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| Qin Melodies connected to Nanjing 1 | 南京古琴 |
| And surrounding region?2 | Playing qin in Nanjing's Purple Mountain?3 |
Nanjing's connection with many qin songs as well as instrumental melodies allows a Nanjing program to select from a large number of melodies, both purely instrumental and with lyrics. Nevertheless, existing qin tablature includes only a few melodies with themes specifically connected to the city (see below). Thus, a full program of qin melodies associated with Nanjing must include music from handbooks and players connected in some way to the city rather than focus simply on melodies that directly concern the city and its environs.4 It would be particularly interesting if these melodies could be presented in such a way as to show clearly definable Nanjing characteristics. Indeed, claims have been made for the existence of a Nanjing qin school (usually called Jinling School, after an old name for Nanjing). However, to my knowledge it has never been clearly defined.5
Nanjing has particular relevance to the study of qin songs:6 many such songs were created and/or published here. These songs seem particularly to have appealed to amateur qin societies and to female qin players. This and related issues are further discussed on this website under such topics as The Qin in Popular Culture: Novels and Opera and Women and the Guqin.
It should also be noted that Matteo Ricci spent some time in Nanjing, making the acquaintances of numerous literati. One possible outline for the program Music from the Time of Matteo Ricci imagines an "elegant gathering" where Jesuits and literati exchange melodies that could have been in the repertoire of the Jesuit musicians and the Chinese literati. Ricci apparently did take part in such gatherings, though there seems to be no record of music having been played at any of them. Nevertheless, it should be possible to organize a program focused on melodies Ricci could have heard while he was in Nanjing.7
Qin melodies with specific connections to Nanjing include the following (though some of the associations could also be seen as speculative8):
- Jinling Diao Gu (A Jinling Lament on Antiquity [Jinling = Nanjing], 9 sections).
11
Attributed to Yang Biaozheng, whose Chongxiu Zhenchuan Qinpu is included the list below of handbooks associated with Nanjing.12. - Mudan Fu (Rhapsody on Peonies
In the same handbook and also attributed to Yang Biaozheng, it commemorates visiting peony garden Nanjing. - Xiang Si Qu (Melody of Mutual Love)
This melody, published first in Nanjing, later appears in Japanese handbooks, showing a qin connection between Nanjing and Japan dating from Shin-Etsu (Jiang Jingshou). - Shishang Liu Quan (image)
The qin player Xiao Sihua is said to have played this here by a clear stream in Purple Mountain (details; I play is the earliest known version, from 1525). - Mozi Bei Ge (Mozi Sings with Feeling)
Note the Matteo Ricci connection (he was in Nanjing in 1598-9) and the comment about a player named Gao Longbo.9 - Jiu Kuang (Wine Mad)
All three sung versions were published in Nanjing handbooks (1585, 1589 and 1618). The melody has long been associated with Ruan Ji; a famous Nanjing brick relif shows him as one of the Seven Sages.
These melodies are all preserved in handbooks published in Nanjing around 1600. The first three are from the Chongxiu Zhenchuan Qinpu (1585) of Yang Biaozheng; the latter three are in the Zhenchuan Zhengzong Qinpu (1589/1609) of Yang Lun. The last (Jiu Kuang) is in both. And there are also several more melodies connected to Nanjing through Yang Biaozheng.13 One that might be added once I have recorded it is:
- Saishang Hong (Wild Geese on the Frontier)
First surviving version is 金陵鄭養居校傳 Revised by Zheng Yangju of Jinling (Nanjing) and transmitted (transcribed but not yet recorded).
To expand upon these and other qin melodies connected to Nanjing one can examine the various handbooks associated with that city. Of these there are quite a few.
Handbooks directly connected to Nanjing (usually by publication, though some of this may be tentative) include the following:
For discussing the truly early history of the qin in Nanjing one must get into serious speculation: here there is little or no tablature but there are many stories and many famous players. What music the actually played is very much open to question, as is their possible influence on later music.
Players most relevant to the early history of the qin include:
There are many later players to be mentioned but that is not yet included here.
Although some of the qin melody titles listed above are associated with persons mentioned here, the surviving versions of actual melodies of these titles cannot be reliably traced back to such a early times. Thus for actual Nanjing-related melodies one must mostly look to Ming dynasty handbooks published in Nanjing.
1.
Nanjing Area (Wiki)
More generally speaking, historical details on Nanjing seem to be best for periods when it was (usually under another name) a capital city. The first extended period when it was a capital city was the so-called Six Dynasties Period (Wiki). These six dynasties are the first six names listed here:
See above for names of some qin players during these periods.
2.
Surrounding region
3.
Playing qin in Nanjing's Purple Mountain?
Other qin related Nanjing images include those of the
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (竹林七賢圖). At least three tombs in the Nanjing area have tombs with brick relief images of the Seven Sages (or Seven Worthies). The best preserved is the one discovered in 1959 in a tomb near 西善橋 Xishanqiao, a bridge on the southwest side of Nanjing. In 1968 two similar tombs, which originally also had complete sets of images, were found at 吳家村 Wujiacun (near 胡橋 Huqiao) and 金家村 Jinjiacun (near 建山 Jianshan), in northeastern 丹陽縣 Danyang county, east of Nanjing. The Seven Sages had lived near Luoyang during the time it was capital of the Wei (220 - 265) and Western Jin (265 - 317). The tombs were built near Nanjing when it was capital of the Eastern Jin (317 - 420), Liu Song (420 - 479), or Southern Qi, 479 - 502). The 晉 Jin rulers had been driven from north to south by northern tribes.
4.
Nanjing theme performance
5.
Nanjing qin school?
6.
Nanjing and qin songs (see also The qin in popular culture)
Her Chapter 3 focuses on Yang Biaozheng; in Chapter 5 she contrasts Yang's attitude of playing qin as part of his withdrawal from society (publishing his handbook to draw people to that society) with the attitude of Cheng Xiong, who played qin as a way to become famous.
7.
Matteo Ricci in Nanjing
I do not know whether Ricci ever wrote down comments comparing Nanjing and Beijing.
8.
Tentative Nanjing associations
9.
Gao Longbo
11.
金陵吊古 Jinling Diao Gu (Jinling Lament on Antiquity; 9 sections;
now a separate page)
12.
牡丹賦 Mudan Fu (Rhapsody on Peonies; 1 section)
13.
Melodies associated with Yang Biaozheng and Nanjing
Handbook of qin master Huang Longshan, from Jiangxi but living in Nanjing (see image and QSCB, Chapter 7); the preface was written in Nanjing.
Apparently printed in Nanjing by
Yang Jiasen.
Handbook of Li Ren; tentative association with Nanjing based on its connection to Taiyin Buyi and Taiyin Chuanxi, below.
Handbook of Xiao Luan; association with Nanjing, tentative and perhaps peripheral, largely based on comments by Xu Jian linked above.
Second handbook of Xiao Luan; association with Nanjing also tentative.
Handbook of the famous Nanjing qin master Yang Biaozheng (see
image and QSCB,
Chapter 7); he apparently created or adapted all of the melodies, at least two of them directly connected to Nanjing (see below).
Zangchunwu is a district of Nanjing; published by eunuchs (compare
Yuwu Qinpu).
Compiled by Yang Lun of Nanjing (see image and QSCB, Chapter 7)
Compiled by Zhang Tingyu, perhaps of Nanjing
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
This website is focused mainly on qin music as published during the Ming dynasty. Relevant historical sources in English for this period include:
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A program on the theme of Nanjing could also be expanded to include surrounding areas, such as 滁州 Chuzhou, about 100 km northwest of Nanjing, location of Ouyang Xiu's
Old Toper's Pavilion
(see Zui Weng Yin).
(Return)
The above image is discussed under
Shishang Liu Quan.
(Return)
To my knowledge no research has been done in this area. It is a very complex topic, and it should include analysis of how melodies published earlier and changed when published in Nanjing handbooks. I play many of these earlier versions of the melodies, but have not studied the versions published in Nanjing carefully enough to be able to discern any trends.
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A Jinling Qin Society (金陵琴社 Jinling Qinshe) was established in Nanjing in 1934 (Jinling is an old name for Nanjing), and today there is some discussion of an historical Jinling Qin School (金陵琴派 Jinling Qin Pai), or simply Jinling School (金陵派 Jinling Pai). Perhaps a program could be constructed of versions of melodies claiming such a connection. For example Wuzhizhai Qinpu (1722) has three melodies said to be Jinling School versions:
Yi Qiao Jin Lü, Ou Lu Wang Ji, and Qiu Sai Yin (three further are listed as 金派 Jin Pai; I am not sure if this is the same). There is also
Huaigu Yin from
1884. However, I am not familiar with a usable description of the characteristics of such a school, which in any case presumably changed over time.
(Return)
For some detail on the flowering of Chinese songs and opera in Nanjing during the late Ming dynasty a good place to begin is with the
Ph.D. thesis of Wu Zeyuan.
(Downloaded from
OSU).
(Return)
Ricci's impression of Nanjing can be seen in the following quote from Matteo Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Mathew Ricci: 1583-1610 (as translated by Gallagher; see also Jun Fang, p.5):
(Return)
Much of comment here on associations with Nanjing is tentative simply because when looking in original Ming dynasty sources I sometimes cannot distinguish clearly whether references are to Beijing or Nanjing. An example is in the expression "capital city" (京師 jingshi), which apparently could refer to Nanjing even after around 1421 even after the official main capital was moved to Beijing; for the rest of the dynasty Nanjing remained a secondary capital city with parallel administrations.
(Return)
Apparently living in Nanjing at the time of Matteo Ricci: note the possible connection with Mozi Bei Ge.
(Return)
Guide 25/212/386 lists this title only in 1585 (QQJC IV/311). Jinling is an ancient name for Nanjing, and the preface says that the melody commemorates
Yang Biaozheng's returning to Nanjing with 張徵軒 Zhang Zhixuan (Zhengxuan?) during Mid-Autumn Festival of 1579, playing the qin and intoning beneath the moon.
(Return)
In Toc; details moved to a
separate file.
(Return)
Another possibility is Yu Xian Yin, which refers to Yang Biaozheng. To my knowledg, of these three only Mudan Fu has of yet been reconstructed. In fact, very few melodies with extensive lyrics have been reconstructed. As of 2016 I have done several of my own reconstructions, as listed here. I do not feel that such reconstructions are complete until I can play them from memory and, in the case of qin songs, sing them, or find someone who can sing them, in a manner that seems appropriate to the lyrics.
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