Guangling San

Introduction

Ji Kang played it before his execution and lamented that Guangling San would now be lost for ever

Guangling San is a large-scale guqin piece whose earliest surviving tablature is in the Shenqi Mipu, compiled by the Ming prince Zhu Quan in 1425. That version runs to forty-five sections in six parts, from an opening and short prelude through the main body to a long coda. Zhu Quan said he used a score once kept in the Sui palace, and a Tang score by Li Liangfu, the Guangling Zhixi, had twenty-three sections. Section titles such as Seizing Han, Hair Bristling and Throwing Down the Sword have long linked it to the story of Nie Zheng, the assassin of the King of Han. Ji Kang of the Wei state was famed for the piece and played it before his execution, lamenting that it would now be lost. In the 1950s Guan Pinghu and other players reconstructed it from the 1425 tablature, and it is performed again today.