Dear all,
This guzheng piece was composed and recorded yesterday, inspired by a painting from the Five Dynasties (907 - 979) period of China (photo below). I have been doing some research on ancient plucked instruments from different cultures including the history of my instrument - guzheng. It has been utterly fascinating to discover so much connections of all the zithers, harps, lutes etc. around the world.
The painting below is from 1167 years ago, during The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It was an era of political upheaval and division in Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concurrent dynastic states, collectively known as the Ten Kingdoms, were established elsewhere, mainly in South China. It was a prolonged period of multiple political divisions in Chinese imperial history.
In the painting, the two double-reed wind instruments (vertically played) in the back center, the pipa in the front (the rounded lute, left to the guzheng) came from Central Asia and the Middle East before this period. By the time of the Five Dynasties, they had become standard instruments in the court ensembles. Later, all of these instruments made to Korea and Japan. It makes me happy to see how long, how wide and how far these instruments had made across lands, times, and cultures. To this day, they continue to move our hearts and bring us joy.
Wu Fei 吴非
Wufeimusic.com | hellogoldmountain.com
