I have posted my recordings of what my current Classical Chinese students have been reading, at https://brannerchinese.com/w3302_2012spring/recordings/ (20150809: now off-line).
There is not enough of this in the teaching of Classical Chinese — well, there is not enough Classical Chinese in Chinese programs generally, because many people fail to understand the centrality of "Classical" and literary Chinese in the structure and aesthetics of modern Mandarin. I won't preach about that here. What I want to assert now is how important the reading aloud of texts is to learning the language they contain. Hearing another person reading them aloud is also good, and so to aid my students (who I require to read aloud everything we study together, from a clean copy of the text projected on a screen) I made my own recordings.
I prefaced the fifty-odd recordings in this set with these comments:
I recognize that these recordings are quite helpful to you, and that is why I have prepared them.
But I have misgivings about them. For one thing, they force me to commit myself to particular character-readings and syntactic expression in stress, whereas I prefer to keep my relationship to the text more fluid. For another, they rob you of the chance to decide for yourself how to interpret the text, in just those ways.
In the end, though, I think it is better for you to have these to review from, in case they are of use to you for that purpose. I hope to find time to prepare more in the next days and weeks. They are not as good as an educative native speaker might produce, but I suspect they will still be useful. They may also be rather soft unless you listen to them with headphones or a properly amplified system.
Bear in mind that these readings reflect (a) the specific versions of the texts that I have used in the course, ignoring what may be in your textbooks or other versions, and (b) my best choice of readings based on the various considerations that I consider relevant. Both undoubtedly differ considerably from what you may encounter elsewhere, and I urge you to listen widely and read aloud adventurously. I lean to the 1932 standard of Mandarin rather than the mid-1950s standard, though not in every case, and for certain words I prefer a more conservative reading (jū rather than jù for 俱, dài for dà 大 but only in the two compounds 大王 and 大夫, etc. etc. etc.). Generally I have avoided the old rùshēng 入聲 readings (zé for zhái 宅, bò for běi 北, etc. etc.), dear though they are to my heart.
To choose one's own readings is an expression of temperament as well as understanding. My own tendencies are mainly philological and will probably not inspire you much. But if you have the time and interest, I recommend listening to the work of Mr. Hung Tzeh-nan 洪澤南老師, the most gifted performer of oral Classical Chinese literature I have yet encountered. Unfortunately, most of his work is not easy to get hold of, but his book Ták-ê lâi gîm-si 大家來吟詩 is on-line at Yuan Ze University 元智大學's site. It is true that these materials are in Taiwanese rather than Mandarin, but they illustrate the basic nature of the oral performance of Classical Chinese literature: that it is to the reading of a text what shūfǎ 書法 (brush-pen calligraphy) is to the physical characters — an individual expression of understanding and mood, ranging from the exquisite heights of fine art down to (one hopes, at least) workmanlike presentation. Unfortunately, my reading has no artistic content, but I urge you to explore Mr. Hung's work when you have time.
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