Page 102 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plate 9.4 Gu Yongxiang playing Feibao
lianzhu 飛瀑連珠 (Drops of Water
Flying Down from the Fall like Linked
Pearls)
China. In his preface for the document, he provided a brief known to have made qin instruments himself. Practical and
history of the genre and explained his motives for producing meticulous knowledge about qin instruments is what anchors
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the anthology, which can be briefly summarised here. He and authenticates both his theories and his notated music.
argues that ancient sages had instituted music by fixing the Currently two historical and extant Ming qin are considered
five tones and performing them on seven-stringed qin zithers, as authentic instruments made by the prince. One is the
musical instruments that embodied heavenly and earthly renowned Feibao lianzhu 飛瀑連珠 (‘Drops of Water Flying
forces, producing music that helped gentlemen cultivate their Down from the Fall like Linked Pearls’) (Pl. 9.4); it is now
benevolent hearts. In the centuries immediately preceding owned by Gu Zechang 顧澤長 (b. 1941), a retired qin master
the Ming, Buddhists and other undesirable people had and professor of Shenyang Conservatory of Music. He
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abused the music, and thus only a limited number of inherited the instrument from his great-grandfather, Gu
compositions were authentically practised in early Ming. To Xiaogeng 顧少庚, who acquired it in the late 1880s from a
remedy the situation, Zhu Quan chose to preserve authentic Mr Lu Changsen 陸長森 of Changsha.
compositions, namely either those he had personally learned, Lu purchased the qin, which was previously owned by a
practised and edited or those his five assistants had learned Li Zhuo 李拙 of Xiangping 襄平 in present-day Liaoning
and collected from different qin masters. The notated music province, in 1864. As Li reported, he discovered the
in the Shenqi mipu was distinctive because it not only instrument among a pile of dusty old things. Knocking on
expressed the prince’s heart and mind but also demonstrated the wood of the instrument, he heard its resonant sounds,
how individual master musicians performed their own and then identified a text inscribed inside its body. This
melodies and rhythms. In order to anthologise accurately qin declares the instrument to be a ‘qin of central harmony,
music for posterity, the prince spent 12 years performing and personally crafted by the Yun’an Daoist, of the Ming
correcting every detail of the collected works. The anthology, imperial clan (Huang Ming zongshi yun’an daoren qinzuo
he claims, should be treasured by all who aspire to revive zhongheqin 皇明宗室雲庵道人亲造中和琴). Superbly built,
ancient and authentic music. the instrument measures 118cm long and features a shoulder
Zhu Quan’s qin manifesto is historically representative of width of 19.9cm. It still sounds resonant and sweet, a sonic
those artistic, elitist, idealist, moralist and scholarly qin confirmation of Zhu Quan’s ideological and sophisticated
connoisseurs of Ming and Qing China. What the prince production and consumption of qin music and musical
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declared is musically substantiated by his notated music: instruments.
when deciphered and performed, they make celestially
intriguing melodies and rhythms. Since the 1950s, when Concluding remarks
20th-century qin masters realised the historical importance Reviewing Zhu Quan’s ideology for and systematisation of
of Shenqi mipu and began to transcribe and then perform its Chinese drama and music, one might ask how personal
notated music, the subtly contrasting styles and biography, official institutions and the forces of Ming culture
individualistic features in the historically different and history interactively or singularly defined his distinctive
repertories preserved in the anthology have become more and influential legacy. There is no doubt that a critical force
and more obvious. Zhu Quan’s claim to historical came from those early Ming social-political struggles which
authenticity and musical sophistication is winning more and robbed him of opportunities to implement his political
more admirers. ambitions, generating his tragic life, and transforming him
Zhu Quan won and is still winning because his qin into an impressive cultural-musical consumer and producer.
aesthetics and practices are organic and coherent. He is Another critical force is the fortuitous convergence of his

92 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450