Artist: Pipa & Guqin, played by Gao Hong & Zhao Xiaoxia
Album: Prelude to the Divine Realm
Label: Naxos
Genre: Jazz
Reviewer/Show: Mark Weber
Quiet music
Unhurried, a cobbled road
through yr village
You with a pole over yr shoulder
with a water bucket at each end
It's a long time ago
Pull SUNFLOWER SPLENDOR off you shelf
and read the old Chinese poetry
This music evocative of a long time ago, so beautiful, did times
like this ever exist? Contemplative
Morning tea music
Ten years ago I was negotiating the warren of 14th Street subway tunnels (NYC)
and there was an elderly Chinese man sitting on a milk crate playing an upright
string instrument
I went over to him and said "Erhu?"
He jumped up so happy holding it up "Erhu! erhu! erhu"
(Erhu and pipa are both very ancient and both in the lute family
of plucked & bowed string instruments)
He was so glad someone recognized the erhu (I was only guessing)
LiPo the 7th century poet traveled with a troupe of erhu & pipa musicians
to accompany his poetry on his boat all up & down the Yellow River
