Tsar Teh-yun #
The great qin Master Tsar Teh-yun 蔡德允 (Cai Deyun) passed away on June 10th, 2017, at the age of 102. Our deepest sympathies. 深切哀悼.
She was the last of the older generation of qin masters born in China’s imperial past. She compiled the handbook Yinyinshi Qinpu 愔愔室琴譜 a four volume collection of 35 compositions she collected from various sources ─ available from Amazon
The Music, Poetry, and Life of Tsar Teh-yun #
By Bell Yung
200 pp., 14 illus., 6 x 9 in.
ISBN: 978-962-209-916-6
Available from Hong Kong University Press and Amazon
In this biography of Tsar Teh-yun 蔡德允 (Cai Deyun), centenarian poet, calligrapher, and qin master, Bell Yung tells the story of a life steeped in the refined arts, and faithful to the traditional way of the Chinese literati. Set in Shanghai and Hong Kong, this book recounts the experiences of an individual who lived through war, displacement, exile, and unrequited longing for home and for a style of living now lost. Yet Mme Tsar sustained, as one of its last exemplars, much of that style of living despite being a woman in the largely male world of the refined arts. The author weaves a picture of an extraordinary but also tragic figure: extraordinary as daughter, wife, mother, and a celebrated musician, poet, and calligrapher; tragic as a member of the literati exiled from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
Known particularly for her accomplishments as a teacher and performer on the qin - instrument par excellence of the literati - the book delves deeply into her teaching method and musical style and is an important contribution to musicological study.
A prolific author on Chinese music and musicology, Bell Yung is professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh.