Changmen yuan 长门怨
Played by Dai Wei 戴微
San Diego, 2013
Commentary
The following excerpt is part of Lieberman’s analysis of the composition in his work A Chinese Zither Handbook - the Meian Qinpu (pages 106 to 111 of the 1983 print edition).
Lament at the Changmen Palace was published for the first time in the Meian qinpu. As Xu Lisun notes, it is associated specifically with the Zhucheng tradition and is perhaps the most significant Zhucheng contribution to the contemporary qin repertory, having been adopted by many qin players of different schools.
The title appears among the songs of the Han yuefu 樂府 collections. The background story seems to be apocryphal but is not impossible. The Empress Chen was imprisoned in the Changmen Palace due to court intrigues. Languishing there, she sent for Sima xiangru and asked him to write a poem about her sad fate. Through the poem, she hoped to move the Emperor to take pity on her anf set her free. In response to her request, Xiangru is said to have composed the Changmen Fu 長門賦, a prose-poem that survives today, though it is generally not considered authentic1.
…
- David R. Knechtges has just published a translation and study of the Changmen Fu (1981). After summarizing the scholarly debate, Knechtges finds, on internal stylistic evidence, no credible grounds for doubting the poem’s authenticity ─ though the preface to the poem is certainly a later addition.