Wild Geese Landing on the Sandbank

Introduction

First printed in 1634 by the Ming Prince of Lu, it survives in more than sixty later qin handbooks

Wild Geese Landing on the Sandbank is a guqin piece that pictures wild geese circling and settling on a sandbar by the water. Its earliest printed version is in the Guyin Zhengzong, compiled in 1634 by Zhu Changfang, the Ming Prince of Lu, under the title Yan Luo Pingsha. Later handbooks disagree on its author, naming Chen Zi'ang of the Tang, Tian Zhiweng of the Song or Zhu Quan of the Ming. The piece became popular only in the early Qing and survives in more than sixty handbooks. The Tianwenge Qinpu reads its calm autumn sky and level sand as an image of a recluse's untroubled mind, and the versions of the Jiao'an and Meian handbooks are among the most widely played today.