Title: The 10th anniversary of the music new comers

Composer: Tong Leung-tak

Year: October 15, 1987

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Original composition
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC920

Description: "The Tenth Anniversary of the Music New Comers" is a piece for the modern Chinese orchestra composed by Tong Leung-tak for the tenth anniversary of the Music Office in 1987. Intended for beginner-level players who were below the age of fourteen, the piece calls for a full orchestra with an expanded group of pitched and unpitched cymbals. It features celebratory melodies arranged in ternary form with a homophonic texture.

Note:

• Composed for the 10th anniverary of the Music Office

Instrumentation: di (1), sheng (1), suona (1), yangqin (1), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), da sanxian (1), zheng (1), timpani (1), pai gu (1), da luo (1), yunluo (1), shisanmianluo (1), large cymbals (1), small cymbals (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), gehu (1), diyin gehu (1)

Title: The azaleas on Jing Gang Mountain

Composer: Tong Leung-tak

Year: [1979]

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Arrangement
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC366

Description: "The Azaleas on Jing Gang Mountain" is a modern Chinese orchestral piece composed by Tong Leung-tak. Like other songs and instrumental pieces of similar titles, this piece pays tribute to the Jinggang mountains as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army. With the dual symbolism of Jinggangshan and blossoming azaleas (n.b., azalea has been an official symbol of Jingganshan since the mid twentieth century), the piece's allusion to China's revolutionary history is unmistakable. It is possible, though uncertain for the present purpose, that the piece is an adaptation of a folk song from Jiangxi Province, where the Jinggang Mountains are located. The music is stylistically similar to the modern classic guzheng piece Jinggangshan shang taiyang hong ("The Red Sun Over the Jinggang Mountains") composed by Zhao Manqin in the 1970s. Spanning only fifty-four measures, it is in the ternary form with a fast, martial, and largely pentatonic main melody. The instrumental parts currently catalogued in the archive of the Music Office suggest that the piece calls for instruments typical of the modern Chinese orchestra, albeit without percussion instruments.

Note:

• Orchestral arrangement of "The azaleas on Jing Gang Mountain"

Instrumentation: di (1), sheng (2), haidi (1), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), cello (1)

Title: The cavalry

Composer: Tong Leung-tak

Year: 1965

Genre:

• Solo
• Original composition
• Erhu with instrumental ensemble

Call No.: SC320

Description: "The Cavalry" is an erhu solo piece composed by Tong Leung-tak. At the time of composition in 1965, Tong was presumably living with soldiers stationed in Tibet, a province at the frontier of the People's Republic of China. Some of the piece's musical features, especially the minor pentatonic mode, are often attributed to Tibetan folk music. The score in the archive in Music Office illustrates a version of the piece that includes an accompanying ensemble of yangqin, pipa, zhongruan, cello, and da gehu (aka diyin gehu). In a style not unlike Huang Haihuai's Saima ("Horse Racing"), the melody alternates between dense semiquaver passages and song-like phrases, while accompanying instruments offer static chordal support. The piece also features erhu bowing techniques such as the gallop-like paogong (comparable to "ricochet" for Western string instruments) and the imitation of horse neighing using a sustained high pitch.

Instrumentation: erhu (1), yangqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan/gehu/cello (1)

Title: The legend

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: June 25, 1980

Genre:

• Small ensemble
• Arrangement

Call No.: SC549

Description: Guanglingsan is a classic qin piece with a long and much disputed history. Its earliest extant score is from the qin anthology Shenqi mipu, which was compiled by Prince Zhu Quan (1378–1448) of the Ming Dynasty and published in 1425. The exact origin of Guanglingsan has been a subject of debate. It is most popularly associated with Ji Kang (223–263), arguably the most well-known member of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove who has also been known as a thinker and a music theorist. In Zhu Quan's annotation for the piece, as well as in many writings on qin music throughout history, Ji Kang is said to have learned the piece from a certain ghost and promised not to teach anyone else-for some, it is implied that he was the composer. Later, adversities in his political career brought him a death sentence. In his final moments, he famously played Guanglingsan on the qin for one last time before lamenting that "the music is now lost." With some more questionable elaboration, Zhu claims to have partially inherited Ji's original music and traces his score to the Sui court (581–618). Other sources point to the piece's possible pre-Han origin-many scholars have identified the section headings in the Shenqi mipu score as allusions to the legend of the assassin Nie Zheng of the Warring States period (475–221 BC). In the historical event as recorded in Shi ji, Nie was involved in a political rivalry in the Han court and was hired to assassinate a minister; in a later, more popular iteration of the legend, Nie avenged his father by killing the king of Han (Han wang) while performing qin music in the court. The late-Eastern-Han scholar-official Cai Yong (132/133–192), in his influential treatise Qincao, mentions a qin piece named Nie Zheng ci Han wang and attributes its authorship to the protagonist Nie-many have speculated that Guanglingsan is basically the same piece under a different name. Regardless of its many factual disputes, Guanglingsan has secured its place as a key object of Chinese musical and cultural imagination, particularly for its riveting, almost violent musical sound and its background story about revenge and indignation. Tong Leung-tak's arrangement of Guanglingsan for a Chinese instrumental ensemble (i.e., "The Legend"), included in the program for the Music Office's Israel/Cyprus tour in 1980, is seemingly an adaptation of one of qin master Guan Pinghu's (1897–1967) "interpretations" (dapu) of the original Shenqi mipu tablatures. Rather than featuring all 41 sections in Guan's version, however, Tong's piece is modeled on a condensed version (jieben), featuring only 11 sections (some of them further abridged) and amounting to a performance lasting several minutes. Largely preserving the musical and narrative progression in the original, the piece begins with a relatively slow and pensive segment but gains momentum soon after, building toward a loud and violent climactic moment and reaching a majestic conclusion. It features a combination of winds, plucked strings, and bowed strings and omits instruments in the highest and lowest registers (e.g. liuqin, gaohu, gehu). The piece is mostly heterophonic in texture with the instruments playing the main melody, though it also features erhu and pipa solo passages in the middle.

Note:

• Arrangement of the guqin piece of the same title
• Composed for the Israel and Cyprus tour

Instrumentation: di/xiao (1), sheng (1), yangqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), zheng (1), erhu (1), gehu (1)

Title: The moon over Guanshan

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: January 16, 1979

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Arrangement
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC704

Description: Guanshanyue is best known as a qin piece that is often performed with sung lyrics originated in the eponymous poem by Tang poet Li Bai (701–762), who in turn drew the title and structure of his poem from the classical Yuefu ("Music Bureau") repertoire. It first appeared in Longyinguan qinpu, an anthology of qin scores compiled by scholar-bureaucrat Mao Shixun in 1799. Tong Leung-tak made an arrangement of Guanshanyue (i.e., "The Moon Over Guanshan") for a Chinese instrumental ensemble in 1979. This arrangement features a full set of plucked-strings and bowed-strings except the high-pitched liuqin and gaohu; it includes only xiao and sheng for winds and there is no percussion instrument. With a mellow and subdued ensemble sound, it presents the original melody thrice, with each presence involving a specific combination of instrumental parts, whose texture alternates between homophony and heterophony.

Note:

• Arrangement of the guqin piece of the same title

Instrumentation: di/xiao (1), sheng (1), yangqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), sanxian (1), zheng (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), dahu (1), cello (1), double bass (1)

Title: The night of the torch festival

Composer: Guo Hengji

Year: 1983

Genre:

• Small ensemble
• Original composition
• Chinese plucked string orchestra

Call No.: SC118

Description: "The Night of the Torch Festival" is a piece for Chinese plucked strings composed by Kwok Hang-kei. It depicts an imagined scene at the Torch Festival-celebrated by the Yi, the Bai, and several other ethnic groups in southeast China-where participants dance joyfully by the fire. The piece draws on melodic materials often used to represent music of the Yi people in modern Chinese instrumental pieces, including the predominance of arpeggiated tonic triads and the occasional flattening of the third and seventh scale degrees in an otherwise diatonic melody. It shares its title, subject matter, and source of creative inspiration with a famous pipa solo piece composed by Wu Junsheng in the late 1970s. Kwok's piece features a full set of Chinese plucked strings in homophony, with individual instruments taking turn to play the main melody. It begins with a slow, graceful passage to set the scene, after which the pipa introduces the first theme at a walking pace. A slower, more intimate dance follows this exposition, with zheng and pipa players taking the lead. A sudden change to triple meter in a lively tempo begins the next section, where the driving rhythm is interspersed with phrases in quintuple meter. As the music resumes its duple-meter momentum and reaches a climax, it is interrupted by the coda, where the first theme returns and brings the music to a calm conclusion.

Instrumentation: yangqin (2), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), da sanxian (1), zheng (1), diyin gehu (1)

Title: The racing stallions : Erhu solo

Composer: Zhang Fuquan

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: 1981

Genre:

• Solo
• Original composition
• Erhu with instrumental ensemble

Call No.: SC461

Description: "The Racing Stallions" is an erhu solo piece composed by Zhang Fuquan (1941–). Written for the Music Office's Australian tour in 1981, Tong Leung-tak made this arrangement for Western orchestral accompaniment featuring the woodwinds, the strings, and percussion instruments such as sleigh bells and the muyu (Chinese fish-shaped woodblock). The original solo is in a style not dissimilar to the more well-known Sai ma ("Horse Racing") composed by Huang Haihuai (1935–1967), while Tong's arrangement is characterized by accented chords, occasional countermelodies, and a driving rhythm. Indeed, prior to his move from Beijing to Hong Kong, Tong arranged a similar-sounding score for accompaniment by the modern Chinese orchestra.

Note:

• Composed for the Australian tour

Instrumentation: flute (1), clarinet (1), oboe (1), bassoon (1), timpani (1), cymbals (1), sleigh bells (1), muyu (1), erhu (1), violin (2), viola (1), cello (1), double bass (1)

Title: The song of the Hong Kong youth music camp

Composer: Tong Leung-tak

Lyricist: Wong Shu-wing

Year: [19--]

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Original composition
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC420

Description: "The Song of Hong Kong Youth Music Camp" is composed by Tong Leung-tak with lyrics by Wong Shu-wing. According to indications in the score, the song is lively and folkish. It is accompanied by a Chinese instrumental ensemble, and its melodies are set in ternary form, with the vocal part sung by a male chorus before a repeat by a female chorus.

Instrumentation: bang di/qu di (1), xin di (1), sheng (1), suona (1), yangqin (1), liuqin (1), pipa/zhong ruan (1), da ruan/sanxian (1), zheng (1), timpani (1), large cymbals (1), triangle (1), xylophone (1), gaohu (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), choir (1), cello (1), double bass (1)

Title: Thousand miles of fertile fields

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: [1980]

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Original composition
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC478

Description: "Thousand Miles of Fertile Fields" is a modern Chinee orchestral piece, for which Tong Leung-tak is credited as the arranger, whereas the composer's identity is not indicated on the existing score. Similar to Tong's "Battle Against the Tai Hang Mountain," this piece celebrates the agricultural achievement of peasants living around the foot of the Taihang Mountains during the 1960s. It draws on musical elements commonly found in the folk and traditional music in Henan Province. It roughly follows a tripartite formal structure with a fast and lively first section, a slower, song-like middle section, and a third section that marks the return of the first section in an elaborated form. It employs a full range of instruments from the modern Chinese orchestra, including yunluo ("pitched cymbals"), which play a solo passage at the beginning of the piece.

Instrumentation: bang di (1), qu di (2), sheng (1), haidi (1), zhongyin suona (1), diyin suona (1), yangqin (1), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), sanxian (1), zheng (1), timpani (1), bass drum (1), da luo/cymbals/large cymbals (1), yunluo (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), banhu (1), cello (1), double bass (1)

Title: Three variations on the Yang Pass: Chinese instrumental ensemble

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: November 2, 1979

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Arrangement
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC328

Description: Yangguan sandie is perhaps best known as a classic piece in the qin repertoire among its many iterations in Chinese music. One could trace the origin of this piece to the poem Song Yuan Er shi Anxi ("Seeing Yuan Er off on a mission to the Anxi Protectorate") by Wang Wei (699–759). In the poem, Wang drinks with Yuan before Yuan departs for the Western Regions through the Yangguan mountain pass (in modern-day Gansu Province). Historical sources suggest that the poem was soon adapted into a song with qin accompaniment popularly sung as a farewell song for several centuries. It had become a common practice to sing the song three times, with lyrical or melodic modifications in each reprise-hence Yangguan sandie, by which most of its later iterations are named. The earliest extant notation for the piece, in the form of qin tablature with lyrics, is dated before 1491; the version most commonly used in today's qin repertoire is based on a score from 1876. "Three Variations on the Yang Pass" is Tong Leung-tak's arrangement for a Chinese instrumental ensemble (1979). Largely modeled on the qin piece, it employs a full range of plucked- and bowed-strings, as well as several wind instruments suitable for chamber performance, namely qudi, xiao, and sheng. It also features the musical sound of a specific type of Chinese gong (i.e., fengluo) at both the beginning and the end of the piece. It comprises three sections. The first section begins with the plucked strings playing the opening phrase in unison, resembling the way it would sound on a qin. The rest of the original melody is played by several instruments at a time and distributed across the ensemble, while the lower plucked strings play a steady, scalic counter-melody in accompaniment. The second and third sections intersperse the same melody with short, elaborated phrases, contributing to an increasingly dense sonic texture while concluding the arrangement with a subdued ending phrase played by a xiao.

Note:

• Orchestral arrangement of the guqin piece of the same title

Instrumentation: qu di (1), xiao (1), sheng/da fengluo (1), sheng (1), yangqin (1), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), sanxian (1), zheng (1), erhu (2), zhonghu (1), cello (1), double bass (1)

Title: Twinkle, twinkle, little star

Arranger: Tong Leung-tak

Year: [19--]

Genre:

• Small ensemble
• Arrangement

Call No.: SC217

Description: Most commonly known as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," the tune originated in mid eighteenth century France as a pastoral song of unknown authorship. With the subsequent setting of French and English lyrics, it has since been widely circulated as a nursery rhyme and frequently arranged into new compositions. It is also a popular beginner's piece for learning Chinese or Western instruments in Hong Kong. Tong Leung-tak's arrangement is intended for a Chinese orchestra consisting of children musicians playing the titular melody and youth (teenage and early adult) musicians playing simple chordal accompaniments. In addition to instruments of the conventional wind, plucked-string, and bowed-string categories, the score also calls for a triangle and a glockenspiel.

Note:

• Arrangement of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star"

Instrumentation: di/sheng/gaohu/erhu/zhonghu (1), yangqin/liuqin/pipa/zheng (1), zhong ruan/da ruan/diyin gehu/dahu (1), glockenspiel (1), triangle (1)