Flute and Drum at Sunset

Introduction

Already notated in Ju Shilin's pipa manuscript of 1860 and expanded into ten titled sections by Li Fangyuan in 1895.

Flute and Drum at Sunset is a traditional pipa solo, already recorded in Ju Shilin's pipa manuscript Xianxu Youyin, handed down from 1860. Early manuscripts mostly divide it into seven sections, and when Li Fangyuan published his pipa collection of the northern and southern schools in 1895 he called it Xunyang Pipa and expanded it to ten. Li gave every section a title, beginning with Flute and Drum at Sunset and ending with A Lone Boat Homeward in the Sunset. Shen Haochu kept the name Xiyang Xiaogu in his Yangzhengxuan pipa collection, while the pipa master Wang Yuting reworked it as Xunyang Yeyue. In 1925 Liu Yaozhang used Wang's version as the model for a silk-and-bamboo ensemble arrangement, later titled Spring River in the Flower-Moon Night, which is kept as a separate work.