十面埋伏 (trans: Ambush from All Sides) is a 琵琶 (pípá or “Chinese lute”) long form solo composition dating in its first form from the 16th century, but whose current popular form stems from a 19th century publication of collected pipa works. It’s written in the 武 (wǔ or martial) style¹ and is a sweeping sonic depiction of the Battle of Gaixia, the final major battle of the Chu-Han Contention, in 202BCE.
This is one of the most demanding and complicated pieces in pipa canon that strains the player’s ability in every possible performance technique; if you’re listening to someone playing it you’re almost certainly listening to a virtuoso performer. Personally I love it because:
- Its composition is top notch and evokes the battle it portrays with vivid musicality.
- I admire listening to virtuoso players of any instrument.
- I like the sound of the pipa in general.
The performance linked to is considered one of the ultimate performances; Liu Fang is, as is required to play this piece at all, a virtuoso but she adds a dimension of passion to the piece rarely heard in the staid world of Chinese classical music.
¹ As opposed to the 文 (wén or civil) style, which tends to be more bucolic in theme and style.
Thanks for sharing! Please format post according to community rules. Year should be in brackets.
Artist - Title (year)This is a traditional piece, so there is no year. I can only share when the two versions of it approximately developed, hence “16th century” and “19th century” in brackets. That’s the closest we can get to the year.
Century is fine, it’s more about format, thst date goes into brackets. It helps to crawl titles via code and search for songs.
Then I’m confused. I already had the date in parens.
It looks correct now.