Early Chinese Music Resources: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Early Chinese Music Resources: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

compiled by David Badagnani (rev. 29 July 2022)

Painted marble relief of a court yanyue ensemble from the tomb of Wang Chuzhi (王处直, 863-923), a senior military governor whose career spanned the end of the Tang Dynasty and the beginning of the Five Dynasties. The tomb, which dates from 924, just after the fall of the Later Liang Dynasty (907-923), was discovered on Xifen Hill in Xiyanchuan Village (西燕川村), in the town of Lingshan (灵山镇), Quyang County, Baoding, Hebei province, northern China, and excavated in 1995. Collection of the Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Institute, Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, northern China.

In an effort to make it more accessible, this document contains resources related to the musical heritage of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-979). During this time of disunity, which began with the fall of the Tang Dynasty, China's territory was divided among five states (the so-called Five Dynasties), which quickly succeeded one another in China's Central Plain: the Later Liang (后梁; also called Zhu Liang 朱梁, 907-923), Later Tang (后唐, 923-937), Later Jin (后晋; also called Shi Jin 石晋, 936-947), Later Han (后汉, 947-951), and Later Zhou (后周, 951-960); with more than a dozen concurrent states (the so-called Ten Kingdoms) being established elsewhere, mainly in southern China: Yang Wu, Wuyue, Min, Southern Han, Ma Chu, Northern Han, Jingnan (also known as Nanping), Former Shu, Later Shu, and Southern Tang.

Links to textual sources are highlighted in green.

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Historical reference works about the music of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

● Beimeng Suoyan《北梦琐言》(mid-10th century)

http://www.guoxue123.com/zhibu/0401/00bmsy/index.htm

http://www.guoxue123.com/zhibu/0401/00bmsy/007.htm

http://www.guoxue123.com/zhibu/0401/00bmsy/021.htm

http://www.guoxue123.com/zhibu/0401/00bmsy/025.htm

● Da Zhou Zheng Yue《大周正乐》(Record of Orthodox Music of the Great Zhou)

The most extensive musical treatise written during the Five Dynasties period, and also the earliest Chinese general history of music, Da Zhou Zheng Yue was compiled beginning in 958 (during the Later Zhou Dynasty, whose capital was Kaifeng), and completed in 959.  Although the full text of this treatise has been lost for centuries, it is known to have exerted a strong influence on the musicological work of subsequent dynasties, and 62 essays from it can be found in various documents dating to the Song Dynasty.

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Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms-era poems about music

http://earlychinesemusic.blogspot.com/2018/09/poems-about-music-tang.html

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Bibliography

● Qi Juanli 亓娟莉.  "An Compilation and Examination of Dazhou Zhengyue"《大周正乐》辑考.  Journal of Xinjiang University (Philosophy,Humanities & Social Science), vol. 45, no. 6 (November 2017), pp. 120-125.

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