Biographies of 20th century guqin players

查阜西 Zha Fuxi (1895-1976)
His Guqin Work of 1956 is the basis for modern research on the qin
高羅佩 Gao Luopei (R. H. Van Gulik; 1915-1967)
His Lore of the Chinese Lute remains the best published introduction to guqin history and lore
孫毓芹 Sun Yuqin (Sun Yü-Ch'in; 1915-1990)
My original teacher in Taiwan, 1974 - 76
唐健垣 Tang Jianyuan (Tong Kin-Woon)
My advisor in Hong Kong, 1976 - 2000

Several more are briefly introduced below and under the introduction to Zha Fuxi's guqin work ("professional players").

Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 20th Century Guqin Specialists
The focus of this website is guqin in pre-modern times. Thus this section is very much incomplete.
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2. Sun Yü-Ch'in (my teacher) and Tong Kin-Woon (my advisor)
Images 41 and 42 at the front of Dr. Tong's Qin Fu, B.
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3. 20th century guqin players
This footnote is currently reserved for the occasional comment on guqin specialists mentioned elsewhere on this site.

Guan Pinghu (管平湖; 1897-1967)
See Wiki.
Le Ying (or Yue Ying 樂英 1911 - ?)
The surname 樂 can be pronounced either "Le" or "Yue". In Guqin Collection #6 her name is written "Le Ying", so I have tended to follow that. However, Cecilia Lindquist tells me that 吳鉊 Wu Zhao says she was at the time called Yue Ying. Born in Beijing, she studied first with her father, who then invited 賈闊峰 Jia Kuofeng (a student of 黃勉 Huang Mian) to teach her (Jia also taught Pu Xuezhai (see below).
Pu Xuezhai （溥雪齋，姓名溥伒 1893 - 1966), proper name Pu Jin, was a cousin of the last emperor of China, Aisin Gioro Puyi, and a direct descendent of the Daoguang emperor (1782 - 1821 -1850). The "Pu" here had been part of their generational name, but after 1911 some members of the former Manchu royal family used Pu as a surname (compare the common surname 傅 Fu, which 970.0 says has only this pronunciation). 18368.0 溥 Pu (other pronunciations are given as fu, bu, bo or po) says: according to the Record of Names (1960) its use as a surname is rather modern.
Pu Xuezhai was a noted painter (see, e.g., on the Oberlin museum website) as well as qin player, but there is little biographical information available in English. There is also some confusion about his surname in that he is often called 傅雪齋 Fu Xuezhai (an English example is the well-known UNESCO recording called A Musical Anthology of the Orient 32, 1985). Chinese writings may use either Pu Xuezhai or Fu Xuezhai (溥伒 Pu Jin is also common but 傅伒 Fu Jin less so), but I have not yet found an explanation of when or why Fu got started as a substitute for Pu. Because as a surname Pu is rare but Fu is quite common, perhaps this is due to simple confusion. Or perhaps at some time, as when Puyi allowed the Japanese to make him emperor of Manchuria from 1934 to 1945, it became politically expedient for Pu Xuezhai to change his surname from Pu to Fu. In any case, it now seems most common to go back to his original surname, 溥 Pu.
Pu Xuezhai's daughter 金毓嵐 Jin Yulan (1926 - ; also called 愛新覺羅毓嵐 Aisin Gioro Yulan) is a noted calligrapher. An online biography of 冷炳祥 Leng Bingxiang says he studied landscape painting from the 長子 eldest son of Pu Xuezhai, 愛新覺羅毓泉 Aisin Gioro Yuquan (1945 - ; also 愛新覺羅毓泉 Aisingioro Yuquan), today a well-known calligrapher.
溥雪齋（1893-1966），原名溥伒，爲末代皇帝愛新覺羅·溥儀之重堂兄弟。其爲「溥」字輩，1991年後部分滿清皇族取「溥」爲姓（對比於更常見的「傅」姓)、 18368.0 溥（讀爲「pu」, 「fu」, 「bu」, 「bo」或「po」）言「（姓錄）今人有姓之者」（《姓錄》，王素存，1960）。
溥雪齋爲著名畫家（例見北京市文史研究館網站）和琴家。他常被稱爲傅雪齋，例如在聯合國教科文組織的《A Musical Anthology of the Orient 32》（1985）錄音裏，因此他的姓有些不清楚。中文著作有時使用溥雪齋，有時傅雪齋（溥伒也很常見，但傅伒很少見），但我至今未能解釋爲何「傅」有時代替「溥」。因「溥」姓很稀有但「傅」常見，這可能爲單純的混淆。或許，某時，像溥儀允許日本人將其於1934-1945間立爲滿洲皇帝時，溥雪齋爲政治原因將名字改爲傅雪齋。無論如何，現大多似乎重新使用原來的「溥雪齋」。
Wu Jinglue (吳景略; 1907-1987)
See Wiki.
Xia Yifeng (夏一峰; 1883-1963)
Also written 夏一峯. The chart here places him with the Sichuan school but this seems to be a mistake as he is most closely associated with Nanjing and its 金陵派 "Jinling School". According to the introduction in Guqin Qu Huibian, which is a collection of tablature and staff notation for 17 pieces he played, his original name was 夏福雲 Xia Fuyun and he was from 淮安 Huaian in Jiangsu province. In addition to being a qin teacher he managed a 善堂 charitable institution. He had many teachers but the most important one was 楊子鏞 Yang Ziyong (Yang Zirong), a painter also from Huian; Yang in turn had studied qin from 喬子衡 Qiao Ziheng. Xia and Yang ran a scroll mounting shop together. According to Xia Yifeng's recollection, from 1898, when he taught his first student, he had altogether over 40 students.

See also professional players under Zha Fuxi guqin work.
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