Chapter 31 Section 6 "Shuiyun in Xiaoxiang" and "Haiqing Holding a Swan"

The solo works of national instrumental music in the Song and Yuan Dynasties are more representative of the guqin piece "Xiaoxiang Water Cloud" and the pipa piece "Hai Qing Na Swan". The author of "Shuiyun in Xiaoxiang" Guo Mian [mian Mian], whose style name is Chuwang, was born in Yongjia (now Wenzhou, Zhejiang).He was an outstanding Guqin player in the Song Dynasty (approximately 1190-1260 AD), and the founder of the Zhejiang School of Guqin art.At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan army went south to invade Zhejiang, and a large number of literati moved south. Guo Mian also moved to the vicinity of Mount Heng in Hunan.When he was standing on a boat at the confluence of Xiaoshui and Xiangjiang River, looking at the sea of ​​clouds on Jiuyi Mountain, and looking around the forests and mountains and rivers in all directions, he immediately aroused his infinite nostalgia for the beautiful mountains and rivers of the motherland, so he composed this song to express his ups and downs. Thoughts and feelings .The music uses Guqin's unique techniques of loose tone, pressing tone, and large-scale reciting tone to successfully create an artistic scene covered by clouds and water, and express the author's patriotic feelings about the national situation.The whole piece originally had ten stanzas, but it was processed and tempered by various luthiers in the Qing Dynasty, and the art became more mature.The score of this song is included in the "Magic Secret Puzzle" published today (Fig. 35).The contemporary published "Guqin Music Collection" has translated this song into a modern score and included it.

In addition to "Xiaoxiang Water Cloud", Guo Mian's qin music also includes "Qiuhong" and "Fan Canglang".These repertoires, such as "Zepan Yin", "Qiaoge" and "Fisherman's Song" written by Xu Tianmin, Mao Minzhong and other qin masters, have always been excellent repertoires of the Zhejiang School that have been widely performed in the qin world in later generations. The author of "Haiqing Holding the Swan" is unknown, and the subject matter originated from the hunting life of the northern Khitan and Jurchen peoples in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.According to Song Ye Longli's "Improved Rebooking of Khitan Kingdom Chronicles", it is recorded that in the first ten days of the first lunar month and the first ten days of July, the Khitan king would lead the royal family members to go out to shoot and hunt. Drums, flying around the moor to startle the geese and ducks, and hit them with Haidongqing, or shoot them yourself."Costinus, also referred to as "Haiqing", is a kind of raptor raised by hunters that specializes in hunting animals, and belongs to a species of eagle.According to a poem in "Miscellaneous Songs of Luanjing" written by Yang Yunfu, a writer of the Yuan Dynasty: "For the sake of loving the pipa, the wine glass was not put on the moon; Note: ""Haiqing Takes the Swan", Xinsheng also." In the Yuan Dynasty, this piece was already a pipa solo piece with a novel style, unique technique and considerable influence in the circle of literati.The music belongs to "Wutai", but many techniques belonging to "Wentai" are used in performance. The whole piece mostly uses techniques such as chanting, pulling, wheeling, picking, stringing, and sweeping. It pays attention to the control and change of volume and tone, showing The brave bird Haiqing fights against the swan in the sky, and after a fierce fight, the swan is finally captured by Haiqing.The emotion of the whole song is intense and sad, which reflects the hunting life and fierce national character of the ancient northern nomadic people from one side.Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this song has been one of the repertoires often practiced by pipa players of various schools. Zhang Xiong in the Ming Dynasty is famous for his good playing of this song.Both Hua Qiuping's "Pipa Pupils" and Li Fangyuan's "North and South School Thirteen Pipa Puzzles" published in the Qing Dynasty contain this piece of music, and the title of the tune is "Hai Qing Na Goose".In addition, since the Yuan Dynasty, other instrumental music performances have often used this song as a repertoire in whole or in part, so it has more titles, such as "Fang Haiqing", "Take a Goose", "Goose" Wait.

As a guqin piece created by literati, "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun" has always been regarded as an excellent representative work of the Zhejiang School of guqin art in the Song Dynasty and has been handed down to the world, and it is still valued by the guqin circle; One of the oldest pipa songs in the age of production, it is a rare and precious music material in the field of Chinese music history and instrumental solo art.