Ten Daoqing Songs

Introduction

Begun by Zheng Banqiao in 1729 and revised over fourteen years before it was printed in 1743

The Ten Daoqing Songs are a set of Daoist ballad lyrics by Zheng Banqiao, the Qing painter, calligrapher and writer, known in Jiangsu and Zhejiang as Banqiao's Daoqing. Zheng began them in 1729, the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign, revised them again and again, and finished and printed them only in 1743, fourteen years later. The lyrics borrow the popular tune pattern Shua Hai'er, though the text names no tune, and in form they belong to the Daoist-robe style of sanqu verse. A young singer of the capital named Zhaoge was the first to sing them, and she caused quite a stir there. Because the melody was kept in gongche notation it has changed little in more than two centuries, and north and south sing the same tune, the north in Mandarin and the south in Jiangsu and Zhejiang speech. The singer Yu Shuzhen recorded it in the 1980s and 1990s under the title Southern Jiangsu Daoqing, Yangzhou counts it in its qingqu repertoire, and the Yangzhou opera actor Li Zhengcheng is admired for his singing of it.