This instrumental melody, which does not seem as melancholy as many that have an autumn theme, survives in four qin handbooks, all published around the same time: Xilutang Qintong (1549), Taiyin Chuanxi (1551), Taiyin Xupu (1559) and Qinpu Zhengchuan (1561) respectively.³ The versions are all quite similar, with the 1559 and 1561 versions being identical. Those two, like the very similar one dated 1551, arrange the melody into 12 sections.

The music of the 1549 version is quite similar to that of these three later editions, many passages being identical, but it divides the music into 10 sections.⁴ It is the only version to have titles for the sections (see below). And its introduction is also somewhat different from the others. In fact, these four editions altogether have three different commentaries (1561 has no commentary).

The afterword to the 1549 version attributes the melody to Zhang Han (c. 258 - 319), a poet who became a military official under the Prince of Qi,⁵ but who then left his official position and became a recluse.⁶ The commentary connects the melody to the story that it was because the government in his day had lost its way that Zhang left it to return home. The decision was made when he heard an autumn wind that reminded him of how fleeting life is. Elsewhere it is added that the wind reminded him of the beauty of the seasons around his home in the Suzhou area. Although most melodies related to autumn seem to be quite sad, in this case the sigh seems more one of bemusement: the world being corrupt, he is quite happy to live in the countryside and create a qin melody to express what the autumn wind was telling him. This mood is borne out both by the melody itself and by the titles of the ten sections.

The 1551 preface⁷ makes no mention of Zhang Han, instead attributing the melody to the famous Song dynasty qin player Guo Chuwang. It then quotes one line ("He sighed that a human life can have only so many years.") from a poem used as lyrics for several shang modal preludes. One of the modal preludes to use this line is #25 in Xilutang Qintong, so it is interesting that the 1549 Qiu Feng is not paired with that preface.

The 1559 preface⁸ also does not mention Zhang Han. It begins by quoting the first, second and fourth lines from Qiufeng Ci (Autumn Wind Lyrics), a famous poem attributed to Han Emperor Wudi. It then compares the sentiments expressed there with those of a poem (and qin melody) Da Feng Qi (A Great Wind Arises), attributed to Han Emperor Gaozu (lyrics included under his biography).

 
Original preface¹⁰

 
Music
Ten sections¹¹

  1. Drifting around at great heights
  2. 10,000 li from the palace gates
  3. Singing loudly to the moon
  4. Sighing through the night
  5. Climbing a mountain, near a stream ¹²
  6. Wind in the pines and rain on the bamboo
  7. The tinkling of gold and jade
  8. Gibbons cry under a dawn moon
  9. Carefree and happy
 10. Rippling water of Lake Dongting
        harmonics
        end

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1 Qiu Feng 秋風 25505.223: only musical connection is 吳、鼓吹曲名 name of a wind and percussion melody from the greater Suzhou area. (Return)

2 Standard tuning is usually considered as 5 6 1 2 3 5 6. For further information on shang mode see Shenpin Shang Yi and Modality in Early Ming Qin Tablature.

From those references it can be seen that one characteristic of early melodies in the shang mode is that the third (3; mi) is sometimes flatted. This flatted third is clearly called for in several passages of the Qiu Feng published in 1549 (as well as the others), for example by clusters near the beginning of Section 2 and the end of Section 7 that call for the 4th string to be stopped between the 8th and 9th positions, and by a cluster near the beginning of Section 9 that calls for the 5th string to be stopped between the 9th and 10th positions. (For details as to why these are unambiguous see the table called Standard positions on a qin string tuned to C, but note that here the third string is tuned to F [fa].) Unfortunately, in several other places the position is is not so clear. In these ambiguous cases the clusters indicate that the third string should be stopped "between the 7th and 8th positions". If this is played as 7.6, which is most common, this calls for a flatted mi. However, this can also be played as 7.3, in which case it is an unflatted mi. In Shen Qi Mi Pu one can find passages with both "七下 below 7" (unflatted mi)and "七八 between 7 and 8" (flatted mi), thereby making clear that the tablature is making a distinction. However, none of the versions of Qiu Feng ever uses the indication "below 7". As a result, in some passages such as the one in the first phrase at the beginning of what 1549 calls Section 3 the player must decide whether to play "between 7 and 8 on the third string" as mi or flatted mi. (Return)

3 Zha Guide 18/178/-- (Return)

4 For details see the transcriptions (not yet online). (Return)

5 Qi was an ancient kingdom in Shandong province; the prince was a son of the emperor of the Western Jin dynasty (265 - 317; capital Luoyang),
(Return)

6 Zhang Han 張翰 (258 - 319)
Qin Shi #88 is a biography of Zhang Han. To the information there one can add that Zhang Han is said to have created the following poem, called 秋風歌 Song of the Autumn Wind, while still serving the Jin dynsty (capital in Luoyang). One day he felt an autumn wind that reminded him of the autumn landscape and fish in the rivers near his home in Wu (the Suzhou area). So he sang this song to express his feelings, then promptly left office and returned home.

In addition, Li Bai mentions him at the end of a poem called 行路難之三 Traveling the road is hard, #3, as follows

(N.B. "行路難三首 Three poems on traveling the road is hard" is included in Yuefu Shiji (Chinese edition, p. 1008). The first of these was included in the famous collection 唐詩三百首 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty.)
(Return)

7 QQJC, IV, p. 83 (not in Zha's Guide).
(Return)

8 QQJC, III, p. 424 (Return)

10 Chinese original is:

11 The original Chinese section titles are:

1. 飄揚遠舉
2. 君門萬里
3. 對月高歌
4. 終夜興嘆
5. 登山臨水
6. 松風竹雨
7. 鏗金戛玉
8. 猿啼曉月
9. 心曠神怡
10. 洞庭揚波
    (Return)

12 Compare the music here with that of Section 5 ("Enjoying the Dao through books") of Qiao Ge. (Return)

Return to the annotated handbook list or to the Guqin ToC.