文人之琴
Collection
The Scholar's Qin
For two thousand years the seven-string qin was the instrument of the educated gentleman: played alone or for a friend, in a study or a garden, rarely for an audience. Its pieces are written in a tablature that records fingering rather than rhythm, so every player rebuilds them from old handbooks.
Most of this collection is the work of Charlie Huang, recorded in his studio in Birmingham between 2006 and 2013. He plays from nineteenth-century handbooks such as the Tianwen Ge Qinpu, and the set runs from the meditative 'Confucius Reads the Book of Changes' to 'Flowing Water', whose rolling glissandi imitate a torrent. The drunken stagger of 'Jiu Kuang' and the farewell of 'Yang Guan San Die' follow. Lo Ka Ping's 'Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank' gives a second hand on a piece Huang also plays.
The qin is quiet by design. Listen at low volume in a quiet room, and let the slides and the silences between notes carry as much as the notes.
- 秋風詞Qiū fēng cí — Autumn Wind Poem1:47
- 孔子讀易Kǒngzǐ dú Yì — Confucius Reads the Book of Changes5:48
- 流水Liú shuǐ — Flowing Water8:13
- 平沙落鴈Píng shā luò yàn — Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank7:14
- 平沙落雁Píng shā luò yàn — Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank4:45
- 佩蘭Pèi lán — Admiring the Orchid8:11
- 神人暢Shén rén chàng — Harmony Between Gods and Men5:05
- 酒狂Jiǔ kuáng — Drunken Ecstasy2:35
- 陽關三疊Yáng guān sān dié — Three Refrains on the Yang Pass Theme5:50
- 醉漁唱晚Zuì yú chàng wǎn — Evening Song of the Drunken Fisherman4:47