by that of whimsy and humour in much the same way as "The Rape of the Sabines" on a cameo yields only a vision of infinite

grace.

Westcliff