Album:
Sunny Spring
Artist:
Wu Jinglue
Line-Up: Wu
Jinglue - Guqin
Label: Silverwolf
Records
It
was my driving test and my teacher introduced an idea of choosing my
own music for the ride. You should pick something that calms your
nerve and your body, she suggested. Something that would make the
situation feel less awkward and uncomfortable. Just a few weeks
before the test, I had found this incredible musical gem from the
land of billion people and I obeyed my teacher’s suggestion. As Wu
Jinglue played Sunny Spring in a celestial manner, I did pass the
test.
Few
earlier blog posts have been related to the merging of the East and
the West, but let us now venture forth into the oriental lands and
concentrate on only one of those. Wu Jinglue (吳景略)
was a Chinese musician, famous for playing the guqin, a traditional
Chinese instrument. Not that long ago me and my colleague paid a
visit at a lecture on Chinese traditional music. It was fairly
unfamiliar world for a two Scandinavians, but during that lecture I
actually perceived the fact that this music, the culture – together
with the language - is thousands of years old, full of various
instrument families, melodies and interpretations. The exotic
tradition is still waiting to be studied more thoroughly, but this
brilliant glimpse on the edge of it may still drill into the ears of
a courageous explorer.
Sunny
Spring is a double-CD and some of the songs are Wu Jinglue’s solo
on guqin but most of the songs include flutes as well. Just one or
two instruments can still capture your attention enough to drown in
beautiful music.
The
music tells tales and describes landscapes without words. Usually,
the theme of the story is strongly related to nature, a common
phenomenon in Chinese culture, take shaolin monks and their aim of
imitating animals for protection as a foundation for martial arts for
instance. In the mythology of Chinese traditional music Ling Lung (伶倫
)
actually constructed bamboo flutes, which were tuned to the sound of
birds. This music aims at mirroring the sound of earth: water flowing
softly in the river during spring time, a lovely birdsong echoing in
the wind of the misty mountains. It has the power of rebooting your
quiescent call of nature for aural pleasure and charming tranquility.
This smooth ride is worth of digging, even though the whole essence
of this piece might be somewhat obscure for a West-oriented musical
mind.
Take
a leap by expanding your music taste and challenging your musical
customs.
Here
is a piece by Wu Jinglue, and although it is not from Sunny Spring,
it’s a fine example on his music
written
by Oz
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