Wine Madness

Introduction

The version played today is Yao Bingyan's 1957 reconstruction, whose triple rhythm sways like a drunkard

Wine Madness is a guqin piece traditionally credited to Ruan Ji, who lived at the turn of the Wei and Jin. Its earliest tablature is in the first folio of Zhu Quan's Shenqi Mipu of 1425, whose preface says that Ruan Ji, grieving that the Way was not followed and that he was out of step with his times, poured his feelings into wine. The 1425 version has four sections and a coda, and the piece also appears in several later Ming handbooks, including Yang Lun's Taigu Yiyin. The most widely played version today is Yao Bingyan's 1957 reconstruction from the 1425 tablature. It is played in triple time with bass notes on the first and third beats to suggest a swaying drunkard, although some scholars doubt that the original was in triple time.

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