Zheng Yunfei

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From 1955 he studied the qin under Xu Yuanbai, and from the 1970s he joined the Jinyu Qin Society and other guqin societies and research organisations. Within the regional tradition and school record of Guqin and its Music in Hangzhou, Zhejiang: The Zhejiang school guqin art circulates in the Zhejiang area, and the development of this school falls into two periods, the ancient and the modern. It is confirmed by the materials so far recovered by archaeology that the form of the guqin was already complete by the Han dynasty at the latest. The ancient Zhejiang school of guqin art began in the Southern Song, its founder being Guo Chuwang. Xu Yuanbai's qin art received the true transmission of the qin master Daxiu Shangren of the end of the Qing, while his theoretical thinking derived mainly from the Qing dynasty Zhejiang school qin treatise the Chuncao Tang Qinpu. In 1939 Xu Yuanbai and Xu Zhisun and others formed the “Qingxi Qin Society” in Nanjing; in 1945 he and Yang Jiewu and others formed the “Tianfeng Qin Society” in Chongqing; and in 1946 he returned to Hangzhou and, with Zhang Weizhen and others, formed the “West Lake Moon Gathering”, at the same time compiling the Tianfeng Qinpu and many essays on the qin, greatly promoting the revival and flourishing of Zhejiang school guqin art by his own artistic practice and theory.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnic group, born in March 1939 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. He inherited the traditional performing character of Zhejiang school guqin since the Song and Ming dynasties, summed up as substantial but not rustic, refined but not pedantic, together with the artistic qualities of the modern Zhejiang school master Xu Yuanbai: vigorous and upright, imposing in momentum, classical in tone and plain in manner. Drawing also on the strengths of other schools, he gradually formed his own style, vigorous and archaic, powerful and orthodox. In 2015 he published Qin Melodies from the Listening Waves Pavilion. From 1982 he taught the qin widely, always adhering to the traditional one-to-one method of oral instruction and heart-to-heart transmission; his teaching was rigorous and he is deeply respected by his students. Within the documented technical tradition of Guqin and its Music in Hangzhou, Zhejiang: The guqin, also called the “qin” or the “seven-stringed zither” and otherwise known as the “green damask” or the “silk paulownia”, is a flat-lying plucked string instrument. The art of the guqin is the oldest and most artistically accomplished of instrumental performance forms in Chinese history and the one most marked by national spirit, aesthetic taste and traditional artistic character; besides the solo it also includes the qin song, in which singing and playing go together, and the ensemble of qin and xiao. Through the creative development of qin players and men of letters of successive generations the art of the guqin grew steadily more mature and complete; it entered into a close relationship with social life, history, philosophy and literature, and made great achievements in the accumulation of pieces, performing technique, the study of temperament, modes of transmission and the craft of making qin, displaying a rich humanistic content. Guo passed his art to Liu Zhifang, and Liu Zhifang in turn to Mao Zhongmin and Xu Tianmin, and in this way the Zhejiang school, which occupied an important place in qin circles at the time, was formed. After entering the Qing the art of the Zhejiang school gradually declined. The rise of the modern Zhejiang school guqin art is inseparably bound up with the qin player Xu Yuanbai. Its performance seeks the tone quality of “subtle, wondrous, round and penetrating” and takes as its goal the artistic realm of “clear, subtle, light and distant”, pursuing a mood at once refined, tranquil, concise and free. Its classical pieces number several dozen, including Guo Chuwang's Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang, Mao Zhongmin's The Fisherman's Song and The Woodcutter's Song and Xu Tianmin's Chanting by the Marsh, while the Zhejiang school qin manuals that have come down to us include the Zixia Dong Pu, the Xiawai Qinpu and the Wugang Qinpu, more than ten kinds in all. The ancient Zhejiang school guqin art achieved very high artistic results: the histories record that “of the qin exercises practised in recent times there are three: the Jiang, the Zhe and the Min… those who practise the Zhe exercise are six or seven in ten”. The modern Zhejiang school has also made important achievements in performance, qin theory, qin making and the reconstruction of notation. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang": A classical piece of the Zhejiang school, by Guo Chuwang, founder of the school. "The Fisherman's Song": A classical Zhejiang school piece, by Mao Zhongmin. "The Woodcutter's Song": A classical Zhejiang school piece, by Mao Zhongmin. "Chanting by the Marsh": A classical Zhejiang school piece, by Xu Tianmin.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a representative bearer of guqin art of the Zhejiang school, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Zheng Yunfei · National Representative Bearer Archive