Writers › Writer / Poet
Tian Wei
Northern Song lyricist and court musician, a fine pipa player, who directed music at the Dasheng Bureau late in the Zhenghe era and later became its Grand Music Director; his Jiangshenzi Man is in Three Hundred Song Lyrics.
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Courtesy name Bufa
Tian Wei, courtesy name Bufa, was a scholar skilled on the pipa. At the end of the Zhenghe era Cai You, superintendent of the Dasheng Music Bureau, recommended him as the bureau's music director, and he later served as its Grand Music Director. The Treatise on Music in the History of Song records that after his appointment the bureau set aside Liu Bing's middle pitch pipe of eight cun seven fen and used only the nine-cun pipe. CBDB lists a collection of his writings. Three Hundred Song Lyrics includes his Jiangshenzi Man. His dates are unknown.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; appointed music director of the Dasheng Bureau at the end of the Zhenghe era (c. 1117–1118)