As If Real: The Living Nature of Chinese Instruments

Description

Author: Lin Guzhen
Publisher: Peking University Press

Synopsis:
Drawing on his intimate familiarity with Chinese instrumental music and with cultures ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, the author ingeniously links five important traditional Chinese instruments with particular dispositions of life. Beginning with the mutual reflection and affinity between the qin and the lofty recluse, the pipa and the knight-errant, the dizi and the scholar, the zheng and lovers (sons and daughters), and the huqin and the life-spirit of the common people, he gives a vivid, accessible overview of the essential character of Chinese instruments.
This linking of instruments with attributes of life thus not only reflects the unique historical development of Chinese instrumental music, but more fundamentally mirrors an attitude toward music – and toward life itself – that distinguishes the Chinese from Westerners.

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