这张2001年由美国 world Arbiter公司整理出版的已故岭南派琴人卢家炳1970-1971年的古琴历史录音。
Lost Sounds of the Tao,中文译作"失落的道家琴声"。这一看就非国内业界的语言,这是西方艺术界对中华文化的理解性语言,其切入身份、角度等独特性使得在道家、古琴等表述可能引发国内业内资深争议,但西方对世界艺术资源的观念需国人予以理解,管平湖先生所演奏的《流水》,曾被美国录入太空探测号的金唱片,国人看作是民族骄傲,这都是中西文化交流碰撞的结果。至于古琴音乐审美方面,仁智自见,《老子》中讲"淡兮其无味"、"大音希声",这种道家观点在历史上影响深远,以后也都有很大影响的,历代琴人无不将"希声"作为演奏的至境,以追求琴乐的内敛含蓄之美。弦外之音,众爱乐者心领神会吧。
Audio CD (February 26, 2002) Number of Discs: 1 Label: World Arbiter ASIN: B000060PAT
01. Teals Descending on the Level Sand - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 02. Returning Home - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 03. Composing Poems Beneath the Moonlight - Lo Ka Ping, Ping, Lo Ka Listen 04. The Lonely Teal - Lo Ka Ping, Ping, Lo Ka Listen 05. The Water Spirit - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 06. Murmuring in the Boudoir - Lo Ka Ping, Ping, Lo Ka Listen 07. The Water Spirit - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 08. Buddhist (Shih-T'An) Stanza - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 09. Teals Descending on the Level Sand - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 10. Meditation in the Dead of the Night - Lo Ka Ping, Ping, Lo Ka Listen 11. The Empress' Lament - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen 12. Conversation Between a Fisherman and A Woodcutter - Lo Ka Ping, Traditional Listen
This CD is extraordinary. Played on the guqin (an older form of the zither in China), the music is contemplative and calm and yet vigorous and austere in a subtle way...and almost indescribably beautiful and pure. By the end of the album I really did feel spiritually refreshed, baptized by sound, and I won't make this claim for even some of my favorite CDs. This quiet little album doesn't brag, but does in spades what dozens of "new age" type albums claim to do. Nothing against them, but this is the real deal when it comes to pure moods.
Lo Ka Ping, the performer (and composer of several of the tracks) was a Taoist priest as well as an English teacher in Hong Kong, and music was clearly a religious practice and exercise in self-cultivation for him, in the best tradition of the literati artist. My guess is that this is what infuses the music with such a deep and mature spirituality. And in line with this tradition, he rarely performed in public as a professional would, making these recordings that much more precious.
These recordings were found in storage boxes and in attics, and the sound quality thus varies widely and, as you can well imagine, is never top notch. While a real rescue operation was performed on them sound-wise, there's only so much you can do under such circumstances. Still, this didn't distract me much, and the rarity and archival value of the recordings, along with their beauty, more than makes up for some of the fuzz and hum. The liner notes tell the whole interesting story behind this recovery as well as reprinting an article about the performer, his life and his music by Professor Dale Craig (1971) and an essay on the value of Chinese music by Lo Ka Ping himself (1920).
So if you like traditional Chinese music or are interested in Taoism and literati culture (or both, as the case may be), I can't recommend this CD highly enough. And if you're looking for a little bit of spiritual peace on a disc, I reckon you won't do much better than this. Lost Sounds of the Tao