English

Pa-Kua: Immortals' Songs of the Eight Trigrams - A Song Cycle for Tenor Solo and Instrumental Ensemble

The English composer Clive Strutt (b.1942) has a serious interest in Daoism as his first cycle of fourteen Chinese songs ( Tower of the Yellow Crane ) clearly indicate. This cycle of the Immortals’ Songs of the Eight Trigrams is for tenor solo and an interesting and unusual combination of instruments from all sections of the orchestra. The songs, published as part of an anthology in 1994, were translated and versified by Xu Yuan Zong. However, the composer has taken the liberty of making considerable modifications thereby creating a more satisfactory versification for setting to music. For instance, in the second song the first line becomes, “Gone, amid white clouds, was the sage on yellow crane.” rather than “The sage on yellow crane was gone amid clouds white.” For each song, a trigram ( pa-kua in Chinese) is allotted and the songs in order are: 1. Ch’en ☰ I would rather fight (Yang Jiong, 650-695) 2. K’an ☵ Yellow Crane Tower (Cui Hao, 704-754) 3. K’un ☷ From ‘ The Peony Pavilion ’ (Tang Xian-Zu, 1550-1617) 4. Li ☲ The Peacocks (Ouyang Jiong, 895-971) 5. Ken ☶ A Buddhist Retreat in a Ruined Mountain Temple (Chang Jian, fl. 727) 6. K’an ☵ Evening Prospect from Xianyang West Tower

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