(b Wenjiang, Sichuan province, 5 Oct 1892; d Bonn, 12 Jan 1936). Chinese musicologist. Having become involved in various social movements in Sichuan from an early age, he studied law at Zhongguo University in Beijing (1914–18). In 1918 he founded the Young China Association (Shaonian Zhongguo xuehui), an influential organization devoted to social reform. He was an influential essayist and journalist in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, and initiated a short-lived utopian movement called Work-Study Mutual Aid Group (Gongdu huzhu tuan), propagating a new style of urban life. Disappointed by the failure of the movement, he went to Germany in 1920 as a journalist to seek new knowledge of social reform. However, he soon became attracted to music, and by 1923 he was writing on the subject. In 1927 he entered Berlin University, studying with Ludwig Schiedermair, Erich Hornbostel, I. Schmitt and Curt Sachs. In 1934 he received his PhD in musicology from the Frederick William University, Bonn. In his numerous writings in the 1920s and 30s for both Chinese and Western readers he was the first scholar systematically to introduce European music to China and Chinese music to Europe. His profound knowledge of traditional Chinese music and his Western training in comparative musicology established him as the founder of comparative musicology in China.
Ouzhou yinyue jinhua lun [The evolution of European music] (Shanghai, 1924)
Xiyang yinyue yu shige [Music and poetry in the West] (Shanghai, 1924)
Xiyang yinyue yu xiju [Music and drama in the West] (Shanghai, 1925)
Dong Xi yuezhi zhi yanjiu [Study of musical systems of East and West] (Shanghai, 1926)
Dongfang minzu zhi yinyue [Music of the oriental nations] (Shanghai, 1929)
Fanyi qinpu zhi yanjiu [On transcribing qin tablatures] (Shanghai, 1931)
Zhongguo shiciqu zhi qinzhong lü [Metre in Chinese poetry] (Shanghai, 1933)
Die chinesische klassische Oper (Geneva, 1934)
Zhongguo yinyue shi [History of Chinese music] (Shanghai, 1934)
Das gesprochene und das musikalische Drama in China (Berlin, 1935)
Xiyang yinyue shi gangyao [Brief history of Western music] (Shanghai, 1937)
Wang Guangqi yinyue lunwen xuan [Selected essays on music by Wang Guangqi] (Chengdu, 1984)
Wang Guangqi wenji [Writings of Wang Guangqi] (Chengdu, 1992)
Wang Guangqi xiansheng jinian ce [Commemoration volume for Wang Guangqi] (Shanghai, 1936)
Zhuidao Wang Guangqi xiansheng zhuankan [Special volume in memory of Wang Guangqi] (Chengdu, 1936)
Wang Guangqi yanjiu lunwen ji [Collected essays on Wang Guangqi] (Chengdu, 1985)
Huangzhong liu yun ji: jinian Wang Guangqi xiansheng [Collected essays in memory of Wang Guangqi] (Chengdu, 1993)
SU ZHENG