二三十年代的粵曲唱片與唱片粵曲：一個音樂文化史的觀察

Recording Cantonese Opera and Music in the 1920s and 1930s: From a Viewpoint of Cultural History

容世誠(Yung Sai-shing)

《中國文化研究所學報》 43期 (2003/01) Pp. 473-502

https://doi.org/10.29708/JCS.CUHK.200301_(43).0019

並列摘要

This study is a continuation of the author's earlier article, titled The Gramophone Record Industry at the Turn of the Century and Cantonese Musical Art,＂ which has been published in the previous issue (New Series, No. 10, 2001) of the present journal. While his previous study concentrated on the gramophone culture before the second decade of the twentieth century, this paper examines the records of Cantonese music/opera during the 1920s and 1930s, focusing primarily on three aspects: the agency, the products, and the practitioners. Outlining the historical profile of the record industry in Hong Kong, this paper starts with an introduction of the gramophone companies of Cantonese opera. Two cases, one transnational and one local, that is, the Pathe and the New Moon Company respectively, are used to illustrate the organization and production activity of such commercial agency. A major section of this paper is devoted to an analysis of the different Cantonese musical genres (for example, Cantonese operatic songs, Cantonese ballad, Buddhist chants, follk songs) and song titles being recorded, based on the catalogues and trade magazines published by the two companies. Such analysis is conducted in connection with the social occupational backgrounds of the singers-musicians, and the cultural context of Cantonese musical art during the 1920s and 1930s. The final section of the paper argues for the emergence of a new sub-genre of Cantonese operatic song, that is, the changpian yuequ (Cantonese operatic song for gramophone record, which appeared because of the development of the gramophone industry. This new category of Cantonese opera songs are written and produced specifically for the consumptions of gramophone records. Conditioned by the materiality of sound technology, such body of Cantonese operatic songs reveals similar yet different formal designs and musical strategies, when comparing with its counterparts on the opera stages (xipeng yuequ) and teahouses (getan yequ).