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Quan Song-Jin qu 全宋金曲

Sep 7, 2022 © Ulrich Theobald

Quan Song-Jin qu 全宋金曲 is a complete collection of aria-style poems (qu 曲) and popular songs from the Song 宋 (960-1279) and Jin 金 (1115-1234) periods. It was compiled by Liu Chongde 劉崇德 and published in 2020 by the Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局.

The novelty of the collections is that poems are arranged not according to the name of the author, but according to type, namely standard arias (1 Faqu 法曲), grand arias (2 Daqu 大曲), drum songs (3 Guzi ci 鼓子詞), treadwheel songs (4 Zhuanta 轉踏), songs performed on market places (5 Changzhuan 唱賺, Yuanshe shiyu 圓社市語), solitary arias (6-7 Sanqu 散曲), mixed-key songs (8 Zhugongdiao 諸宫調), theatre arias from the Song period (9-10 Xiwen 戲文), and popular songs (11 Yueyu 樂語).

The collection has a length of 11 juan, with 4 more fascicles including registers and lists, as well as information on tune patterns (cipai 詞牌) and musical keys (qu diaozi 曲調子).

The songs were collected from among various sources, like collections of lyric-metre-style poetry (ciji 詞集), "brush-notes"-style essays (biji 筆記) or collections of aria patterns (qupu 曲譜) from the Ming 明 (1368-1644) and Qing 清 (1644-1911) periods.

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