Overview
Li Zhao was an official and Scholar.
IdentityHistorical · Male
Life and dates
Attested activity
Places and affiliations
- Polity Song 宋 · Relation Served
Works and attributed material
Li Zhao bells, chimes, and pitch pipes 李照鐘磬
AD 1034 景祐初 · Relation Maker · Mode quotation
References in the histories
No matching passages.
History of Jin, Chapter 39Volume 39 Treatises 20: Music 1: Formal Music, Court Music, Wind Instrument Music, Our Own Court Music · 6 passages
景祐初，李照取黍累尺成律，以其聲猶高，更用太府布帛尺，遂下太常樂三律。
At the start of the Jingyou era, Li Zhao derived pitch pipes from a millet-based foot-rule; finding the tone still too high, he switched to the Grand Storehouse cloth-and-silk foot-rule and lowered Court of Imperial Sacrifices music by three notes.
元豐間，楊傑參用李照鐘磬加四清聲，下王朴樂二律，以為新樂。
During Yuanfeng, Yang Jie adapted Li Zhao's bells and chimes, added four clear tones, lowered Wang Pu's standard by two notes, and established this as the new court music.
元祐間，範鎮又造新律，下李照樂一律，而未用。
During Yuanyou, Fan Zhen devised yet another pitch standard, one note lower than Li Zhao's, but it was never adopted.
然以王樸所制聲高，屢命改作，李照乙太府尺制律，人習舊聽疑於太重。
Because Wang Pu's music sounded too high, the court repeatedly ordered revisions. Li Zhao followed the Grand Storehouse foot-rule to set pitch, but listeners accustomed to the old standard thought the new tone too low and dull.
其後范鎮等論樂，複用李照所用太府尺、即周、隋所用鐵尺，牛弘等以謂近古合宜者也。
Later Fan Zhen and others debated music and revived Li Zhao's Grand Storehouse foot-rule — the same iron standard used in Zhou and Sui times — which Niu Hong and others had regarded as close to antiquity and therefore appropriate.
漢津用李照、範鎮之說，而恥同之，故用時君指節為尺，使眾人不敢輕議。
Hanjin drew on Li Zhao's and Fan Zhen's theories yet was unwilling to appear merely to follow them, so he took the reigning emperor's finger joints as the foot-rule so that critics would not dismiss his work lightly.