Tang-era piece: San Shou Po Zhen Yue《散手破陣樂》

Tang-era piece:  San Shou Po Zhen Yue

《散手破陣樂》

compiled by David Badagnani (rev. 12 March 2023)

In an effort to make this information more accessible, this document contains resources related to the Tang-era piece entitled San Shou Po Zhen Yue《散手破陣樂》, a suite in the Mixolydian mode on E, called Dashi diao (大食調) in Chinese or Taishiki-chō (太食調) in Japanese, which comprises two movements:

1) 序 (Xu / Jo) - prelude/beginning

2) 破 (Po / Ha) - "broaching"/breaking/developing

As preserved in Sino-Japanese sources, this piece is called Sanju hajin-raku『散手破陣樂（さんじゅはじんらく）』, sometimes abbreviated Sanju『散手（さんじゅ）』, and it appears in the following score collections:

1) and 2) Sango Yōroku and Jinchi Yōroku, both of which were compiled in the late 12th century

3) Ruisō Chiyō『類箏治要』(1296 or c. 1261)

The musical material of this suite seems to be unrelated to the similarly titled Qin Wang Po Zhen Yue / Jinnō hajin-raku / Shinnō hajin-raku《秦王破陣樂》or Huangdi Po Zhen Yue / Ō-dai hajin-raku《皇帝破陣樂》, as these pieces exist in Sango Yōroku and Jinchi Yōroku, but Steven Nelson has noted that the melody of the Po movement of San Shou Po Zhen Yue is fundamentally the same as the Gogen Fu version of Qin Wang Po Zhen Yue.

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Videos and recordings of San Shou Po Zhen Yue

● Full-ensemble realization of San Shou Po Zhen Yue done by Tokinori Yanagita using synthesized sounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6R1LH8B74I

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Bibliography

● Picken, Laurence E. R. and Noël J. Nickson, eds., with Nicholas Gray, Okamoto Miyoko, and Robert Walker.  Music from the Tang Court, vol. 7:  Some Ancient Connections Explored.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/music/ethnomusicology/music-tang-court-some-ancient-connections-explored-volume-7

https://www.amazon.com/Music-Tang-Court-Connections-Explored/dp/0521780845/

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Thanks to Steven G. Nelson for assistance with this page.

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