Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhao Yansu
Southern Song clansman-scholar, jinshi of 1166, whose Twelve Scores of the Odes, recorded by Zhu Xi in the Yili jingzhuan tongjie, is among the earliest surviving music for the Book of Songs.
Mural of the cultural record “Confucian Temple Music”, which this person is tied to.
Also known as Zi Ziqin · Hao Fuzhai
Zhao Yansu, styled Ziqin and Fuzhai, came from Jiande in Yanzhou and was a member of the Song imperial clan, seventh-generation descendant of Zhao Tingmei. He passed the jinshi examination in 1166, debated learning with Zhu Xi and followed the teaching of Lu Jiuyuan. He wrote the six-juan Fuzhai yishuo and illustrated guides to the capping, wedding and feast rites, praised by Zhu Xi. The Twelve Scores of the Odes he transmitted, six Xiaoya and six Guofeng pieces in pitch-name notation, were entered by Zhu Xi in the music section of the Yili jingzhuan tongjie as 'surviving music of the Kaiyuan era', a claim Zhu Xi himself doubted and modern scholars mostly attribute to Song composition.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; jinshi of 1166