Famous Melodies & Their Stories

A caution first: titles and stories in this tradition are often later attachments. A piece may be genuinely old while its title, its narrative and its supposed author were added centuries afterwards. This does not make the stories worthless, since they shaped how the music was played and heard, but it does mean they should be read as tradition rather than as history.

Flowing Water

The best-known piece, and the one sent into space on the Voyager Golden Record in 1977. It is associated with the story of Bo Ya, a player, and Zhong Ziqi, a woodcutter who heard him play and described exactly what he was depicting — first towering mountains, then flowing water. When Zhong Ziqi died, Bo Ya broke his instrument and never played again, on the grounds that no one remained who could hear him.

The story gave Chinese the standard term for a person who truly understands you, literally one who knows the tone, and the phrase is in ordinary use today with no musical connotation at all.

The version usually heard is a nineteenth-century elaboration with a famous central section of rapid rolling strokes depicting rushing water. Guan Pinghu's reconstruction is the recording on Voyager, and it remains the reference performance.

Guangling San

The most dramatic piece in the repertoire and unusual in the tradition for its violence. The story concerns a swordsmith's son who assassinates a king in revenge for his father's execution, and sections of the piece bear titles referring to the stages of that narrative.

Its fame rests on Ji Kang, the third-century writer and player executed in 262, who is said to have played it before his death and remarked that it would be lost with him. A piece under this name appears in the 1425 printed collection, and its relationship to whatever Ji Kang played cannot be established.

Musically it is long, structurally complex and full of forceful strokes, and it sits oddly with the tradition's stated preference for restraint. Later commentators occasionally criticised it on exactly those grounds, which is itself informative about the tradition's values.

Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank

Probably the most frequently played piece of all and often among the first learned. It first appears in a late Ming collection and exists in a very large number of versions.

The subject is geese landing on a sandbar, and the music uses harmonics and sliding notes to suggest calling, circling and settling. It is moderate in length, structurally clear and does not demand extreme technique, which explains its popularity with players and its accessibility for listeners.

Three Variations on the Plum Blossom

Named for a melodic idea stated three times, each in a different register and manner. The theme is presented largely in harmonics, which gives the piece its distinctive clear, floating quality.

It is traditionally said to derive from a piece for the transverse flute from the fourth century, later adapted for the guqin. The plum blossom, which flowers in cold weather before other plants, carries a fixed set of associations with integrity under hardship, and the piece is understood in that light.

Three Refrains on Yangguan

A setting of a four-line poem by Wang Wei written to see a friend off to a posting in the far northwest. The poem is one of the most famous in the language and the piece takes its title from the repetition of the closing lines.

This is a song piece, and it is one of the clearest cases where the guqin repertoire and the poetry tradition meet directly. It is often performed sung as well as played, and hearing it with the text makes the structure immediately intelligible.

Mist and Cloud over the Xiao and Xiang

Attributed to Guo Mian in the thirteenth century, and one of the pieces whose emotional content is explicitly political. Guo Mian lived through the Song loss of the north, and the piece is understood as expressing grief at being unable to see the northern lands clearly, with mist over the rivers standing for the obstruction.

Musically it is one of the most admired works in the repertoire, long and varied, with extended passages of sliding notes that give it an unusually fluid character. It is considered a mature player's piece.

The Fisherman and the Woodcutter

A dialogue piece, in which two alternating musical characters represent a fisherman and a woodcutter discussing the world. Both figures are standard symbols of the person who has withdrawn from official life and is content, and the conversation ends with agreement that the affairs of dynasties are not worth troubling about.

The alternation between the two voices is audible and makes this a good piece for a listener beginning to follow structure. It is widely played and exists in many versions.

Remembering an Old Friend

A short, quiet, slow piece consisting largely of sliding stopped notes, with a great deal of silence. It is among the most immediately affecting pieces for new listeners, partly because it does not require following a long structure.

Its documented history is short: it appears in twentieth-century transmission and its claimed ancient origin is not well supported. It is a good example of a piece whose value is entirely independent of its pedigree.

Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute

Associated with Cai Wenji, a Han dynasty woman captured by the Xiongnu, who lived among them for twelve years, bore two children, and was eventually ransomed back to China on condition that she leave the children behind. The piece follows the stages of that experience.

The attribution of the poems to her is disputed and the music is much later, but the subject is unusual in the repertoire: sustained attention to a woman's experience of captivity, motherhood and an impossible choice. It is long and demanding and less often played complete.

Some shorter pieces

Drunken Madness is attributed to Ruan Ji of the third century, one of the group associated with the Bamboo Grove, and depicts unsteadiness with lurching rhythmic figures. It is short, direct and often taught early.

The Drunken Fisherman Sings at Dusk and Moon over the Mountain Pass are both frequently heard, the first loose and swaying, the second a frontier subject drawing on a poem. Wine appears often enough in these titles to be worth noticing: it is the standard signal for released constraint, and pieces about drunkenness are pieces about not being bound by decorum.

Taoist and immortal subjects

A number of pieces have explicitly Taoist subjects, and they are worth separating out for readers approaching the instrument through Taoism. Several concern immortals, celestial journeys or figures from Taoist legend, and the titles refer to riding cranes, wandering in the heavens, or the abodes of transcendents.

Others take their subjects from the philosophical texts. There are pieces alluding to the butterfly dream and to other passages in the Zhuangzi, and pieces associated with named Taoist figures. Some collections were compiled by Taoists or in Taoist establishments, and the prefaces to individual pieces in those collections frequently frame the music in terms of cultivation.

The same caution applies here as elsewhere. A Taoist title does not establish Taoist authorship, and the association between a piece and a legend is often the work of a much later editor writing a preface. The music is not different in kind from the rest of the repertoire, and a listener who did not read the titles would not be able to sort the pieces into religious and secular groups.

Structure and section titles

Longer pieces are divided into numbered sections, and in many printed collections each section carries its own descriptive title. These titles map a narrative or a sequence of images onto the music: an approach, an arrival, a disturbance, a resolution.

These section titles are useful and are also a trap. They were often supplied by editors rather than composers, they vary between collections for the same piece, and they encourage listening for illustration where none was intended. The practical use is structural rather than pictorial: they tell you where the divisions fall, which helps a listener follow a piece of fifteen or twenty minutes that has no other obvious signposts.

How to listen to a piece

Read the title and any programme note first, then set them aside. The titles are genuinely informative about mood and subject, but listening for literal depiction produces disappointment, since the music is not descriptive in the way a Western tone poem is.

Instead, listen for the three sound types and how the piece moves between them. Sections built on harmonics stand out clearly and often mark structural divisions. Listen for where the density increases and where it thins. Most pieces have a recognisable shape of gathering and dispersal, and hearing that shape is more useful than tracking a story.

Finally, listen to two recordings of the same piece by different players. Because of how the notation works, the differences will be large, and hearing them is the fastest way to understand that interpretation in this tradition is not a matter of nuance but of construction.

Key points

• Titles and stories are frequently later attachments, so they should be read as tradition rather than as documentary history.
• Flowing Water carries the story that gave Chinese its ordinary word for a person who truly understands you, and Guan Pinghu's version went into space in 1977.
• Guangling San is unusually violent for the repertoire and was criticised on exactly that ground, which reveals the tradition's values.
• Wild Geese Descending is the most played piece and one of the most approachable for both players and listeners.
• Mist and Cloud over the Xiao and Xiang expresses political grief at the loss of the north and is considered a mature player's piece.
• Comparing two recordings of one piece by different players is the fastest way to grasp how much interpretation the notation leaves open.