The Impossible Black Tulip: Celebrating One of Beijing’s Earliest Expats

Among mapmakers, the “Impossible Black Tulip” is the name given to the rare and exotic world map created by Matteo Ricci in 1602 – one of the first European-style maps written entirely in Chinese – of which only six original copies are known to exist.

This month, that ancient map will feature prominently on the NCPA stage, in the form of a digitized projection framing musicians as they celebrate the life of Ricci, the Italian Jesuit missionary who spearheaded many of the earliest sojourns from Europe to China.

The multimedia performance, which also marks the Beijing debut of ¡Sacabuche!, an American “early music” group, will feature both Western and Chinese musical traditions prevalent during Ricci’s time. In an attempt to recreate the artistic crossover of Ricci’s era, ¡Sacabuche! has enlisted composers and historians from China, Europe and the US to bring the project to life.

“We decided to anchor the Italian early music portion of the project by drawing on works commemorating the historic Battle of Lepanto, which Ricci would surely have been aware of while in Rome,” says ensemble director Linda Pearse, an instructor of early trombone at Indiana University.

The timing of the famous battle (1571) places it firmly within the wheelhouse of the period music ensemble. “¡Sacabuche! specializes in music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, from 1530 to 1660,” Pearse says. “We play on replicas of instruments that existed during those eras and are well-versed in historical performance styles.” Those musical atavisms include sackbut, cornetto and dulcian (precursors to the trombone, trumpet and bassoon, respectively).

For groups like ¡Sacabuche!, faithfully emulating the sound of bygone eras is a treasure hunt through centuries of largely forgotten musical tropes. “The directness of emotional expression, the rhythmic liveliness, the intriguing timbres – all these things are really what make early music so interesting,” said Cathy Barbash, executive producer of the Beijing show.

Meanwhile, on the Chinese side, Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo was brought on board for his expertise in late Ming-dynasty musical styles. Huang said he conceived his composition as a meeting of two disparate musical tropes, one Chinese and one Western, starting out independent of one another and gradually building toward a subtle synergy, in the process capturing the notion of cultural exchange that Pearse singled out as being central to the project’s ambitions.

“The idea of writing music for both Chinese and Western period instruments is truly groundbreaking and fresh,” Huang said. “This is symbolic of how the two cultures met through Ricci’s journey.”

Experience “The Map and Music of Matteo Ricci” at the NCPA on Dec 12.