Period composition (mostly aiming at 1770-1850) and completions of works by the First Viennese School, mostly.
W. A. Mozart
Considering Mozart's working methods, I generally aim for a hypothetical Mozart who lived past 1791 coming back to finish some fragments. :)
F. Schubert
But considering Schubert's methods, here I prefer to aim for his style at the time the fragments were written. :)
Other works are in progress, but not to the point of assigning opus numbers yet.
Contents |
This work is dedicated to Dr. James Whitbourn, without whom it would not have been written.
The title of the work is "Lessons from the States" (国风). This is the first part of the Odes (诗经), consisting of 160 poems. The odes in the 国风 are ancient folk poems recording the voices of the common people - often complaining about bad governance, though not always. These are the poems set in this collection.
The later parts of the collection are rather different. In the next section we find 74 "Minor Court Hymns" 小雅; while they do also record the voices and complaints of people of early China, they are instead about those whose realm was the court and the palace, rather than the common farmers and labourers. Then come the 31 "Major Court Hymns" 大雅, which are panegyrics to the Western Zhou dynasty, from its rise to its downfall. Finally come the 40 "Eulogies" 頌, which appear to have been sung at rituals. I have not set any of these, as it appears to me that they would need somewhat different styles. In any case, this fits well with the historical tendency from the Han dynasty onward to focus on the 国风 rather than the later parts.
The 国风 itself is divided (as can be seen from the headers) into fifteen feudal states of the Zhou dynasty where the songs were collected from, viz.:
I have followed this division for the opus numbers.
It is not really clear why the odes of Bei, Yong, and Wey are placed separately: by the time the poems were written, all three had already been merged into Wey. Similarly, the odes of Wei may really be further odes of Jin, and the odes of Kuai may really be further odes of Zheng.
There is no expectation that the pieces be performed as a cycle, or even the pieces belonging to a particular state. I have written the pieces so that they should make musical sense if one chooses to do so - though if the original keys are kept, this will probably require different singers. The arrangement of the poems is traditionally attributed to Confucius; but it is worth noting that historically, it was common to quote individual lines from the poems out of context.
Exceptions arise when an *attacca* is marked. In this case it is expected that the songs should be sung together.
(*) The original name of this state was Tang, but its second ruler (Xiefu) renamed it to Jin when he moved the capital.
The translations are by James Legge (1815-1897), first Professor of Chinese at Oxford University - except for a few cases where they are by his friend William Thomas Mercer (1821-1879), a colonial administrator in Hong Kong from 1844-1866. This avoids copyright issues; but in the 19th century, the current romanisation of Chinese had not yet been invented, and the standard pronunciation among the government administration in China was a bit different.
I use the modern romanisations for the titles (which I gave, because Legge and Mercer did not translate the titles for reasons only known to themselves), but kept Legge and Mercer's text there (e.g. 136 and 144 respectively are titled "Yuanqiu" and "Zhulin", but the texts have "Yuen-k'ew" and "Choo-lin"). The two famous rivers of China, the Yellow and the Yangtze, are thus called the "Ho" and "Keang", and the Zhou dynasty is called "Chow". Note that three millennia of sound change have destroyed quite a lot of the original rhymes anyway in Chinese; at this point, neither their romanisations (which are more correct for the 19th century) nor the current ones are all that accurate to what the Chinese of the 7th century BC were saying! If anything perhaps the 19th-century romanisations give some idea that this is an ancient text.
The "J" in "Joo" (see 010) should be pronounced as in French.
The original edition of Legge and Mercer's translations may be read online at the following URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20140412025924/http://djvued.libs.uga.edu/PL2478xA5/1f/she_king.pdf
The original collection comes with many moralistic and historical interpretations about the verses. But all this is not fully agreed on, and sometimes is quite far-fetched, so I omitted it. Let the readers make what they can of the lyrics: I don't believe there's only a single possible correct way to interpret a poem or a musical work. Exceptions arise when the historical interpretation is quite secure, and the poem hardly makes sense without it: in those cases, I have added a few notes. In 151, where the meaning is clear enough but the poem rather short, I abridged Legge's translation of the interpretation and turned it into a refrain extending the poem. A line has also been added to 023.
Metronome marks have been supplied in general (except of course for recitatives, e.g. in 070 and 095). However, to paraphrase Beethoven, sentiment also has its tempo, and so they are intended as suggestions. It is all right to change them if you think it will work better some other way; for example, I certainly don't object if the coloratura in 102 is done faster.
Do not fear notes shorter than the 64th! They merely mean that the beat (usually a quarter or eighth) is extremely slow, and that you should count something like 16ths or 32nds as the main subdivision - thus, mentally subtracting the first few beams as understood. My usage here is meant to evoke slow movements by Mozart and Beethoven.
Espressivo implies a slight ritardando or ritenuto, as in Beethoven.
When the text underlay does not appear to accord with the metrical stress (e.g. "people" in 077, "dancing" in 137), the intention is for a cross-rhythmic accent, i.e. syncopation.
As shown by the acciaccatura, the trill in 075 (b. 6) is a double trill, applying to both notes in the third. (But obviously the octave trills in 085 are not double trills; only the top note needs to be trilled there.)
If a note appears without an attached lyric in some verses (e.g. 154, 156, 158), that means that it should not be sung in that verse.
Feel free to add ornaments as if it was actually written around 1820. :)
As the stanzas are in often very similar to each other, I invite performers to use their judgement on how many strophes to sing in the strophic settings. The first verse should be sung in all cases; how many more to sing is left up to the performers. I naturally don't object if all of them are sung, of course. (This applies even to 145 and 152, where all verses have been written out because of minor differences in text underlay.)
As a minor exception: in 154, at least the last verse must be sung as well, so that the codetta makes sense. (The last verse is slightly longer than the others, so a codetta seemed the obvious solution.)
Unless contradicted by a tempo indication, changes in time signature (e.g. 156) leave the note values the same. Sometimes I have marked a tempo indication confirming this just for clarity.
There is absolutely no objection to any transpositions of the work to fit other voice types. Of course, when there is an attacca, songs should be transposed together by the same interval; but otherwise, consistency is not a matter of great importance.
In some cases this will result in notes falling off the edge of the keyboard; in these cases, the minor necessary rewriting is expected. (Or I suppose one could find a Bösendorfer Imperial, but I'd hate to make the songs less accessible. If you already have one, though, why not?)
With that said, occasional extremely high notes for the tessitura can very well be performed in falsetto if it seems to make musical sense. After all, falsetto is part of the Chinese opera tradition too. I imagined 119 as being sung by a Bellini tenor in the original key, with significant use of head voice: the register change should be disguised.
And yes, it's deliberate that all keys appear in the original arrangement. (Not counting enharmonics, though the natural "two-notation" keys F#/Gb and g#/ab appear in both sharps and flats.) But don't let that stop you from transposing the songs: musical structures do not have to be audible to be appreciated.
When appoggiaturas are marked as small notes, the intention is that performers should have freedom as to exactly how long they should last (e.g. whether an appoggiatura before a dotted note should take up one-third or two-thirds of the total value). Historical-style performance practice will be suitable.
