Every guqin journey begins with the same piece. This is that piece — and the story behind it.
Xianweng Cao (仙翁操) — The Song of the Immortal Elder — is where every guqin journey begins.
It is not a showpiece. It is not a test of technique. It is a threshold piece: short, spare, and unhurried. Every student who has ever sat before a guqin — from the great masters of the Tang dynasty to the beginner picking up the instrument for the first time today — has passed through this same door. The melody is simple enough to learn in an afternoon, and deep enough to spend a lifetime understanding.
Anyone who has studied guqin will know Xianweng Cao intimately. The lyrics repeat like a mantra — "Xianweng, Xianweng, Chen Tuan, the Immortal Elder who attained the Dao" — the fingers tracing gentle hooks and plucks (gou tiao yin nong, 勾挑吟弄) as if in meditation. Beneath its simplicity lies the portrait of a man who wanted nothing the world was offering.
The Immortal Elder: Chen Tuan (871–989)
The "Immortal Elder" of the title is a real historical figure: Chen Tuan (陈抟, pronounced Tuán), courtesy name Túnán, Daoist name Fuyao Zi ("Master of the Whirlwind"). The Emperor Taizong of Song bestowed upon him the honorific title "Master Xiyi" (希夷先生) — a name drawn from the Daodejing, evoking the invisible and the inaudible, the things beyond the reach of the senses. In Daoist tradition, he is simply called Chen Tuan the Old Ancestor (陈抟老祖).
Chen Tuan was born near the end of the Tang dynasty — a civilization then crumbling after two centuries of brilliance. He received a classical Confucian education, studied the histories, and became known in his youth as a poet. But as the Tang collapsed and China entered the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms — an era of warlords, shifting loyalties, and endless war — Chen Tuan made a quiet, radical choice.
He did not seek office. He did not seek power. He took to the mountains.
An Audience with the Emperor
In 984 AD, Chen Tuan was summoned to the imperial capital. Emperor Taizong of Song received him with great courtesy, and afterward remarked to his ministers:
"Chen Tuan cultivates only himself. He is moved by nothing — no power, no profit. That is a man of true elevation. He has lived on Huashan for over forty years. He must be nearly a hundred years old."
When Taizong asked Chen Tuan about the secrets of immortality and inner cultivation, the old sage replied without ceremony:
"I am a mountain hermit. I have no use for the affairs of state — and I know nothing of alchemy or the arts of breathing and longevity. Even if I were to ascend to heaven in broad daylight, what good would that do for the world?"
Then he added: "But the Emperor before me is learned in history, penetrating in his understanding of order and disorder, and is a ruler of true virtue and benevolence. This is precisely the moment for those above and below to unite in purpose and reform the governance of the realm."
He had been summoned as a mystic. He spoke as a statesman — and then returned to his mountain.
The Emperor was deeply moved. He issued an imperial decree conferring upon Chen Tuan the honorific title "Master Xiyi" (希夷先生), presented him with a robe of imperial purple, and ordered the restoration of the Yuntai Temple on Huashan. In the months that followed, Emperor Taizong and Chen Tuan exchanged poems — two men from entirely different worlds, finding a common language in verse.
Taizong was himself a devoted reader. He read every day without exception; when affairs of state forced him to miss a day, he made up for it the next. He often told those around him: "To open a book is always a gain" (开卷有益) — a phrase that has passed into the Chinese language as a proverb, tracing its origin to this emperor.
The Appointed Day
In the seventh lunar month of 989 AD, a stone chamber was completed on Huashan — carved from the living rock at Chen Tuan's instruction. He composed a formal memorial to the throne, writing with characteristic calm:
"My allotted span is nearly complete. On the twenty-second day of this month, I will shed this form in the Zhang Chao Valley, below Lian Peak."
On the twenty-second day, he did exactly that. He was one hundred and eighteen years old.
Chen Tuan spent his life with the I Ching (易经) always in hand. He wrote Zhixuan Pian (指玄篇) — Pointing at the Mystery — in eighty-one chapters, along with collections of poetry: the Gaoyang Ji, the Diaotang Ji, and others — more than six hundred poems in all.
He had predicted the founding of the Song dynasty. He had counseled an emperor. He had declined every title, every comfort, every invitation to remain in the world's embrace. And on the day he had chosen, in the valley he had chosen, he left.
This is the man behind the melody. Xianweng Cao does not try to tell his story — it only invokes his name, again and again, in a simple repeating phrase. Perhaps that is enough. Some lives are too large for narrative. They can only be approached sideways, through music, through a few minutes of quiet attention.
Every guqin student begins here. Now you know who they are greeting.
The Instrument: Yiyun Zhai Xin Zhi
This recording was made on Yiyun Zhai Xin Zhi (移云斋心旨) — a Ming dynasty guqin with a story of its own.
Around the year 2000, Mei Yueqiang was in Beijing when he encountered an elderly guqin master. The two men played for each other. The old master listened to Mei Yueqiang perform — and was so moved by his artistry, so struck by the purity and depth of his playing, that he offered his most treasured guqin as a gift. Not a sale. A gift, in the spirit of one musician recognizing another.
The scholar Wang Shixiang (王世襄) — one of the great connoisseurs of Chinese antiquity — later inscribed the name of Mei Yueqiang's studio: Yiyun Zhai (移云斋), "The Studio of Drifting Clouds." He proposed that this guqin bear the same name, adding Xin Zhi (心旨) — "the heart's true purpose": to transmit the art through music, to teach without tiring, to let the qin carry what words cannot. Mei Yueqiang's second son, Mei Shiwei, had all five characters — 移云斋心旨 — engraved on the instrument, alongside a second inscription by the celebrated Jiangsu calligrapher Xiao Ping (萧平): "Guqin of Mei Yueqiang, Patriarch of the Guangling School."
To read the full story of this extraordinary instrument — its Beijing encounter, its naming by Wang Shixiang, and the final recordings made in a race against time — visit: Yi Yun Zhai Xin Zhi — A Ming Dynasty Guqin and Three Generations of Guangling Masters.
A Personal Note — William Xu
In 2010, I began studying guqin under Mei Shijun — Mei Yueqiang's eldest son. My first piece was Xianweng Cao.
Sixteen years have passed since that first lesson. I have thought about it often while making this recording — sitting with this same instrument, playing this same melody, the one that opened everything. The short, unhurried phrases that once felt like a beginning now feel like a homecoming.
This recording is a small gift to everyone who has followed this journey. My wish for you is simple: a quiet mind. A clear eye. The ability to look at the world with steadiness, and to live — even a little — like that immortal elder on his mountain. Unhurried. Unattached. At ease.
Xianweng, Xianweng.
Listen.
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