Three times the melody returns. Three times the cup is raised. And still, the road ahead does not shorten.
Yang Guan San Die is the most beloved farewell in Chinese musical history — a piece so deeply woven into the culture that its melody and its poem have become inseparable.
The poem is Wang Wei's Wei Cheng Qu, written in the Tang dynasty for a friend departing westward beyond Yangguan Pass — the last outpost of the known world. The morning rain has settled the dust. The willows are fresh and green. Drink one more cup of wine, the poet says. Beyond this pass, there will be no old friends.
The music repeats three times — not for emphasis, but because once is not enough to say goodbye to someone you may never see again.
This version follows Mei Yueqiang's Guqin Teaching Score. It is also known as Yang Guan Qu and Wei Cheng Qu. The three sections bind music and poetry so closely that to hear one is to feel the other. It has moved listeners for over a thousand years, and it has not lost a single note of its power.
Mei Yueqiang plays it as a man who has known both the giving and the receiving of farewells.
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