Cháoyě xīnshēng tàipíng yuèfǔ 朝野新聲太平樂府
New Songs of Court and Country: the Peaceful Music Bureau edited by 楊朝英 (輯)
About the work
The Cháoyě xīnshēng tàipíng yuèfǔ 朝野新聲太平樂府 — universally known by its short title Tàipíng yuèfǔ 太平樂府 — is the principal Yuán-period anthology of sǎnqǔ 散曲 (song-arias and song-suites independent of dramatic plot), compiled by Yáng Cháoyīng 楊朝英 (hào Dànzhāi 澹齋) and prefaced Zhìzhèng xīnmǎo (1351) by Dèng Yújìn 鄧于晉 of Bāxī 巴西. Nine juǎn in the SBCK arrangement. Together with Yáng’s earlier Yángchūn báixuě 陽春白雪, this anthology is the principal documentary source for Yuán sǎnqǔ; without these two anthologies most named Yuán qǔ-writers would be lost.
Prefaces
(The SBCK file preserves the xìngshì table of contributors — 85 named qǔ-writers — and the Dèng Yújìn preface.)
Dèng Yújìn’s preface, Zhìzhèng xīnmǎo (1351): “Yuèfǔ takes the Shī (Shījīng) as its base. The Shījīng 305 pieces evolved; reaching five-syllable verse came yuèfǔ, gē, and qǔ — another name for shī. Coming to the making of tunes, with set qiāng and tonal-elaboration, when many tunes mix into záqǔ, the qǔ is called cí to weight it — and hence the shī / cí distinction. Now the Zhōngzhōu (the central plain) calls a body of qǔ ‘yuèfǔ’ on the same principle: the world is what it ranks-as. In our day all writers strive for novelty of word and meaning — yet another shift, one growing more remote from the shī. Even so, the ancients composed shī in order to set it to music, and only when the eight tones harmonized would human and divine come into accord; today shī is not bound to song any more, but yuèfǔ still adjusts its tones to the lǜ — there is the spirit of the old gēshī. Dànzhāi Yáng has a selection — Yángchūn báixuě — that long circulated. Now he has compiled the new selection Tàipíng yuèfǔ in one volume, classed by mode and tune. All are the work of contemporary cháo and yě (court and country) named writers; pieces already in other anthologies are not repeated. Beginning with the Yānshān Zhuóshì’s Běiqiāng yùnlèi (a yīnyùn table), the volume aims at shuònán tóngdiào (one mode for both north and south) and shēnghé qìhé (harmonized in sound and in mood) — what one might call the song of an age of peace, not merely competing with Qín Qīng’s voice. The story is that Suānzhāi Guàn (Guàn Yúnshí) said to Dànzhāi: ‘I am Suān; you must be Dàn’; he gave him this hào, and they always evaluated each other’s work. The present day’s cí-master is taken to be Féng Hǎisù 馮海粟, whose ‘háolà hàolàn’ is the very thing the contemporaries fear. This volume opens with the famous piece Hēiqīnǚ 黒涂奴 by Féng Hǎisù matching Bái Pǔ — making it the beginning is praise of the rigorous tone-discipline (‘character by character, the four tones to a beat — character by character not careless’) of Bái’s manner: language strong but not lewd, beautiful but not damaging. Dànzhāi’s shāncún (editorial selection) intent is also to know where yuèfǔ’s base is. Hence this preface. — Zhìzhèng xīnmǎo spring, Bāxī Dèng Yújìn inscribed.”
Abstract
The Tàipíng yuèfǔ preserves 700+ sǎnqǔ by 85 Yuán-period writers (the xìngshì table at the head of the SBCK file lists the 85 names: Hú Zǐshān 胡紫山, Chóu Zhōupàn 仇州判, Wáng Bóchéng 王伯成, Lǐ Dézài 李徳載, Wú Kèzhāi 吳克齋, Wáng Jìngfǔ 王敬甫, Zēng Ruìqīng 曾瑞卿, Chéng Jǐngchū 程景初, Zhōng Jìxiān 鍾繼先, Zhào Yànhuī 趙彦輝, etc.). The compilation date 1351 is fixed by Dèng Yújìn’s preface. The anthology’s editorial principle — only contemporary writers, no pieces already in other anthologies, and “harmonized in sound and mood for both north and south” — makes it the principal late-Yuán statement on sǎnqǔ as a unified northern-and-southern repertoire. The arrangement by gōngdiào and tune-form (Yīngwǔ qū / Hēiqīnǚtuō group; Sàihóngqiū / Tāotāolìng group; Chángōng qū / Diànqián huān; Shòuyáng qū etc.) is the working catalogue of Yuán qǔ. The volume is irreplaceable for Yuán sǎnqǔ scholarship. Modern editions (Sūn Kǎidì Cāngzhōu jí; Wāng Wéncái Quán Yuán sǎnqǔ) treat the Tàipíng yuèfǔ as a first-tier source.
Translations and research
- Wāng Wén-cái 隋樹森 (?), Sūi Shù-sēn 隋樹森, Quán Yuán sǎn-qǔ 全元散曲 (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1964) — uses Tài-píng yuè-fǔ as a major source.
- Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, Chinese Theater 1100–1450: A Source Book (Wiesbaden, 1982) — context for the late-Yuán qǔ scene.
- Sūn Kǎi-dì 孫楷第, Cāng-zhōu jí — bibliographic study.
- Wáng Lì-qì 王利器, Yuán Míng Qīng sān-dài jìn-huǐ xiǎo-shuō xì-qǔ shǐ-liào — context.
Other points of interest
The preface’s portrayal of the Suānzhāi / Dànzhāi friendship between Guàn Yúnshí (one of the great Yuán Buddhists and a leading sǎnqǔ poet himself) and Yáng Cháoyīng is one of the most-cited literary-friendship anecdotes of the Yuán period. The selection’s opening with Féng Hǎisù 馮海粟 (Féng Zǐzhèn)‘s Hēiqīnǚtuō matching Bái Pǔ is also a Zhìzhèng-era theoretical statement on the canonical line of sǎnqǔ writing.