In memory of the master of the New Jinling Qin School, sixty years after his death
Original Chinese essay by Xue Guoan. English translation by William Xu.
I. A Biographical Outline
Xia Yifeng was born Xia Fuyun in Huai'an, Jiangsu, on the twenty-first day of the fifth lunar month in the ninth year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty (1883). He lost both parents when he was young and was raised with the help of his aunt and uncle. He attended a private school for three or four years. In 1895, at the age of twelve, he entered the Erdi Shrine, a Taoist temple in Pujiaxiang beneath the Bao Pagoda in northern Huai'an, where he studied the transverse flute and Kunqu opera. In 1897, at the age of fourteen, he began studying the qin under Yang Ziyong, a student of the celebrated Huai'an qin master Qiao Ziheng, and became Yang's first formal disciple. The following year, at fifteen, he began accepting students of his own.[2]
In 1920, at the age of thirty-seven, Xia Yifeng came to Nanjing. According to Mei Yueqiang's unpublished Biographical Sketch of the Qin Master Xia Yifeng, a man named Ding Muliang, the son-in-law of a prominent Nanjing family, had met Xia repeatedly and found him a kindred spirit. He invited Xia to Nanjing to serve as a private companion. The elderly qin player Qiu Jiheng, recognizing Xia's sincerity and outstanding musicianship, invited him to teach qin in his eastern study and recommended him for a nominal paid position with the municipal road-construction bureau, helping him secure a stable livelihood.
In September of that year, Xia traveled to Shanghai to attend the Chenfeng Studio Qin Gathering, organized by Zhou Qingyun. It was one of the largest and most influential qin gatherings of the modern period. Xia performed Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank (Pingsha Luoyan).
In September 1921, Xia returned to Huai'an and married Chen Hongru. Within ten days, he brought his wife back to Nanjing and settled there permanently.[3] He served as an administrator at Chongshan Charity Hall on Jinshajing Street.[4] As one account put it, “His wife worked for other people, while he himself mainly lived on the two dou of rice he received each month from the charity hall.”[5]
According to Guo Peng's Lost Voices: Archival Audio and Images of Modern Qin Players, when the Central Broadcasting Station of the Nationalist government was founded on August 1, 1928, Xia was invited to perform Puan Mantra (Pu'an Zhou).
In 1930, Xia had a son, named Tianbao. Sadly, the boy died at the age of eleven.
The qin scholar Yan Xiaoxing, consulting the World Daily, established that on March 30, 1932, Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling hosted Xia at the Lizhi Society in Nanjing and listened to him play.
In 1934, Zha Fuxi, Xu Yuanbai, and others founded the Qingxi Qin Society in Nanjing. Xia, then fifty-one, joined with Xu Sen, courtesy name Zhisun, Zhao Yunqing, and others, and became one of the society's central figures. His student Xu Sen served as president of the Qingxi Qin Society. In March 1936, Zha Fuxi moved to Gujiaxiang in eastern Suzhou for work and founded the Jinyu Qin Society there. As one of the leading qin players of Nanjing, Xia was also named as a member and became one of its pillars.
In the autumn of 1946, Xia became a professor of qin at the National Music Institute in Nanjing. Other teachers in the Chinese music department included Yang Yinliu, Chu Shizhu, Cao Anhe, Liu Beimao, Chen Zhendu, Cheng Wujia, and Cao Zheng. During this period, Yang Yinliu, Cao Anhe, and Cao Zheng, among others, studied qin with Xia.
In 1947, when Yang Ziyong visited Nanjing, Xia appeared in a group photograph with the Nanjing qin players Qiu Jiheng, Xu Zhisun, Zhao Yunqing, Wu Lansun, Wu Zhaoji, Wang Jianhou, Liang Zaiping, Yang Dajun, and others.
In November of the same year, Yang Yinliu began notating Xia's version of Good Night Air (Liangxiao Yin). The work continued for two years. By November 1949, Yang had completed notation for twenty qin pieces performed by Xia.
In 1948, Xia met his fellow student Ling Qizhen in Nanjing. At the time, Ling worked at the Xiaguan Power Station in Nanjing, and through this connection he was able to see the original score transmitted through the Qiao family.
In 1954, on the recommendation of Yang Yinliu and Cao Anhe, Xia was appointed a specially engaged researcher at the Institute of National Music of the Central Conservatory of Music, with a monthly salary of five hundred thousand old currency units. On December 23 of the same year, he joined Gan Tao and Zhang Zhengyin in founding the Nanjing Music Society. Gan Tao became president, Zhang Zhengyin secretary-general, and Xia vice-president as well as head of the qin section. The society also included Kunqu and traditional instrumental music sections.
Beginning with the second session of the first Nanjing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 1954, Xia served successively as a member of the first, second, and third Nanjing committees, representing the cultural and artistic community.
From April 21 to 24, 1956, Zha Fuxi, Xu Jian, and Wang Di came to Nanjing as a national qin-research team commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, the Bureau of Broadcasting, and the Chinese Musicians Association. They stayed at the Fuchang Hotel near Xinjiekou and conducted interviews and recordings over four days. In Nanjing, the team recorded Xia performing Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank, Autumn Frontier Song, Three Variations on the Yang Pass Theme, Wind and Thunder, Fisherman's Song, and Quiet Contemplation.
That same year, sixteen pieces played by Xia were edited by Yang Yinliu and Hou Zuowu at the Institute of Music of the Central Conservatory and published in Collected Qin Pieces, Volume One, by the Music Press.
Also that year, on Zha Fuxi's recommendation, Xia was accepted as a member of the Chinese Musicians Association. He adopted his niece, Chen Zhanlan, as his daughter.
Gan Tao recalled in his speech commemorating the centenary of Xia's birth that in 1956 the government had decided to send Xia to India to exchange knowledge about qin art. The journey was cancelled when relations between China and India changed before his departure.
In August 1957, the qin section of the Nanjing Music Society held its first qin gathering at Jiming Temple. Participants included Gan Tao, Xia Yifeng, Liu Shaochun, Zhao Yunqing, Zhang Zhengyin, Sun Zixian, Min Jiqian, Mei Yueqiang, Lin Youren, Li Yuxian, Zhang Jun, Zhang Jin, Gong Yi, Liu Wei, Weng Shunhe, Huang Chengyuan, Cai Binxin, Zhu Zanchen, and others.
In December 1959, Xia was elected to the second Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
In January 1962, the Third Nanjing Conference of Cultural and Art Workers was held. Xia was elected to the third committee of the Nanjing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and vice-chairman of the council of the Nanjing Association of Music and Dance Workers.
On May 21, 1962, the Nanjing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Nanjing Music Society held a qin gathering at Shengqi Tower beside Mochou Lake to celebrate Xia's eightieth birthday. Participants included Xia and his wife, Wang Shengxiang, Liu Shaochun, Zhu Qiluan, Xu Lisheng, Zhang Zhengyin, Mei Yueqiang, Deng Wenquan, Wen Huanna, He Zuoliang, Zhu Zanchen, Qiu Aichun, Liu Wei, Chen Zhanlan, Ma Li, Zhuang Zilian, Yuan Zhenzao, and others.
On the night of April 2, 1963, Xia died at his residence in Nanjing. He was eighty years old.
II. His Qin Learning and Lineage
At the age of thirteen or fourteen, Xia began studying qin with Yang Ziyong, the outstanding late-life student of the Huai'an qin master Qiao Ziheng. Qiao ran a shop mounting paintings, while Yang was a painter. In the end, both men became known for their qin playing.
Yan Xiaoxing's The True Beginning Sound of the Qiao Family: A Re-examination of the Historical Materials on the Huaiyang Qin School draws on the recollections of Yang Ziyong's students Ling Qizhen and Ye Mingpei, together with relevant reports in the Shenbao. From thirteen pieces — Immortal's Exercise, Old Qin Song, Good Night Air, Night Mooring on the Autumn River, Puan Mantra, Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank, Autumn Frontier Song, Moon over the Frontier Pass, The Way of the Great Learning, Quiet Contemplation, Drunken Fisherman Sings at Dusk, Fisherman and Woodcutter Ask Each Other, and Lament at the Long Gate — we can glimpse the broad outline of Yang Ziyong's qin learning.
The 1937 Jinyu Qin Journal[7], in its “Inquiries into Qin Players,” records that Xia Fuyun could play “Shitan Zhang, Fisherman's Song, Autumn Frontier, and more than ten pieces.” This allows us to glimpse the line of transmission between Yang Ziyong and Xia Yifeng.
According to Ling Qizhen's recollections,[8] among the pieces transmitted by Yang Ziyong, Good Night Air, Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank, and Fisherman and Woodcutter Ask Each Other came from the original Qiao family scores. The rhythm of Yang's Good Night Air was learned from another female student of Qiao Ziheng, an old woman whose name is recorded as Xu or Xu, and differed sharply from the rhythm found in other qin scores. Moon over the Frontier Pass, Lament at the Long Gate, and Puan Mantra were transmitted respectively by Wang Yanqing and Wu Jinyang.[9]
As Yang Yinliu wrote in the explanatory note to Collected Qin Pieces, Volume One, Xia “studied qin with several teachers,” and Yang Ziyong was “one of the principal ones.”
The same collection includes Remembering an Old Friend. Its original note reads: “Also called Remembering an Old Friend in the Mountains, and also called Remembering an Old Friend in the Empty Mountains; based on a manuscript copy by Gu Xiaoxun, courtesy name Zhenfu, transmitted by Xia Yifeng.”
Gu Xiaoxun (1872–1928), courtesy name Zhenfu, was from Shangyuan County, which was abolished in the first year of the Republic and incorporated into Jiangning County. He was the eldest son of Gu Yun, known as Mr. Boshan, and a student of Xue Shiyu, owner of the Xuelu studio and head of the Jiangning Zunjing Academy. He was appointed a professor at the Jiangsu Women's Normal School and Jiangning No. 1 Middle School, and served as an editor at the Jiangning Library.
After his parents died in 1906 and 1913, Gu Xiaoxun “closed his door and guarded himself.” From then on, he lived quietly in the empty mountains, at ease beyond the world, playing qin and writing poetry, content with a poor but principled life. His family biography says that he was skilled in classical prose, poetry, calligraphy, and painting; good at qin and martial arts; knowledgeable in divination and astrology; and fond of Buddhist and Daoist writings. He was “lofty and broad-minded,” “mild in character yet principled,” and carried “the solitary clarity and solitary awakening of a man who takes joy in his own unrecognized integrity.” He died in Nanjing in 1928 at the age of fifty-six.
Xia came to Nanjing in 1920 and settled there in 1921. Gu Xiaoxun died in 1928. According to the records of the Chenfeng Studio Qin Gathering, both Gu and Xia were invited Nanjing qin players at the gathering organized by Zhou Qingyun in 1920. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that they had contact during those years. Researchers should note that Gu Xiaoxun's notation differs markedly from the Remembering an Old Friend in the old Liqinxuan Qin Scores manuscript of the Peng family of Luling, which began circulating after the 1930s.
Xia also took part in the Chenfeng Studio Qin Gathering, the Qingxi Qin Society, and the Jinyu Qin Society, and became a prominent figure in the qin world of Republican China. Nanjing, the former capital, was home to many qin players in the 1930s and 1940s, including Wang Jianhou, Zhou Kongming, Wang Shengxiang, and the monk Shi Genru. Famous players from different places also came and went. It is easy to imagine Xia learning from and exchanging ideas with them.
In the five-volume thread-bound manuscript Qin Hui by Yang Yinliu,[10] Xia's repertoire is recorded as nineteen pieces: Good Night Air, Three Variations on the Yang Pass Theme, Water Fairy Exercise — also known as Autumn Frontier Song — Puan Mantra, Fisherman and Woodcutter Ask Each Other, Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank, Fisherman's Song, Wind and Thunder, Quiet Contemplation, Lament at the Long Gate, Shitan Zhang, Moon over the Frontier Pass, Autumn Wind Song, Weeping Yan Hui, Remembering an Old Friend — also known as Remembering an Old Friend in the Empty Mountains — Ancient Lament, Egrets Forget the Machine, The Way of the Great Learning, and Night Mooring on the Autumn River. Sixteen of these were included in Collected Qin Pieces, Volume One, published by the Music Press in 1956.
Zha Fuxi's Report on the Current State of Qin Art[11] records that Xia could play twenty-two pieces: Good Night Air, Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank, Moon over the Frontier Pass, Night Mooring on the Autumn River, Egrets Forget the Machine, Quiet Contemplation, Returning Home, Autumn Wind Song, Three Variations on the Yang Pass Theme, Old Qin Song, Ancient Lament, Autumn Frontier Song — also known as Water Fairy Exercise — Puan Mantra, Fisherman's Song, Lament at the Long Gate, Fisherman and Woodcutter Ask Each Other, Remembering an Old Friend in the Empty Mountains, Wind and Thunder, Drunken Fisherman Sings at Dusk, The Way of the Great Learning, White Snow, and Song of the Worthy.
Compared with the roughly ten pieces listed in the Jinyu Qin Journal under the repertoire transmitted by Yang Ziyong — “Shitan Zhang, Fisherman's Song, Autumn Frontier, and more” — the records in Yang Yinliu's Qin Hui and Zha Fuxi's Report on the Current State of Qin Art show that after the 1930s Xia's repertoire expanded to include Egrets Forget the Machine, Returning Home, Autumn Wind Song, Three Variations on the Yang Pass Theme, Ancient Lament, Fisherman's Song, Remembering an Old Friend in the Empty Mountains, Wind and Thunder, White Snow, and Song of the Worthy, among others. This confirms Yang Yinliu's statement that Xia “studied with several teachers” and that Yang Ziyong was “one of the principal ones.” Apart from the pieces Ling Qizhen identified as transmitted by Wang Yanqing and Wu Jinyang, there must have been other lines of teaching and transmission as well.
III. Qin Schools and Lineage
The Qing scholar Wang Tan wrote in Qinzhi: Distinguishing the Schools: “The customs of the five regions differ, and therefore their preferences are not the same; the sounds chosen by those who play qin also differ accordingly.”[12] From the Southern Song Zhe school onward, a succession of schools appeared: Jiang, Yushan, Baixia, Jinling, Guangling, Zhongzhou, Lingnan, Zhucheng, and Shu, followed in modern times by the Jiuyi and Meian schools.
To which school did Xia Yifeng truly belong?
In the “School Lineage” column of the Jinyu Qin Journal's “Inquiries into Qin Players,” the space beneath Xia Yifeng's name was blank. This suggests that Xia himself did not explicitly identify his school lineage.
In 1983, Gan Tao called Xia a master of the “Huai'an Qin School” in his speech commemorating the centenary of Xia's birth.
Ling Qizhen's 1984 article, “The Huaiyang Qin School,” published in the eleventh issue of Music Life, recorded: “The idea of a Huaiyang Qin School is not found in the books. I first heard of it in 1932, when I was studying with the old Huai'an qin player Yang Ziyong, Qipeng, in Shanghai. ... But we did not discuss the details of its transmission.” Based on Yang Ziyong's oral account, Ling believed that the line of Qiao Ziheng, Yang Ziyong, and Xia Yifeng belonged to the Huaiyang Qin School.
When China Records Shanghai published The Complete Collection of Chinese Music: Qin, commonly called the “Old Eight Discs,” in 1994, its editors wrote that the set represented nine major schools, including Guangling, Yushan, Fan-Shu, Jiuyi, New Zhe, Zhucheng, Meian, Huaiyang, and Lingnan. “Huaiyang” clearly referred to Xia Yifeng.
Yan Xiaoxing's research, however, argues that “Yang” and “Yang” are homophones, and that “Huaiyang Qin School” may be an error for “Huaiyang Qin School.” In terms of its name, the latter is roughly equivalent to what is now commonly known as the Guangling Qin School. The monk Shi Kongchen, who compiled the important Guangling score Ku Mu Chan Qinpu, was also a student of Qiao Ziheng.
Yan Xiaoxing believes that Gan Tao used “Huai'an Qin School” because “Huaiyang Qin School” was not found in the written record. Since Huaiyang is also a place in Henan unrelated to Xia's musical transmission, and since Xia's line all came from Huai'an, Gan used the geographical name Huai'an as a provisional designation.
But the existence and meaning of the “Huaiyang” or “Huaiyang” school remain uncertain. The name appears only in Yang Ziyong's account and is therefore a single source. Out of respect for the basic historical materials, Yan Xiaoxing writes that he “dare not make a rash judgment.” His article uses Ling Qizhen's earlier argument as a starting point to uncover the historical materials and transmission clues surrounding Qiao Ziheng and his direct students; it does not fully endorse the school's content or status. Yan also argues that Zha Fuxi and others were clearly mistaken in classifying Xia as belonging to the Fan-Shu school in the 1956 Report on the National Qin Investigation.[13] “For people today to place Xia in the Jinling school simply because he lived in Nanjing for a long time,” Yan writes, “is even more without basis.”
The earliest person to identify Xia as a Jinling player may have been Xu Sen, courtesy name Zhisun, a native of Liuhe in Nanjing. He and Zhao Yunqing became husband and wife. When the Qingxi Qin Society was founded in Nanjing in 1934, Xu served as its president.[14] He worked actively to develop and promote Jinling qin learning in the 1930s and 1940s. Xu had studied with Xia Yifeng, although he was said to be able to play “several pieces, not very proficiently.”[15] Yet in the “School Lineage” column of the Jinyu Qin Journal, Xu entered “Jinling School.”
Among musicians in the modern qin world, the most representative figures who classify Xia as a Jinling master are Gong Yi and Mei Yueqiang.
In a conversation with the Tianyun Shanfang Qin Studio in Wuxi, Gong Yi said: “I once studied with twelve masters, including Zhang Zhengyin and Xia Yifeng. I encountered several schools, including Guangling, Jinling, and Meian, and each of these teachers and schools deeply influenced me.” This shows that Gong Yi understood Xia as belonging to the Jinling school.
Mei Yueqiang, Xia's student and a leading Jinling qin master, studied successively with Wang Jianhou, Xia Yifeng, Zhao Yunqing, Liu Shaochun, and Xu Tonghua. During his lifetime, he also regarded Xia as a Jinling master. He said: “It was Teacher Wang Jianhou who led me through the door. The person who had the greatest influence on my qin playing was Xia Yifeng. My final form was established with Liu Shaochun.”[16]
The 2006 CD Yiyunzhai Xinzhi, published by Jiangsu Electronic Audio-Visual Press according to Mei Yueqiang's wishes, was divided into a “Jinling Collection” and a “Guangling Collection.” The recent edition of Mei Yueqiang's Yiyunzhai Qinpu, published by Zhonghua Book Company, is similarly divided into a “Jinling Volume” and a “Guangling Volume.” This reflects the mainstream understanding of Mei's lineage. It is also Mei's way of respecting his teachers and returning their kindness.
The Jinling Qin School emerged in the early Qing dynasty. In 1715, the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign, Shen Guan wrote in Qinxue Zhengsheng: “For the highest elegance and the proper destination of the fingers, Jinling and Qinchuan are considered the finest.”[17] This is the earliest reference to the Jinling Qin School that we currently know. In 1744, Wang Tan wrote in Qinzhi: Distinguishing the Schools: “As the schools spread, there were Zhongzhou, Wu, Zhe, and Min. Wu divided again into Jinling and Yushan, each establishing its own school.” This shows that during the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns, the Jinling Qin School was famous and stood alongside the Yushan school as an equal.
The qin community of the Jinling School during its height can be documented across five generations, from the Kangxi to the Daoguang reigns, and included twenty or thirty players.[18] After the Daoguang period, the Jinling School was occasionally mentioned in qin treatises and its transmitted pieces were sometimes included in scores, but its overall influence declined.
During the more than one hundred years from the Jiaqing to the Guangxu reigns, two players deserve attention in relation to the Jinling School. One was Wang Yumen, courtesy name Lengquan and studio name Xueyu, also known as Tanhua-zi, a native of Zhucheng in Shandong, who is traditionally said to have followed the Jinling school. The other was Chen Zhongping, a Jinling player repeatedly mentioned in Qinghongzi's Shuangqin Shuwu Qinpu Jicheng, published in 1884.[19] Because of the limitations of the surviving materials, we cannot yet determine the connection between Wang Yumen, Chen Zhongping, and the Jinling School.
Another figure deserving the attention of researchers is Hu Enxie, owner of Nanjing's Yuyuan, also known as the Hu Family Garden. Hu Enxie (1824–1892), courtesy name Xuzhai, was a native of Nanjing. His adopted son Hu Guangguo wrote in Yuyuan Poetry Conversations: “My late father was skilled at playing qin”; “My late father was devoted to qin.” Among the dozens of terraces, pavilions, ponds, and halls built in Yuyuan was a studio called “Leaning on the Qin, Worshipping the Stone.” According to Eleven Works on the Literature of Nanjing's Yuyuan, once the garden was completed, Hu Enxie often invited friends there for qin gatherings, banquets, excursions, and poetic exchanges. One record from 1879 speaks of “writing to invite the qin master Qiao Ziheng,” and another, from the following year, of Hu climbing Zhongshan with Liu Bingsen, Li [name unclear], and Qiao Ziheng to play qin.
Hu Enxie was skilled at qin and devoted to it; naturally, he must have had a line of learning. But, as with Wang Yumen and Chen Zhongping, the surviving materials do not yet tell us what that lineage was.
The Remembering an Old Friend included in Collected Qin Pieces, Volume One, may offer another clue. As noted earlier, the source note says: “Based on a manuscript copy by Gu Xiaoxun, courtesy name Zhenfu, transmitted by Xia Yifeng.”
Gu Xiaoxun was the eldest son of Gu Yun, known as Mr. Boshan. He studied with Chen Youlian and Miao Quansun. Gu Yun, courtesy name Zipeng and studio name Shigong, was a native of Jinling and the fifth in his family, known as “Gu the Fifth of Jiangdong.” Chen Zuolin wrote that he “devoted himself to classical prose and was also a powerful poet.” He once taught at the Xuelu of the Yushan scholar Xue Shiyu and published the Gazetteer of Boshan. He was a friend of Hu Enxie, the owner of Yuyuan, and the two exchanged poems. Gu Xiaoxun and Hu Enxie's adopted son Hu Guoguang were also family friends.
After the 1911 Revolution, Hu Guoguang returned from Shanghai and restored the garden walls. Gatherings of poetry and wine became frequent, and Gu Xiaoxun was one of the notable figures of the time. Hu Guoguang described him as “too high to approach, upright in character,” and “especially skilled in calligraphy and devoted to poetry.”
Hu Enxie, Hu Guoguang, and Gu Xiaoxun were all connected to Jinling. Was there a connection among their qin learning and transmission? We can only wait for new historical materials to resolve the question.
Whatever the answer, there is no denying that Xia Yifeng was one of the masters of the New Jinling Qin School that rose in the 1950s. His position is comparable to the rise of the New Jinling School of painting and the recognition of figures such as Xu Yuanbai as masters of the New Zhe School. It grew from a real cultural soil and followed a historical logic.
On one hand, among the pieces transmitted by Xia, Autumn Frontier Song, Egrets Forget the Machine, and Puan Mantra are identified in the Qing dynasty's Wuzhizhai Qinpu as pieces of the Jinling School or as compositions by representative Jinling players. They embody one of the Jinling School's most distinctive characteristics: yiyang-duncuo, the rise and fall, pauses and accents of the music. Its distinctive rhythm and melodic movement combine the human beauty of “aged, ancient simplicity and balanced elegance” with the artistic beauty of “both sound and rhyme richly realized, with brilliance sharpened into grace.”[21]
On the other hand, Xia lived in Nanjing for a long period. From his participation in the Chenfeng Studio Qin Gathering in 1920 onward, the mature and flourishing period of his qin art unfolded in Nanjing. Around him, in different periods, one group after another of qin players and people from many walks of life who loved qin gathered. From the Qingxi Qin Society to the Nanjing Music Society, a stable community with regular qin activities gradually formed over three decades. Nanjing thereby became one of the centers of qin activity in China.
His transmitted pieces continue to be played. His distinctive style has influenced three or four generations of qin players.
In this sense, Xia Yifeng, as a master of the New Jinling Qin School, is one of the figures whose legacy made possible the inclusion of “Qin Art · Jinling Qin School” on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage.
About the Author
This essay was originally written in Chinese by Xue Guoan, a writer, researcher, and qin practitioner from Nanjing.
Xue Guoan is a senior fellow disciple of William Xu in the same qin lineage. Their relationship is not only one of study and transmission, but also one of deep friendship. They meet often, talk about music, people, history, and the things that should not be allowed to disappear.
William Xu founded Seven String Qin as an independent site dedicated to introducing the guqin — and the civilization around it — to readers beyond China. By translating and presenting Xue Guoan's work here, he is not speaking about a distant tradition from the outside. He is opening a door between two fellow qin players, two friends, and two people who share a responsibility to remember.
Xue Guoan writes with the instinct of a scholar and a man of letters. He is deeply interested in preserving the lives of qin masters, the history of qin schools and societies, and the details that disappear when history is reduced to a list of names and dates.
This essay on Xia Yifeng is part of that work: an effort to preserve the life of a master, the character of a school, and a crucial chapter in the history of the qin in Nanjing.
Original Chinese essay by Xue Guoan. English translation by William Xu.
The source provided for this translation ends at the heading “IV.” The fourth section was not included in the supplied original.
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