Henrik Norbeck writes:
>> T:Two Fountains Reflect the Moonlight
>> T:The Moon Reflected in Er-Quan
>
>With my minimal knowledge of Chinese I would say both titles are
>translations, but the second one only partial. "Er" is Chinese for
>"two". My dictionary says one meaning of "quan" is "spring, well".
>
Aha! This explains a third translation of the title,
which is "The Moon Reflected on the Second Springs."
By the way, the composer, Hua Yen-Chun, known as Blind Abing in his
later life, is much more interesting than might appear from my short
description, which I suspect is what is taught in the schools. See
Jonathan Stock's page:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/music/staff/js/AbPref.html
This includes some musical analyses of Abing's solos, and an interesting
discussion of how the Cultural Revolution's unique interaction of art
and politics forced an intellectual tightrope-walk by Abing's
biographer. Stock's humor is dry and cutting. You can look it up
yourself, but I can't resist quoting a couple of sideswipes which apply
to Western as well as Chinese music:
On a form of musical analysis due to Herr Schenker:
>Devised for use on Western classical music, this form of analysis can be
>useful elsewhere also, though certain modifications are necessary.
>(Herr Schenker probably wouldn't agree. His thoughts on Chinese music do
>not appear to have been recorded, which is probably just as well; we do
>know that he believed all music from France and Italy to be unnatural
>and degenerate).
>
When speaking of Abing's biographer---and Stock casts strong
doubts on his accuracy (too PC, Maoist version)---he writes:
>In all this, Yang was immeasurably assisted by the fact the Abing had
>died before the publication of his material. (As a general rule,
>musicologists do rather seem to like their composers dead.)
>
Cheers,
John Walsh
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