Tang-era piece: Wu Meiniang
《武媚娘》
compiled by David Badagnani (rev. 11 December 2022)
In an effort to make this information more accessible, this document contains resources related to the Tang-era piece entitled Wu Meiniang《武媚娘》, which exists in the form of instrumental parts for a suite in five sections in the Dorian mode on E, called Ping diao (平調) in Chinese and Hyōjō in Japanese. Occasional non-mode tones such as G-sharp appear from time to time, this phenomenon being known as fan diao (犯調, literally "encroaching [on the] mode") in Chinese.
In the Sino-Japanese tradition, this piece is called Bubirō『武媚娘（ぶびろう）』or Muminyō『武媚娘（むみにょう）』, and it appears in the following score collections:
1) Gogen Fu『五絃譜』or Gogen Kinfu『五絃琴譜』, the manuscript itself simply bearing the title《五絃》(Gogen); individual pieces in the collection bear the dates 773 and 842 and the music is believed to be of Tang Chinese origin, though the manuscript was probably copied in Japan in the 11th century during the mid-Heian period.
2) Motomasa no Fue-fu『基政笛譜』or『基政の笛譜』(Motomasa's Flute Score), which was compiled in the early 12th century
3) Chingaku-rui『珍楽類』, which was compiled in Japan in the Muromachi period (1336-1573)
4) Tenkanraku hoka gigaku-fu『天感楽外妓楽譜』, which was compiled in the Kamakura period (1185-1333)
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Chinese historical sources mentioning Wu Meiniang
● Jiaofang Ji《教坊记》(The Conservatory Records)
A collection of short essays by the Tang scholar Cui Lingqin (崔令钦, fl. 749)
● Jiu Tang Shu《旧唐书》(The Old Book of Tang), also known simply as Tang Shu《唐书》 (The Book of Tang), a historical work in 200 volumes that was completed in 945, actually during the Later Jin (后晋) Dynasty, one of the Five Dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (五代十国) period following the fall of the Tang Dynasty; it is one of the Twenty-Four Histories (二十四史). The title "Wu Meiniang" is mentioned as being a song in volume 51.
● Tang Huiyao《唐会要》(Institutional History of Tang)
This history of the Tang Dynasty, comprising 100 volumes and 514 sections, was compiled by Wang Pu (王溥, 922-982) and presented to Emperor Taizu, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, in 961. The title appears in volume 33 as《舞媚娘》.
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Videos and recordings of Wu Meiniang
● Realization of Wu Meiniang (Gogen Fu version) by Bilibili user 雪狼的天空 using synthesized sounds (China, 2020)
● Electronic realization of Wu Meiniang (Gogen Fu version) by YouTube user 古樂尋蹤_HGofACH (Canada, 2022)
● Electronic realization of the po section of Wu Meiniang (based on heng di, pipa, and sheng parts from Motomasa no Fue-fu, Chingaku-rui, and Tenkanraku hoka Gigaku-fu, respectively) by YouTube user 古樂尋蹤_HGofACH (Canada, 2022)
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Bibliography
● Nelson, Steven G. スティーヴン・G・ネルソン. "Gogen-fu shinkō: Omo ni gogen-biwa no jūsei oyobi chōgen ni tsuite"「五絃譜新考一主に五絃琵琶の柱制及び調絃について一」 [The Gogen-fu, a Japanese Heian-Period Tablature Score for Five-Stringed Lute: Concentrating on the Fret System and Tunings of the Instrument]. Tōyō ongaku kenkyū 『東洋音楽研究』[Journal of the Society for Research in Asiatic Music], vol. 50 (1986): pp. 13-76. [Contains a detailed English summary of sections 4 through 9.]
● Wolpert, R. F. "A Ninth-Century Score for Five-Stringed Lute." Musica Asiatica, vol. 3 (1981), pp. 107-135.
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Thanks to Keith Wong for assistance with this page.
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