Qiu Feng Ci is attributed to Li Bai, the great Tang dynasty poet — though as with many pieces in the guqin tradition, the attribution carries the weight of feeling rather than historical certainty. This version was transmitted by Xia Yifeng, based on Mei Yueqiang’s Guqin Jiaocai score.
The piece is brief and self-contained, its fingering clean and orderly. What it lacks in length it makes up in concentration: the melody is tender and lingering, circling back on itself the way longing does, expressing the feeling of an autumn night when someone is far away and the wind carries nothing back.
Li Bai wrote of wine, of moonlight, of friendship and exile. This piece holds all of that in a small space — the kind of music that ends before you are ready for it to end.
Recorded by Mei Yueqiang. Part of the ongoing series presenting his complete surviving recordings.
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