Spring River in the Flower-Moon Night

Introduction

Liu Yaozhang's 1925 ensemble arrangement of an old pipa piece, titled by Zheng Jinwen of the Datong Music Society.

Spring River in the Flower-Moon Night is an ensemble arrangement completed in October 1925 by Liu Yaozhang of the Datong Music Society in Shanghai. Introduced by Zheng Jinwen, Liu learned the pipa solo Xunyang Yeyue from Wang Yuting and used it as the model for his ensemble score, while Wang had himself adapted that solo from the traditional pipa piece Xiyang Xiaogu. Zheng first called the new arrangement Autumn River Moon, then renamed it after the title of a poem by the Tang poet Zhang Ruoxu and gave its ten sections new subtitles. Accounts differ on when the final title was fixed, with dates of 1925, the spring of 1926 and around 1930 all proposed. The arrangement turned a pipa solo into a small chamber-style ensemble piece and became an early signature work of the society, while the pipa original, Flute and Drum at Sunset, is kept as a separate work.

A work in copyright: facts only.