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Guqin and its Music

Ⅱ-34Traditional MusicNanjing, JiangsuBatch 2 (2008)Extension ItemFeatured

01 · Historical Records

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 Jinling school is one of the schools of the art of the Chinese guqin; it was formed at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and its artistic activity was concentrated chiefly in the Nanjing area of Jiangsu. At the end of the Qing and the beginning of the Republic the Jinling school produced such representative figures as Huang Mianzhi and Yang Zongji, and the Jinling Qin Society founded by Huang Mianzhi let qin circles fully appreciate the Jinling manner. In 1934 Wang Xinkui, Xu Yuanbai, Xia Yifeng and others initiated the founding of the Qingxi Qin Society, which enlivened the Jinling qin world while persisting in artistic exchange and the training of talent. In December 1954 the Nanjing Music Society was formally established, containing a guqin group which afterwards became independent under the name “Jinling Qin Society”. The artistic activity of the Jinling school was forced to stop during the Cultural Revolution and was restored after 1978.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

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. In history the Jinling school borrowed from and complemented other qin schools, promoting the all-round development of the art of the guqin. In long artistic practice the Jinling school fused the northern and southern qin manners into one and formed its own distinctive style in rhythm, fingering and musical mood. It stresses that a qin player should have all-round artistic cultivation, holding that only by the road from “the unity of qin and heart” to “the unity of heaven and man” can one reach an artistic realm at once refined and fastidious, clear and free of vulgarity. The Jinling school maintains that the qin song and the qin piece should coexist and opposes monotonous sameness; its fingering is supple and fine, its performing style free and easy, full of rise and fall, and it is especially good at winning by “pause and stress”. The Cai Family Five Pieces, The Ospreys, The Autumn Frontier, Three Variations on the Plum Blossom, Evening Song of the Drunken Fisherman and Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang are among its representative qin pieces.

The Cai Family Five Pieces

Representative qin pieces of the Jinling school include The Cai Family Five Pieces, The Ospreys, The Autumn Frontier, Three Variations on the Plum Blossom, Evening Song of the Drunken Fisherman and Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang.

The Ospreys

A representative qin piece of the Jinling school, also among the pieces reconstructed by later players of the school.

The Artistic Realm from the Unity of Qin and Heart to the Unity of Heaven and Man

The Jinling school stresses that a qin player should have all-round artistic cultivation, holding that only through the unity of qin and heart can one reach a refined, fastidious, clear and free realm.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Jinling school is both an important school of the art of the Chinese guqin and one of the most representative and influential folk music schools of the Nanjing area; it occupies an important place in the history of Chinese guqin music and has had a relatively great influence on later schools such as the Shandong Zhucheng school.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In recent years the impact of strong Western musical culture and the development of professionally orientated and specialised music education have damaged the guqin's original system of transmission. At present the Jinling school has many problems in the training of successors, the collation of pieces, the preservation of audio-visual materials and the protection and restoration of instruments, to which the quarters concerned should pay high attention. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Liu Zhengchun, who on the basis of the Jinling school's characteristic of “pause and stress” blended the strengths of the Guangling, Chuan and Yushan schools to form a distinctive personal style—namely, rise and fall with rule, advance and sequence with measure, fitting proportion, and distant charm with faint sound. His disciples number more than a thousand and are spread over five continents. In 1999 he revived the activity of the Jinling Qin Society and served as its head. In 2005 he was engaged by the Chinese Guqin Society as an expert member of its academic committee and a standing member. From 2001 he successively recorded and released the CD Xiang Yue Piao Piao: Surviving Airs of Jinling and the guqin teaching CD-ROM Ancient Melodies, Cherishing the Past—an Appreciation of Liu Zhengchun's Guqin Art. Male, Han, born March 1935, died June 2013, a native of Nanjing city, Jiangsu. He is a representative bearer of the third batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the guqin (Jinling school). Gui Shimin, male, Han, born January 1953, a native of Nanjing city, Jiangsu. Influenced by his family environment from childhood, he was extremely fond of the traditional qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, and in the early 1970s took as his master the famous qin player Mei Yueqiang, a prized disciple of Xia Yifeng, grand master of the Jinling school, studying with him for eleven years and also receiving long-term guidance from his seniors Zhang Zhengyin and Deng Wenquan, thus receiving the orthodox transmission of the Jinling school. During this time he received years of careful guidance from the older generation of qin players such as Cheng Wujia and constantly sought out famous masters in many places, benefiting greatly. After more than forty years of devoted study he gradually formed a character that takes the Jinling school as its trunk while absorbing the strengths of many, and a qin manner at once refined and dignified, rigorous and regular, holding to the ancient without being bound by it, steady and magnanimous, upright yet with hidden depths, peaceful yet showing billows. For more than ten years he has carried on intangible-heritage transmission in many universities, middle and primary schools, helping institutions of higher learning to establish guqin societies and teaching in them himself. Over the years he has taught many pupils and has taken nineteen personal disciples, producing a relatively large social influence in the transmission of the Jinling school. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the art of the guqin (Jinling school).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Guqin and its Music (Nanjing, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Liu Zhengchun · National Representative Bearer Archive
  3. Guishimin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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