Jiang Kui

Jiang Kui (ca. 1155 - 1221), a major poet, musician and critic, was a native of Poyang, in modern Jiangxi province, hence the new park shown at right. However, his family took him from Poyang to the Hanyang area (by modern Wuhan) when he was about 10;⁴ and he lived there until he was about 30, when the important poet and scholar official Xiao Dezao took him to Huzhou, on the south side of Lake Taihu in Zhejiang province (the area is also called Wuxing).⁵ Jiang spent the rest of his life in that region (including Suzhou and Hangzhou), never achieving important office, but making a living by selling his calligraphy and getting patronage from wealthy friends

He wrote Gu Yuan (see also QSCB, Chapter 6b1-6), the earliest qin melody to survive in China, as well as 17 ci songs and 10 ritual songs.⁶ There are very few other pre-Qing dynasty songs in which the lyrics and music are known to have been composed by the same person.

Qinshu Cunmu discusses his Sketches to Investigate Antiquity of Qin and Se (Qin Se Kaogu Tu).

Qinxue Bielu discusses his Qingyuan Period Music Book (Qingyuan Yue Shu).

His Tuning Strings Method (Ding xian fa)⁷ is sometimes considered an important book on Song dynasty qin music practice.

Jiang Kui is said to have been a close friend of the important collector of old qin tablature Zhang Yan,⁸ and two of Jiang's poems connected to Zhang are mentioned in Rao, Chapter 4.

The original essay in Qin Shi Xu begins,

Jiang Kui, style name Yaozhang, was from Poyang....

Translation incomplete. ⁹

Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 姜夔 Jiang Kui
Jiang Kui, 6335.117 姜夔，(江西)鄱陽人字堯章 from Poyang, style name Yaozhang, 號白石 nickname Baishi (White-stone). See also Nienhauser, ICTCL (Chiang K'uei), p.262ff. QSCB Chapter 6b1-6 says he belonged to the School of Poetic Meter (格律派 Gelü pai, but on this ICTCL 675, 858 are both Ming references), also known as the Delicately Restrained School (婉約派 Wanyue Pai, see ICTCL 263 [Jiang Kui], 327 [same time]).
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2. 18 lines; credited source: 海紅寮碎墨
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3. Jiang Kui Public Park (姜夔公園 Jiang Kui Gongyuan) in Poyang
In 2008 the government announced that work was beginning on a 姜夔公園 Jiang Kui Public Park in 上饒市鄱陽縣 Poyang, a county within Shangrao City, to the east of 鄱陽湖 Poyang Lake in Jiangxi province. (Note that in 1957 the name of 鄱陽縣 Poyang county was changed to 波陽縣 Boyang County, but in 2003 the original name was restored.)
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4. Jiang Kui in 漢陽 Hanyang
Jiang Kui's father was a scholar official. He died a few years after moving the family to the Hanyang area, but Jiang Kui stayed on there (see Nienhauser, op. cit.).
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5. 蕭德藻 Xiao Dezao; 湖洲 Huzhou; 吳興 Wuxing.
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6. 詞調（十七首）、越九歌（十首） 17 ci songs and 10 ritual songs (entitle "9 Songs of Yue"). Transcribed in Pian.
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7. Tuning strings method (定絃法 Ding xian fa)
21570.xxx. Hsu Wen-Ying, The Ku-ch'in, p. 327, writes (text edited here) that Jiang Kui "petitioned to the Royal court of the Southern Song dynasty to regulate the musical tones for rituals, and made a list with analyses of theories on different ways to tune the guqin." Hsu goes on to discuss the different tunings.
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8. Jiang Kui and Zhang Yan
Hsu Wen-Ying, The Ku-ch'in, p. 330, writes (text again edited here), "Jiang was a friend of Zhang Yan, having written poems in praise of Zhang." She goes on to discuss the scores Zhang Yan had acquired through Han Chazhou, suggesting that Jiang Kui was one of the limited number of people with access to these scores.
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9. Original Qin Shi Xu biography
The original text begins,
姜虁字堯章鄱陽人。詩格高秀迥出一時。詞亦華妙精深。尤嫻於音律。嘗患中興以來樂典久墜乃詣京師上「大樂議一卷」，「琴瑟考古圖一卷」。分琴為三準，每一絃各有具三十六聲....
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