Zhou Long (b.1953)
Su (Tracing Back) • Pianogongs • Taiping Drum
Wild Grass • Taigu Rhyme
A landmark study in “translating” traditional
instrument technique into a contemporary language,
Su (Tracing Back) has usually been performed
in the west in a version for harp and fl ute, but the
original piece was composed in 1984 for fl ute
and guqin “at the request of the contemporary qin
scholar Wu Wenguang”, writes Zhou. Since then,
Su (Tracing Back) has enjoyed an underground
reputation among guqin players of mainland China,
with generations of photocopies of the score and
bootleg cassettes from a sole master copy of a studio
recording at China Record Company passed along
over the last 24 years. This is the first worldwide
recording of the original version.
Pianogongs
Intended as a solo (the keyboard and two gong parts
together), Zhou Long changed his mind after hearing
violinist Gao Can improvise on percussion instruments
between takes, and invited him to record together
with Michelle Yip. Of the piece, Zhou writes: “I have
used piano as a percussion instrument along with two
Chinese opera gongs (laid on a soft mat and placed
on top of the piano lip). The combination…forms a
kind of performing force of the Beijing Opera
percussion ensemble…” The three main elements
in the piece are “[a] fast repetitive rhythm, which
represents drum rolls on dagu (large drum) and bangu
(piccolo drum)…[a] series of chords…based on the
combination of a major triad and perfect fourth, creating
the tinkling sound of the chime stones…[and a]n active
staccato motive, which is used as a transition…”
Taiping Drum
Written only a year earlier than Su (Tracing Back),
while Zhou was still a student, Taiping Drum employs
a different musical language. One can imagine a
nationwide audience enjoying a broadcast of the
work during Zhou’s years as composer-in-residence at
Radio Beijing. In a traditional rondo form employing
an introduction and two episodes, both instruments
frequently imitate the dan gu drum in free-tempo
passages. As Zhou states, the piece uses “pentatonic
folk-tune material found in er ren tai, a form of duo
singing and dancing popular in northeast China…“The Taiping drum (also called dan gu) is a percussion
instrument that originated in north-east China in
the Tang dynasty. Made from a single membrane
(16” x 20”) in a round fan shape, the drum is held
in the left hand with iron rings linked under the
handle, while the right hand beats it with a piece of
rattan. Originally used by shamans…Taiping Drum
became the name of a popular form of song and dance
among the Han people, as well as the Mongolian and
Manchurian ethnic groups today. While playing the
drum, the performer dances in rhythmic patterns.”
Wild Grass
The evocative Wild Grass may be performed by solo
cello, or viola, with or without vocal recitation from
the foreword to Lu Xun’s Wild Grass. Until recently
that text was always performed in English translation,
but in the 2006 Chinese première Zhou Long himself
recited in the original Chinese, with the Beijing New
Music Ensemble’s original cellist Zhao Xuyang.
Zhou describes the character of the piece as,
“[m]oving freely between eerie harmonics,
lyrical melodic sections, and fierce rhythmic passages”, seeking to capture the “exultant quality of
the poem, with its refrain…”
Foreword
When silent, I feel content; when moved to speak, I feel
empty inside.
The past life has perished. Its death inspires joy in me,
because it means it once survived. A dead life has decayed.
This decay inspires joy in me, because it means it has not
yet vanished.
Life’s waste, cast on earth, does not give rise to tall trees,
but does bring forth wild grass, my indulgence.
Wild grass has no deep roots, no pretty flowers; but it
absorbs dew, and water. It consumes the flesh and blood
of the laid-out dead, while all try to rob it of its own
existence. Throughout its life, it is trampled, or cut away,
until it dies and decays.
But I am unmoved. I am joyful. I will laugh aloud, and
sing.
I revere my wild grass, yet the ground I loathe, which
merely decorates itself.
Wildfires spread underground, and surge; once molten
lava gushes forth, it will consume all wild grasses, and
even combust the trees, and nothing will be left to decay.
But I am unmoved. I am joyful. I will laugh aloud, and
sing.
With heaven and earth so staid, I cannot laugh out loud,
nor sing praise. Even were they less bleak, I still might not laugh or sing. In light and dark, through life and death,
past and future, to friend and enemy, to man and beast, to
the loved and unloved, to all I offer this bit of wild grass
as witness.
For myself, friend and foe, man and beast, for the loved
and unloved, I look to the impending decay of these wild
grasses. If it does not come, it is as if I never existed—and
that is a fortune far worse than death and decay.
Go on, wild grass, follow my foreword!
26 April, 1927
Lu Xun, Baiyun Estate, Guangzhou
(translated by Eli Marshall, 2009)
Taigu Rhyme
Lu Xun, like many of his generation, enjoyed many
years in Japan, but when he died in 1936, it was on the
cusp of a new era—Japan’s invasion and occupation of
China. To this day relations between the two cultures
are strained.
Taigu Rhyme, for clarinet, violin, cello, and three
traditional drummers, was written for a Concert of
Remembrance and Reconciliation initiated by the
Bridge of Souls organization in 2001 and performed
in 2003 by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota
and Theater Mu, a Japanese Taiko ensemble.
Zhou’s artistic basis of the piece is an imagined
re-creation of the original styles, all but forgotten, of
Chinese dagu drumming of the Tang Dynasty, which
grew out of both court and Buddhist drumming styles.
It was adapted over the centuries by Japan into its own
intricate taiko tradition.
Zhou Long writes, “Taigu Rhyme begins with three drummers on the chu (medium drum) and odaiko
(large drum) beating a slow rhythmic pattern…The
middle section is inspired by ancient Zhihua temple
music from Beijing. The clarinet evokes the sound
of the guanzi, a double reed instrument used in the
temple ensemble, with a singing melody accompanied
by a haunting free-tempo ritual atmosphere in the
ensemble. The last section breaks in with a return to
the opening motifs and a vivid tempo drives the work
to the end.”
Chen Yi (b.1953)
Monologue • Romance of Hsiao and Ch’ in Chinese Ancient Dances
Monologue (Impressions on “The True
Story of Ah Q”)
“And this was all an introduction”, is how the narrator
of Lu Xun’s True Story of Ah Q ends the lengthy gallows-farce. From there Chen Yi picks up with what she
calls a “meditation of introspection” on what might
have happened to Lu’s most famous antihero, a two-bit,
semi-anonymous loser known only as “Q”.
Keith Lipson, who plays here, gave the Chinese
première of the piece. This, and Zhou’s composition
Wild Grass, were given their première together at a
concert The World of Lu Xun in 1993 in Birmingham.
Romance of Hsiao and Ch’ in
The traditional duo inspiring Romance is the same
as Zhou Long’s Su (Tracing Back): guqin and
xiao (vertical fl ute). According to Chen, the violin
embodies the xiao, which itself resembles the human
voice, while the piano, as guqin, evokes sounds of nature. The piece became the first movement of the
duet Romance and Dance, but was first conceived
as a violin duo with string orchestra, given its first
performance by Shlomo Mintz and Elmar Oliveira
and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Yehudi
Menuhin in New York. The violin-piano duet was
given its China première by Gao Can and Michelle
Yip, who perform here.
Chinese Ancient Dances
Each of the two movements in Chen Yi’s Chinese
Ancient Dances evokes a different historical time period.
The maowu (Ox Tail dance) was a preparatory ritual
of the Zhou Dynasty, employing props of feathers
and ox-tails. The huxuan dance was one of the most
popular dances depicted on art of the late sixth to the
late eighth century, during the Tang Dynasty. This
“foreign whirling” dance performed on a mat was
probably introduced into China from Sogdia, but the
earliest origins of both the maowu and huxuan are
unknown. Keith Lipson and Michelle Yip gave the
Chinese première of the piece.
Chen Yi and Zhou Long
Chen Yi and Zhou Long were trained side-by-side
in Beijing at the Central Conservatory, and in New
York at Columbia University and are now partners
on the faculty at the Conservatory of the University
of Missouri—Kansas City. They are also married to
each other. Despite the close ties, their compositions
enjoy distinct identities, a testament to their early
histories, and the strength of their individual personalities.
Chen Yi, born in Guangzhou in 1953, is a
Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her
music is published by Theodore Presser Company,
commissioned and performed world-wide by such
ensembles as the Cleveland Orchestra and the New
York Philharmonic, recorded on BIS, New Albion, CRI,
Teldec, Angle, Nimbus, Albany, New World, Quartz,
Koch & China Record Co., among others. She has been
elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in
2005, and appointed the Changjiang Scholar Professor
at the CCOM by the China Ministry of Education in
2006, which has brought her to Beijing for intensive
residencies with young composers the last three years.
Zhou Long was born in Beijing in 1953. Following
graduation from the Central Conservatory in 1983,
was appointed composer-in-residence with the China
National Broadcasting Symphony. Zhou has received
fellowships from the NEA, and the Guggenheim
and Rockefeller Foundations, the Mary Cary Trust and
the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. He has been the
recipient of commissions from the Koussevitzky and
the Fromm Music Foundations, Meet the Composer,
Chamber Music America, and ensembles around the
world. He is the recipient of the 2003 Academy Award in
Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
During the 2008–09 season, Zhou has been working on a
fl ute concerto for the California Pacific and Singapore
Symphonies, a new chamber work for PRISM Saxophone
Quartet with Chinese instruments, and will start
his first opera co-commissioned by the Opera Boston
and Beijing Music Festival, to be given its première
in 2010. He is a professor at the Conservatory of the
University of Missouri-Kansas City. His works have
been recorded on many major labels; this is his first
Naxos release. His music is published exclusively
by Oxford University Press.
Beijing New Music Ensemble
The Beijing New Music Ensemble is the only
independent musical ensemble dedicated to new
music in China. Since 2005 the ensemble has been
“presenting chamber music in a revolutionary way”
(Macao Daily). A young, vibrant group of diverse
backgrounds, the ensemble has performed across
greater China and in South Korea, in concert halls,
bars, universities, and art spaces, and was featured
on BBC Radio Three in the summer of 2008. Often
collaborating with musicians of traditional Chinese
backgrounds, BNME has created a grassroots forum
for contemporary music in Beijing and, in three years,
has presented over three dozen China premières
to growing audiences. This is the début CD of the
ensemble.
