Song of the Frontier

Introduction

A pipa suite on Wang Zhaojun's longing for home, first joined into one large piece in Li Fangyuan's score of 1895.

Saishang qu is a traditional civil-style pipa piece about Wang Zhaojun of the Han, who was married off beyond the frontier and longed for her homeland. It grew out of several short tunes in Hua Qiuping's pipa score printed in 1819. Li Fangyuan joined them into a single large piece in his collection of thirteen great suites published in 1895. The work is made of five fairly independent tunes, among them Zhaojun's Lament, Weeping Yan Hui and Beside the Dressing Table, and it evokes the bleak frontier and the loneliness of a woman far from home. Later scores of several schools, including the Yangzhengxuan, Yingzhou gudiao and Wang Yuting collections, carried it on in their own versions.