As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
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As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
Patrick Mason, baritone; Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar.
Premiere performance, Washington Square Chamber Music Society, November 9, 1999, Merkin Hall, NYChttps://mirlo.space/david-mcmullin/release/li-bai-songs
Score, lyrics etc. here:
david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs#MyMusic #baritone #violin #guitar #ContemporaryMusic #李白 #中文 #ChinesePoetry
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As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
Patrick Mason, baritone; Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar.
Premiere performance, Washington Square Chamber Music Society, November 9, 1999, Merkin Hall, NYChttps://mirlo.space/david-mcmullin/release/li-bai-songs
Score, lyrics etc. here:
david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs#MyMusic #baritone #violin #guitar #ContemporaryMusic #李白 #中文 #ChinesePoetry
@mcmullin @composers Just gave this a cursory listen and I'm already loving the texture. Looking forward to hearing the rest later with headphones.
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@mcmullin @composers Just gave this a cursory listen and I'm already loving the texture. Looking forward to hearing the rest later with headphones.
@flockofnazguls Thanks!
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As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
Patrick Mason, baritone; Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar.
Premiere performance, Washington Square Chamber Music Society, November 9, 1999, Merkin Hall, NYChttps://mirlo.space/david-mcmullin/release/li-bai-songs
Score, lyrics etc. here:
david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs#MyMusic #baritone #violin #guitar #ContemporaryMusic #李白 #中文 #ChinesePoetry
A bit more about this piece, which is close to my heart. These are poems that my wife (fiancée back then) and her parents love. The initial idea was that my father-in-law would sing them—he has a beautiful voice—but what I wrote turned out to be too hard.
1/n
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A bit more about this piece, which is close to my heart. These are poems that my wife (fiancée back then) and her parents love. The initial idea was that my father-in-law would sing them—he has a beautiful voice—but what I wrote turned out to be too hard.
1/n
My wife and her parents all worked closely with me to help me understand the poems. My Chinese is not very good, and it was worse then, so there’s no way I could have done this on my own. I listened closely to how my father-in-law recited the poems, and recorded him doing it. I memorized them all myself too. They explained to me what they meant, both generally and word by word, syllable by syllable, making me aware of many subtle connotations and allusions.
2/
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My wife and her parents all worked closely with me to help me understand the poems. My Chinese is not very good, and it was worse then, so there’s no way I could have done this on my own. I listened closely to how my father-in-law recited the poems, and recorded him doing it. I memorized them all myself too. They explained to me what they meant, both generally and word by word, syllable by syllable, making me aware of many subtle connotations and allusions.
2/
This was all very new to me, and I enjoyed getting a quick education at a level way above my own understanding. I also loved their enthusiasm to do this, and how surprised and pleased they were that I was that interested.
What struck me most about the poems themselves was the beauty and subtlety of their sound. I was determined not to mess that up with my music, but to let it shine through as much as possible.
3/
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This was all very new to me, and I enjoyed getting a quick education at a level way above my own understanding. I also loved their enthusiasm to do this, and how surprised and pleased they were that I was that interested.
What struck me most about the poems themselves was the beauty and subtlety of their sound. I was determined not to mess that up with my music, but to let it shine through as much as possible.
3/
As a result, the vocal lines in these settings are very plain and unadorned. The melodic contours don’t specifically ape the Mandarin tonal inflections of each word, but I was as careful as I could be not to contradict them.
Some listeners who are native Chinese speakers have commented that this sounds very strange to them. Traditional Chinese singing is usually quite florid and not concerned about such things.
4/
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As a result, the vocal lines in these settings are very plain and unadorned. The melodic contours don’t specifically ape the Mandarin tonal inflections of each word, but I was as careful as I could be not to contradict them.
Some listeners who are native Chinese speakers have commented that this sounds very strange to them. Traditional Chinese singing is usually quite florid and not concerned about such things.
4/
If this reveals a specifically un-Chinese way of hearing and reacting to this poetry, that doesn’t necessarily bother me—I’m not Chinese, after all, so it’s not surprising if my perspective is different. This is a foreigner’s respectful appreciation. Perhaps respectful in a weird way, but in a sincere and personal way at least.
5/
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If this reveals a specifically un-Chinese way of hearing and reacting to this poetry, that doesn’t necessarily bother me—I’m not Chinese, after all, so it’s not surprising if my perspective is different. This is a foreigner’s respectful appreciation. Perhaps respectful in a weird way, but in a sincere and personal way at least.
5/
The Chinese texts and English translations can all be found here:
https://david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs/
The first translation, by A.C. Graham, I found in a library book. The other five are “translated by PC Ning.” That’s my father-in-law, who also painted the cover art, and the art on my profile page. (I feel like there’s a deep affinity between his painting and my music, so I use his images every chance I get.)
6/
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The Chinese texts and English translations can all be found here:
https://david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs/
The first translation, by A.C. Graham, I found in a library book. The other five are “translated by PC Ning.” That’s my father-in-law, who also painted the cover art, and the art on my profile page. (I feel like there’s a deep affinity between his painting and my music, so I use his images every chance I get.)
6/
He couldn’t actually have translated these poems into English, and I couldn’t have understood them in Chinese. He and my wife explained the poems to me in great detail, and I took what they told me and put it into English. So they’re collaborative translations, which is appropriate for how the whole project came together.
7/
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He couldn’t actually have translated these poems into English, and I couldn’t have understood them in Chinese. He and my wife explained the poems to me in great detail, and I took what they told me and put it into English. So they’re collaborative translations, which is appropriate for how the whole project came together.
7/
Incidentally, these songs have never been performed by a singer who speaks Chinese, or even by anyone who had tried to sing in a Chinese before. I provided them with a pinyin transliteration of the poems, a guide to how to pronounce the pinyin, the word-by-word translation as well as the general translation, and the recording of my father-in-law’s recitation.
8/
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Incidentally, these songs have never been performed by a singer who speaks Chinese, or even by anyone who had tried to sing in a Chinese before. I provided them with a pinyin transliteration of the poems, a guide to how to pronounce the pinyin, the word-by-word translation as well as the general translation, and the recording of my father-in-law’s recitation.
8/
Patrick Mason (in the recorded performance) did quite well with the pronunciation. (Native Mandarin speakers may quibble, but keep in mind, he had never tried to make these sounds before.) He even included a couple of sounds that aren’t part of standard Mandarin, but were from the cold my father-in-law had when he made the example recording.
Anyway, now you know a bit more about where this all comes from. Enjoy!
9/9
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As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
Patrick Mason, baritone; Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar.
Premiere performance, Washington Square Chamber Music Society, November 9, 1999, Merkin Hall, NYChttps://mirlo.space/david-mcmullin/release/li-bai-songs
Score, lyrics etc. here:
david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs#MyMusic #baritone #violin #guitar #ContemporaryMusic #李白 #中文 #ChinesePoetry
@mcmullin @composers Thank you for sharing your wonderful music, and for taking the time to explain its background, too.
As someone who has attempted to learn Cantonese and a bit of Mandarin (for my own wife), there was a double resonance. (I utterly failed at it; but it was good to try!)
Thanks again for your work.
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Wow, @the_roamer, I’m genuinely stunned by your kind and thoughtful response. It’s incredibly moving to hear that something I made almost 30 years ago can open the door to such an experience now, or at all. Thank you, sincerely, for letting me know.
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Wow, @the_roamer, I’m genuinely stunned by your kind and thoughtful response. It’s incredibly moving to hear that something I made almost 30 years ago can open the door to such an experience now, or at all. Thank you, sincerely, for letting me know.
@the_roamer
It’s interesting you mention Webern in this context. He’s one of a handful of big-name western composers who have also set Li Bai’s poetry, though not in Chinese. -
@mcmullin @composers Thank you for sharing your wonderful music, and for taking the time to explain its background, too.
As someone who has attempted to learn Cantonese and a bit of Mandarin (for my own wife), there was a double resonance. (I utterly failed at it; but it was good to try!)
Thanks again for your work.
@Cognessence
Thank you, Robert! -
As part of my continuing project to get my music onto platforms where you can hear it, here are my Li Bai Songs, settings in Mandarin of Tang dynasty poetry.
Patrick Mason, baritone; Curtis Macomber, violin; William Anderson, guitar.
Premiere performance, Washington Square Chamber Music Society, November 9, 1999, Merkin Hall, NYChttps://mirlo.space/david-mcmullin/release/li-bai-songs
Score, lyrics etc. here:
david-mcmullin.com/music/li-bai-songs#MyMusic #baritone #violin #guitar #ContemporaryMusic #李白 #中文 #ChinesePoetry
@mcmullin @composers This sounds wonderful.
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@the_roamer
It’s interesting you mention Webern in this context. He’s one of a handful of big-name western composers who have also set Li Bai’s poetry, though not in Chinese.Oh, an interesting connection. The Festwochen in 1983 included Webern's entire opus (the festival title was in fact "Opus Anton Webern"!), so the Li Bai songs will have been part of my Webern immersion in September '83.
(It was a beautiful mild late summer that year. In my inner eye I see myself seeing the golden walls of Sharoun's Philharmonie, glittering in the late afternoon September light as I walk toward it from the Landwehrkanal.)
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@mcmullin @composers This sounds wonderful.
@elsemusic
Thank you!
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