Love, Friendship and Longing
Note
I am a big fan of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, and after having curated many performances of these versatile pieces in Beijing, I thought it would be fun to create something along the same lines in Chinese, with the hope that both Chinese and non-Chinese singers and more ambitious choirs might enjoy them and to give non-Chinese people an alternative way into appreciating the poetry.
The opportunity finally presented itself with a concert in London arranged for the 25th anniversary of the Chopsticks Club, and organization that does much to promote people to people contact between China and the UK. The result was Love, Friendship and Longing, which is dedicated to Theresa Booth and H. J. Coulston-Inge, the twin powers behind the Club. In the choice of texts, I collaborated with Dr. Andrew Andreasen, an old friend, old China hand and China scholar. We decided on Tang dynasty poetry, the understanding of which is the essence of being Chinese: to this day, Chinese children are taught these poems almost as soon as they can speak.
Love, Friendship and Longing makes use of 15 poems chosen mainly from among the poems of Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu, who are generally recognized to be the best known and loved of all China’s poets. All three were active during the reign period of Emperor Xuan Zong during the mid 8th century, the Golden Age of Chinese Poetry. The impact of their poetry on subsequent generations of Chinese poets was and remains immense, and Tang poetry has even had a significant influence on the world stage through, among others, the voices of the modern western poets Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gary Snyder. In these poems of Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu we find some of the best examples of poems which make masterful use of the conventional themes of Chinese love poetry: friendship, longing, parting and reclusion, and which show the most skillful use of poetic images and symbols to lyrically highlight those themes.
I have tried to keep the musical language in which the poems are “wrapped” sufficiently clear so as not to disturb the inner music of the poetry itself.
