Every great musician carries more than one voice.
Mei Yueqiang (1929–2003), courtesy name Nanyi, studio name Yiyunzhai, is remembered as a defining master of the Guangling school. But before he received that final transmission, he had spent over a decade learning from four other teachers — each from a different tradition, each giving him something the others could not.
Five teachers. Four schools. One musician.
1. Wang Jianhou — Zhe School (1944)
The first teacher. The beginning.
Wang Jianhou (汪建侯), Mei Yueqiang's first teacher — photographed at the guqin.
In 1939, when Mei Yueqiang was ten years old, he began spending time near Wang Jianhou — listening, watching, absorbing. Five years later, at fifteen, he formally became his student.
Wang Jianhou was a physician by profession, a painter and qin player by calling, and a member of the Nanjing Qingxi Qin Society. His own lineage traced through the monk Daxiu (释大休) of Hangzhou's Zhaodantai — a Zhe school transmission of ancient standing. Under Wang, the young Mei learned not only the basic technique of the instrument but also landscape painting. The two arts, Wang understood, shared the same root: stillness, breath, the patience to let something emerge.
The Zhe school gave Mei Yueqiang his foundation — clean, spare, unhurried. Everything that came after was built on this.
Lineage: Monk Daxiu (Zhe school) → Wang Jianhou → Mei Yueqiang
2. Xia Yifeng — Jinling School (1952)
The second teacher. Elegance and restraint.
Xia Yifeng (夏一峰), founder of the Nanjing Music Society and defining figure of the modern Jinling school.
In 1952, at twenty-three, Mei Yueqiang traveled to study with Xia Yifeng — the defining figure of the modern Jinling school.
Xia Yifeng (original name Xia Fuyun) was born in Huai'an, spent his early years in a Taoist monastery learning flute and kunqu opera, and later studied qin under Yang Ziyong. In 1921 he settled in Nanjing, founded the Nanjing Music Society, and became the living center of the Jinling tradition. His style was measured and contained — the sound of a scholar who had nothing to prove.
From Xia, Mei received the core Jinling repertoire: Qiu Sai Yin, Liang Xiao Yin, Changmen Yuan, and others. These pieces would later form the Jinling Collection within the Yiyunzhai Qinpu.
Lineage: Yang Ziyong → Xia Yifeng → Mei Yueqiang
3. Zhao Yunqing — Jinling School (1952)
The third teacher. The great repertoire.
Zhao Yunqing (赵云青), female qin master of the Jinling school — “弹到梅花月满琴” (Play until the plum blossoms fill the moon and the qin).
In the same year, Mei Yueqiang took Zhao Yunqing as a teacher simultaneously with Xia Yifeng.
Zhao Yunqing (also known as Xu Zhao Jin) was from Wuxian, the wife of qin scholar Xu Zhisun, and one of the most significant female qin players of Republican-era Nanjing. A core member of both the Qingxi Qin Society and the Nanjing Music Society, she was a collector of antique instruments and a master of large-scale pieces such as Qiu Hong and Yu Ge. She belonged to the same Jinling lineage as Xia Yifeng.
Through Zhao, Mei deepened his understanding of the Jinling tradition's larger forms — the extended, architecturally demanding pieces that required a different kind of patience than the shorter lyric works.
4. Xü Tonghua — Sichuan School, with Guangling (1956)
The fourth teacher. The pieces no one else carried.
胥桐华女士 · Xü Tonghua (fl. 1950s), qin master of the Sichuan school.
In 1956, at twenty-seven, Mei Yueqiang sought out Xü Tonghua (胥桐华) — a player of singular background.
Born in Danyang, Xü had first learned qin from a Sichuan master surnamed Zheng, absorbing the vigorous, technically demanding style of the Sichuan school. She later settled in Yangzhou, where she studied further with Guangling master Hu Zifu — giving her a transmission that spanned two distinct traditions. In 1956, she was recorded by Zha Fuxi's national survey of qin players.
From Xü, Mei received two pieces transmitted through no Guangling anthology: Kongzi Du Yi (Confucius Studies the Book of Changes) and Geng Shen Diao Wei. Both are of Sichuan origin. Both are now preserved in the Yiyunzhai Qinpu's section of outside transmissions — pieces that would have been lost without this single chain of transmission.
Lineage: Zheng (Sichuan master) → Xü Tonghua → Mei Yueqiang
5. Liu Shaochun — Guangling School (1956)
The fifth teacher. The homecoming.
Liu Shaochun (刘少椿, 1901–1971), tenth-generation heir of the Guangling school.
Also in 1956, Mei Yueqiang began three years of intensive study with Liu Shaochun (刘少椿, 1901–1971) — and found, at last, where he belonged.
Liu Shaochun was from Yangzhou, a direct disciple of Sun Shaotao and the tenth-generation heir of the Guangling lineage stretching back to Xu Changyü in the early Qing dynasty. He had settled in Nanjing, taught at the Nanjing Arts Institute, and was widely recognized as the great synthesizer of the Guangling tradition. Mei lived and studied alongside Liu for three years — dizú xiānbàn, sleeping side by side, the old phrase for the intimacy of serious transmission.
From Liu, Mei received the core of what became the Guangling Collection in the Yiyunzhai Qinpu: Qiao Ge, Mo Zi Bei Si, Shan Ju Yin, and many others. This was not supplementary study. This was the center.
Lineage: Sun Shaotao → Liu Shaochun → Mei Yueqiang
One Life, Four Schools
The Yiyunzhai Qinpu — the manuscript collection Mei Yueqiang left behind — is organized in three parts: the Guangling Collection, the Jinling Collection, and the Outside Transmissions. That structure is not editorial convenience. It is the map of a life.
A Zhe master taught him to listen. Two Jinling masters gave him elegance and the grand repertoire. A Sichuan master entrusted him with pieces no one else was carrying. And a Guangling master, over three years of close companionship, gave him a home.
Mei Yueqiang's breadth was not accidental. It was built, teacher by teacher, decade by decade — and held together, in the end, by the discipline of Guangling.
This series will explore each of these teachers in depth — their own lineages, their place in the long history of the guqin. We begin with the first thread: Wang Jianhou and the Zhe school.
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