The Girl From the French Fort

Note

This work is adapted from the children’s story of the same name by author Hong Ying. I have always felt that the Peter of Peter and the Wolf fame is rather lonely and needs a companion, so when Hong Ying approached me to write music for her story, I jumped at the chance. The story describes the adventures of Sangsang, a 10-year-old boy growing up in poverty in 1970s Chongqing, an important city in central China that perches on the banks of the Yangzte River at the point where it is fed by the Jialing River. When Hong Ying was growing up in Chongqing, one of the architectural features on the north bank of the Yangzte was a fort constructed by the French and used both navy barracks and as a consulate, which in her Sangsang stories becomes a focal point for the interaction between the real world and the magical Kingdom of Ba. Sangsang, who plays often in the dilapidated old fort, happens to meet a little girl one day as he is skimming stones on the river.  She invites him back to the fort, now in pristine condition and bustling with activity in preparation for a party.  He meets her sister, is given new clothes to wear, takes part in an evening of banqueting with French sailors, witnesses the bitter end of a love affair between the girl’s sister and a handsome young sailor named Peter, and returns home the next day in his strange new clothes to find that half a year has passed and his mother has died of grief while searching for him. Stricken, he returns to the river where the little girl reappears. He sobs out his grief and she agrees to help him try to turn back time in return for his help in averting the collapse of her sister’s love affair with Peter.  This is a story for children, so of course there is a happy ending.

I chose to use a size of orchestra that matches that required for Peter and the Wolf, but with a slightly expanded percussion section.

The Girl From The French Fort was performed as the Shanghai Oriental Art Center’s 2019 Children’s Day Concert (concerts for citizens series), where it was performed by the Ningbo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gao Jian and narrated by Yanzi Jiejie (Chen Yanhua).